Lex Luthor is bad mouthing Superman in public as part of a deeper, nefarious scheme. It must be Tuesday. Luthor is armed with bad takes on several of Superman’s recent actions, and cinches it all with a devastating video that frames Superman for murder. Jon Kent, though? He’s got The Truth on his side. Superman: Son of Kal-El #10, written by Tom Taylor, drawn by Cian Tormey, colored by Frederico Blee, and lettered by Dave Sharpe.
Back in a simpler time, though, after the Doom Patrol help heal Superman from red Kryptonite poisoning, it’s a team-up and split-up situation as our heroes try to find out more about an ancient evil resurrected: the Devil Nezha. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #2, written by Mark Waid, drawn by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain, and lettered by Aditya Bidikar.
Armaan Babu: Muahaha. Muahahaha! Tony, we have done it. Through a series of ingenious manipulations leading to there being a heckuva lot of Bat-comics (welcome back, Murphyverse), we have snatched World’s Finest right out from under Bat-Chat’s cowled noses (I like to imagine they wear Bat-cowls when they’re Bat-chatting)! It is now ours to review!
Unless they like…take it back or something. Our plan isn’t flawless.
Tony Thornley: Armaan, *psst* over here… Don’t you remember that we’re just alternating issues with Bat-Chat?
Armaan: Mua…halfhaha?
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but The Truth
Armaan: Y’know. There are a lot of reporters on Superman’s side, but every so often I feel like he could use a good PR manager. It can feel like he runs up against someone trying to ruin his good name almost as often as he does villains armed with kryptonite. Then again, I suppose the point here is that Superman doesn’t need PR, does he? He’s armed with the truth.
Or The Truth, in the case of this issue, who get a pretty big spotlight
Tony: One thing this title has been missing is a supporting cast outside of Jay. Even Lois has barely shown up outside of a few key moments. Taylor does a great job in this issue creating a classic Superman story, by focusing a bit more on the supporting cast in this issue than he has in the past.
Armaan: Lex Luthor’s been building up quite a case against Jon Kent: to discredit him in the eyes of the public, to make them fear and distrust them, and honestly? It feels like he could be aiming a little higher. It’s not an ambitious goal. Especially because – okay, look, I know Jon, you know Jon our readers know Jon, but if I was an average person in the DC Universe and was told that my world’s greatest hero was replaced by his teenage son, well… I’d have my doubts.
And Luthor’s got some solid arguments for doubt on his side. Jon’s failure to completely stop the leviathan’s attack, his brushes with the police, and, most recently, a video framed to look like Jon straight up killed a man (which Luthor should have led with, really).
Tony: For me, this Luthor scene shows me why Lex should be the main antagonist of this series, not Harry Bendix. Right here, we get way more invested in the antagonist, as Lex smears Jon. Bendix meanwhile is still a non-entity.
It’s so nice having this version of Luthor back in the series. I prefer a Superman franchise where Lex is a major presence, and cold, calculating businessman Luthor is the best Luthor.
Armaan: You’re right, Luthor’s a much more compelling villain than Bendix has been, by far, so I’m glad the spotlight’s on him for a bit.
Elsewhere, as Superman works to save people trapped in a museum, we see how much of an effect Luthor’s words are having on people across the world. It doesn’t help that Jon had to heat vision his way inside. The use of glowing red eyes to show Superman’s turning evil has been overused, but I do like this take on it — Jon’s not turned evil, but damn if those eyes don’t look sinister. Kudos to the art team here. Speaking of which, how are you liking what Cian Tormey and Frederico Blee are bringing to the book?
Tony: Surprised to see Blee on a DC book! I’m so used to him being a Marvel guy! He’s really grown as a colorist since Marauders #1.
I’m actually growing to like Tormey’s style a little more than Timms. I still think Timms is a great artist, but Tormey makes Jon feel like a 17 year old. Under his pencil, there’s an insecurity to Jon’s body language and I really like that. He’s not just a kid, he’s a kid who’s dealt with trauma and is still processing it. Tormey subtly incorporates that into his work on the character.
Armaan: Back at the press conference, team Jon brings out their big gun: Lois Lane herself, The Truth’s newest reporter. I could be wrong, but I think this is the first major instance of Lois Lane dealing with the fact that Superman’s identity is public knowledge while she’s on a global platform? It’s not her first time defending a Superman in the court of public opinion, but this is the first time her biases are laid bare.
Tony: Yeah, I’m almost positive it is. Love to see a good Lois Lane scene, and Lois calling out Luthor is always the best.
Armaan: I gotta say, despite clearly knowing who the good guys and the bad guys are in this situation, Jon himself doesn’t come out looking great. Lois brings out what appears to be the Lasso of Truth, to try and get Luthor to speak the truth. It turns out to be a fake, but even if it wasn’t…something about using the Lasso of Truth in that way feels cheap. Lois Lane has always managed to uncover the truth without it — her superpower is investigative reporting.
When Jon flies in to keep one of the security guards from laying a hand on her, it doesn’t look inspiring. It looks intimidating, which, as we saw earlier, is not what you want to look like when you’ve just been accused of murder.
Tony: See I really liked Lois pulling out the Lasso (fake or not), because she knew the truth, but she needed to embarrass Lex. If it had been anyone but Lex, it absolutely would have felt cheap and unearned. To Lex, it feels like a continuation of their hatred for one another.
