The quest for the lost Kid Thunder has brought Superman and Batman to Earth-22, the world of Kingdom Come. But a glimpse into that world’s future has the heroes on their back feet and wondering what they can do in Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #20, written by Mark Waid, drawn by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain and lettered by Steve Wands.
Batman and Catwoman confront each other once again as Jason Todd tries his best to live with his new condition and Vandal Savage makes his play. Catwoman #58 is written by Tini Howard, drawn by Nico Leon, colored by Veronica Gandini and lettered by Lucas Gattoni.
Dick Grayson has a reunion with an ex and starts a pirate adventure in Nightwing #107, written by Tom Taylor, drawn by Stephen Byrne, colored by Adriano Lucas and lettered by Wes Abbott. In the backup, Dick and Jason Todd go drinking in a story written by Michael W. Conrad, drawn by Serg Acuna, colored by Ivan Plascencia and lettered by Abbott.
Will Nevin: Anything from NYCC catch your eye, partner?
Matt Lazorwitz: Well, we talked about the Elseworlds announcement last week, and there wasn’t a lot else. The release of the version of Batman #428 where Jason Todd lived is fun, but it’s not exactly Earth shattering. You’d think, without most of Hollywood able to attend, DC would have swung for the fences on this one, and yet? Not much.
Will: Wait, they’re gonna release that? For, like, us to read and junk?
Matt: Seems so, yes.
Will: Huh. Interesting. Maybe an artifact to cover on the podcast, but nothing to write home to Gotham about.
Thy Kingdom Come
Matt: I enjoy the in-between main arc one- and two-parters on this book, but it’s always great when Dan Mora comes back for his next arc, huh?
Will: The man sure can draw the hell out of his superhero comics. I remember reading the first Boy Thunder arc in which we speculated at its conclusion that it would tie into Kingdom Come, and while I’m surprised Waid followed up with it so relatively quickly (probably because he ain’t here for a long time), it’s not unwelcomed. I don’t have the ding dang encyclopedic knowledge of these things like you do — even as someone who’s read Kingdom Come a couple of times — and it felt like I was being gently eased into that world. Seeing it through the eyes of a Batman and Superman who have no understanding of Earth-22 certainly helps.
Matt: It’s a fascinating idea, seeing Clark and Bruce look at a world where they failed, or so it seems to them, and then have a chance to go back and make it right. Or help the versions of themselves that live there make it right. Clark’s reaction to seeing the graves of all the heroes who died at the end of Kingdom Come is somewhere between anger and befuddlement; he can’t believe a version of him would let that happen. It’s strange to see Bruce as the moderating influence for once.
Will: Supes sure is mad, isn’t he? Just wait until he learns how he walked away from it all for a bit. Well, assuming he survives the all-grown-up Boy Thunder first.
Matt: Magog is a mess of a character, mostly because he was never intended to be anything more than a Cable knock-off to show the excesses of the ’90s; it’s like trying to do stuff with Hush, a character created to be a plot device rather than a character. Geoff Johns tried to make a character out of the Earth-Prime version of him during his last Justice Society run, and it never really worked. But here, slow playing his origin, tying it into Superman and showing why he would have a particular issue with Superman, regardless of the world? It might actually make him something more than just angry golden ram guy.
Will: And it’s nice having Waid on hand to do this exploring, isn’t it? I mean, Frank Miller has shown himself to be utterly incapable of doing anything more with the Dark Knight Returns universe, but Waid still seems to have his fastball, and I think this story is going to be a worthwhile addition to the lore. Or at least it seems so here.
Matt: I agree. Just little bits, like the fact that this is an Earth without a concept of the multiverse, is a nice addition to make Earth-22 feel like its own place. The fact that regardless of the when, both of the time periods here are farther down the timeline than where the Earth-Prime heroes are from (indicated by neither of them knowing who Booster Gold is yet) places them both in unknown territory beyond even just being on a different Earth. I look forward to seeing them interact with their older, more seasoned selves.
The Battles Continue
Matt: I am having a harder and harder time reconciling even the Batman between Batman and Catwoman, let alone Batman in books outside this event. Is this the same guy who beat the snot out of his own kids in the last issue? Here he immediately settles in and lets Selina talk to him. While that’s a version of the character I’d rather have than the psychotically driven one, they just don’t jibe.
Will: How fast can a story go from ill-conceived to infuriating to outright boring? “Gotham War” has been all over the place, and I can’t say that any of it has been good.
