After the DC KO tournament ended, heroes and villains alike had visions of things they felt they had to do to prepare for the next big battle with Darkseid. Only Batman and probationary member Lex Luthor were denied a sneak peek at the future – until recently.
And now they find themselves hunting the man seen in their joint reverie, in Slaughter Swamp, where Solomon Grundy was first raised from the dead.
But that’s not important right now, because the chalky zombie isn’t in this issue. The villain of the piece is right there, on Carmine Di Giandomenico’s not terribly striking cover, if you squint – it’s Prometheus.
He’s the hoodlum known for a crooked house, which makes a sudden appearance as Luthor and Batman vie for the mystery weapons hoard the crooks have come to sell to the bad guy.
After the men duck inside the strange dwelling and out of sight, Batman and Luthor carefully make their way through the dark corridors.
Soon, the mismatched Leaguers meet the delivery men again – and they’ve had a lethal glow-up.
After a tussle Batman and Luthor get away, and discover that since the Caped Crusader last visited, the house has had its own makeover – the walls are filled with alien tech. They learn why when a watching Prometheus brings them to him.
Any Prometheus fans out there? For me, he’s that rare example of a Grant Morrison creation who is totally pants – just another daaaark Batman with the gimmick of a hi-tech helmet that lets him copy the abilities of the world’s greatest fighters. And now he wants to take on the powers of super-villains, via an extraterrestrial upgrade. Why he can only try this now said bad guys are Justice League aligned, we aren’t told by writers Mark Waid and Joshua Williamson.
With artist Miguel Mendonça, the writers have created a decent time passer but it doesn’t merit its status as the first of a series of Justice League quarterly spin-offs. Special, it isn’t – cut down from its 30pp-length, it would suit a regular Justice League Unlimited comic just fine. The Batman/Luthor relationship is well established and the story moves it forward only barely, and that’s only if I give the final page a very positive spin. The bickering and moaning quickly becomes tedious, Luthor is Luthor, but Batman seems especially childish.
The idea these two geniuses simply accept that the visions heroes and villains have been sent are guiding them truthfully is nuts. And the notion they couldn’t stop Prometheus in a couple of minutes is equally unconvincing. The plot structure is fine, there are some amusing lines, and Mendonça’s dynamic art is a definite plus – I mean, look at that Crooked House pop up – but the comic seems to exist simply to grab some money while taking us a step further towards the upcoming Darkseid so-called-event. I suppose it also gives work to the excellent colourist Romulo Fajardo Jr and letterer Steve Wands. Which is nice.
That cover line about Luthor and Batman uniting to save reality? Nah. As for the Knight Vision title, puns on night/knight are as played out as Crisis references.
A comic co-written by Waid and Williamson should feel a lot fresher.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
Yeah, it’s bad. I’ve never read a Prometheus story that worked but then again, I never read his debut. I’d still rather see him again than Brainiac and Darkseid. Add them to my list of the Joker, Luthor, and Zod as villain who have been overused way too much and need a long rest. I’m thinking one as long as Catwoman and Riddler had decades ago. Then use Roz-Em for Zod, Failsafe for Brainiac (or the Construct), TO Morrow for Luthor, any other Batman villain at all instead of the Joker, and Mongul in place of Darkseid.
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Excellent list of underused baddies, even I’d forgotten Roz-Em!
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You nailed it with this review. Totally unneeded comic. This could have been an 8-pager in one of DCs season-themed anthologies and worked just as well.
And did Batman really need Luthor to tell him the tech was from Apokolips? He used it to resurrect his son! Maybe because it didn’t look like it was from Apokolips? Zero Kirby-inspired motifs to it. It felt more like 90s comic-tech: lots of wires and added bits for no reason.
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That’s a brilliant point about the lack of Kirbyness.
Have you read this week’s anthology? I assume it was day and date in the DC app, but can’t use my account outside the UK?
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I flipped through this one in the comic shop then put it back.
I feel like a team-up between Batman and Luthor *could* be interesting. I mean, they’re both billionaires, but they’ve used their wealth for totally different things, with Batman / Bruce Wayne motivated by justice & social causes, and Lex being the epitome of selfishness, so the comparisons & contrasts could make for nice character interactions. But here they’re just sniping at each other.
Also, I agree with you about Prometheus, one of the rare Grant Morrison concepts that completely falls flat for me. They guy needs a total overhaul to be any sort of interesting menace.
And, finally, I am sooooooo sick of Darkseid. He’s everywhere nowadays, and as I’ve said before, most writers just don’t understand what Kirby intended the character to be. (Check out Swamp Thing 1989 by Rick Veith for one of the better uses of the character. Veitch gets Kirby.) I’m not sure if it’s true, but apparently the late, great Keith Giffen once snarkily observed that Darkseid gets passed around DC Comics like a blunt at a party. It’s an accurate observation, and it’s only gotten worse since Giffen’s passed on.
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I’ve not read the Swampy 1989 comics, I’m waiting to read them all at once in the trade or on DC Infinite Online, but I’ll certainly check them out. It’s weird, fans who put an opinion out there are all sick of Darkseid but creators keep tossing him at us, while never getting to the core of what made him popular in the first place.
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I hope you’ll read Swamp Thing 1989 at some point in the near future. It’s really good, in my opinion.
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Thanks, I surely will.
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I didn’t really care for this, though I did like the banter Lex and Bruce sent each other’s way. But Prometheus has never been a compelling villain to me, either.
This isn’t the first of the quarterly JLA specials, though. DCUI has them filed under Justice League Quarterly. They started with the Dark Tomorrow special last July, and then there was The Omega Act, The Kids Are All Fight, and the Justice League Intergalactic Special. And now this one.
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Aha, I read all of those and hadn’t noticed. I wonder why DC doesn’t use the old JLQ bit on the cover.
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