Armaan: With the press conference done, the Kents head home, for an unsurprising but still necessary scene that was heartwarming to see. Jon comes out to his mom, who lets him know she loves him for who he is. I love that she already knew, though I’m also amused by Jon’s rebuttal that she didn’t know Clark’s secret identity for several years.
It’s not all warmth, though. While the Kents’ identity has been public for a while, Lex’s accusations were apparently the tipping point, and the Kent farm is no longer a safe place for Lois and Jon to live. Batman arrives to take Lois and Jon to a safer place — and only Lois and Jon. Batman’s been doing some digging, as Batfolk are wont to do, and it turns out that Jon’s boyfriend Jay may not be as trustworthy as he seems!
Despite the exclamation mark I just used, this hook means nothing to me. There is not a part of me that believes Tom Taylor is going to be the writer to have Jon’s very first boyfriend betray him. Nor do I believe this will lead to any interesting friction between Batman and Jon — at most, this cliffhanger says to me that there are more layers to Jay’s story than we were aware of, but that’s hardly a surprise, either.
Tony: This was also a frustration to me for other reasons (in addition to yours). Taylor hasn’t been able to land many cliffhangers in this series and this one is a prime example. It’s a small panel at the end of the issue, with no build up and an obvious direction that you’re talking about.
Could it be interesting? Sure. But we haven’t seen any sign that it could be.
World’s Finest
Armaan: I’ve read and enjoyed a lot of Mark Waid’s work. He’s been, pretty consistently, a writer whose work feels like a comic book staple for interesting stories of characters I love. World’s Finest feels less like a Waid staple, and more like Dan Mora and Tamra Bonvillain got together a list of demand of things they wanted to draw, Waid agreed to all of it, and then promised to do his best to cobble a story out of it all just to keep the editors happy.
And I love it. This approach rocks. This is the music video of comic books. Oh, sure, yeah, there’s technically a story being told here, but it’s honestly incidental. What’s cooler are the reds and greens of a dark room where a Kryptonite scalpel is cutting into an invulnerable man glowing with reddened radiation. The Negative Man Fantastic Voyage-ing his way through irradiated bloodstreams to burn the bad red K away. Superman’s veins, incandescent through his skin, illuminating a deeply concerned Batman who’s rooting for his friend to make it through.
This is a fever dream of a comic, and it’s so, so, so intensely pretty.
Tony: I was really nervous about this book because I’ve grown cold on Waid through his more recent work. He used to be one of my instant pick-ups, but his Dr. Strange work just didn’t hit with me at all.
I’m really glad to see the spark is back in this series. This is Waid at his best, and when Waid clicks with an art team, it shows. I feel like this series has creative chemistry on the level of Waid/Samnee/Wilson, or (dare I say this) Waid/Wieringo. To say that, after only two issues, is such a joy.
Armaan: There are some fun character interaction gags as Batman and Niles Caulder try to out-exposition each other, but what I really enjoy is when they hand that exposition over to Negative Man, Elasti-Girl and Robotman. The art switches up for something a little more archaic, and the difference is stark – especially in this one panel where Niles holds up a scroll depicting the original team that defeated the big bad, Devil Nezha. I always enjoy a good visual switch-up for the recounting of a fable, though there’s nothing that’s particularly compelling about Devil Nezha’s origin beyond that.
Turns out that this Devil’s already set a number of plans in motion, which leads to a number of random team-ups to deal with this threat on multiple fronts. It’s a classic DC Silver Age move, giving superheroes a spotlight on what would otherwise be a very crowded crossover. Supergirl and Robin’s interaction was definitely the most amusing for me — some kind of unexplained hijinks happened between the two, leaving them somewhat frigid towards each other. I assume a flashback’ll explain what happened eventually, but Supergirl’s currently got her hands full just carrying Robin and superspeeding the two of them into the past!
Is it just me, or does it sometimes feel a little off when classic silliness like time travel via superspeeding around the world backwards happens in a book whose art is so vibrant and modern looking?
Tony: First- Batman and the Chief trying to both be the smartest person in the room was a JOY. It was funny without being obvious, and Mora pulled it off perfectly with both characters, as well as Superman and Robin watching what was happening.
The Devil Nezha feels like he can be VERY problematic, but so far, Waid, Mora and Bonvillain all seem to be walking that tightrope very well. It could go bad quickly (I’m thinking back to how Waid treated Magenta WAY back in the Flash), but right now he’s doing just fine. Positioning Kara and Dick as contemporaries is perfect though. I love that this now consolidates that each member of the Bat family has a Superman family counterpart, and I want to know more about this untold tale Waid alluded to. And their body language up to the point they’re in the past is delightful.
Overall, I’m in love with this series. Even though I’m picking it up digitally, there’s a high likelihood I’ll grab the trade.
Daily Planet Headlines
- As lovely as the scene between Jon and Lois was, I am hoping for a lot from the scene where Jon comes out to his Clark.
- Deeply amused at the running gag of Batman being able to sneak up Supermen.
- I wonder if the end result of the Luthor plotline will be a Luthor/Jon team-up. I’d actually be VERY interested in that.
- Nearly all superheroes are gorgeous by default, but Dan Mora’s take on Rita Farr is especially breathtaking.
- Waid and Mora picked up on the recent trend of Rita being sightly unsettling too, and they executed it perfectly.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