Matt: Most characters here seem a bit off. I talked about it in the last issue, but Scandal has never been so deferential to her father before, and here I thought we were going in the right direction when she tells Selina she has more loyalty to her, but then she calls Vandal, “boss,” which is entirely out of character. On the other hand, her quest for immortality is something that makes sense if you read the original run of Secret Six, but without that context, she just seems like Talia part deux.
Will: We talked last time about how what Bruce did in scrambling Jason’s brain was unforgivable, how his justification was positively Miller-ian in its savagery. And it’s barely followed up here. If you consider Jason riding on Batman’s back, we could almost say it’s played off for laughs. Astoundingly bizarre choices being made here, Matt.
Matt: It is absolutely played for laughs at that moment. And we see Jason earlier in that issue struggling with it, trying to be a hero by pushing through the fear, and that is damn good character work, showing how Jason has grown from his earliest, post-death appearances where he was just a vengeance-fueled vigilante. Jason’s portrayal in this issue might be the bright spot of this entire event, and that is damning with faint praise since it’s a total of three or four pages. But then Batman shows up and it’s time to get some chuckles at the expense of the guy who was brainwashed.
Will: To go through all of that only to land at a closing scene of bad guys armed with recently liberated Bat tech? I’m so tired, Matt. So very, very tired.
Matt: Oh, don’t get me started on that. What a novel idea. Or it was in Batman: Eternal when Owlman did it. Or in “Joker War” when Joker did it. Again, it feels like something is being done as a joke that should be more serious. We’re near the climax of this thing, and Gotham is literally burning, but hey, isn’t Scarface in a Robin costume funny?
Will: Fuckin’ hilarious, Matt. Funniest thing I seen since that Dini Scarface story that’s coming up on the podcast. Just pants-shittingly funny. </s> Is there any redemption ahead for “Gotham War”? We keep coming back to that question because the creators here are undoubtedly talented, but I don’t know if there’s any way to get this thing out of the ditch.
Matt: I’m not sure. What started out as a stilted discussion of the philosophy has now just become another big fight; Bruce and Selina are back in their will they/won’t they mode after being at each other’s throats. And since each issue is narrated by one or the other, the mood swings aren’t given any motivation. I still think Bruce crossed a line, and none of the justifications he gave last issue or this one have worked for me. It’s just a mess.
Will: Blech.
Yo Ho Ho
Matt: With all the doom and gloom of “Gotham War,” it’s nice to have a current, in-continuity Bat book that seems to be enjoying itself, and Nightwing is definitely that. And you get it right from the start: That’s a Nightwing’s butt joke on the cover.
Will: Have there been jokes made about that fella’s bottom before? Never seen ‘em. I don’t think we covered the previous issue, so I was a little lost here — I know generally how well received the “Ric Grayson” era was! — but this rounded into an interesting story by the end.
Matt: I think I was on vacation when the last issue came out, so we didn’t cover it, but it just set up this issue; we learned about the mysterious box Dick had put in The Hold, and Heartless and Zucco killing the last Captain Blud before finding The Hold gone.
Credit to Taylor for taking Bludhaven and playing with the nautical theme. The city was first introduced as having started as a whaling hub, so adding this history is both not out of left field and helps to further make it not just Gotham light.
Will: That’s a good point in how this all seems to naturally flow together. There’s probably also some commentary there at the end with Dick being forced to give up his mask as an inversion of a masked brigand trope.
Matt: Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, but that’s a good call. This issue is not entirely setup, but it is more a character piece. It’s giving us a feeling for who Bea is now (and also cleans up the odd fact that this random bartender was able to fight Joker and KGBeast, which was another complaint about the Ric Grayson era), and gives us exactly what her relationship with Dick is vs. Ric. We also have a mystery brewing about what made Dick freeze up. That’s not something we normally see, so it’s definitely got me curious.
I also quite enjoyed the backup here. You didn’t read last issue, but there it was Dick hanging out with the Batgirls, and here it’s Jason. I hope next issue it’s Bruce or Tim or Damian. It’s just fun to see Dick with the rest of the family.
Will: It was a fun story, absolutely. Jason especially seems right at home in a bar fight.
Bat-miscellany
- Fellow ComicsXF writer/editor Austin Gorton joins the BatChat podcast this week to talk about Batman on teams: The Club of Heroes, the Justice League and the Outsiders.
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Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
