DC and Marvel’s renewed friendly rivalry continues with Superman/Spider-Man #1, as the Man of Steel and the Web-Slinger meet and save the day. Featuring a lead story by writer Mark Waid, artist Jorge Jimenez, colorist Tomeu Morey and letterer Tom Napolitano, with backups by Tom King, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair and Pat Brosseau; Christopher Priest, Daniel Sampere, Alejandro Sanchez and Willie Schubert; Sean Murphy; Matt Fraction, Steve Lieber, Nathan Fairbairn and Clayton Cowles; Jeff Lemire, Rafa Sandoval, Ulises Arreola and Becca Carey; Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, Marcelo Maiolo and Ariana Maher; and Gail Simone, Belen Ortega, Jordie Bellaire and Lucas Gattoni.
Tony Thornley: It’s been a minute since we’ve teamed up, Scott, but not as long as it’s been for Clark Kent and Peter Parker.
Scott Redmond: Hell — sorry, Superman — heck, we’ve teamed up more times in our 20 years of knowing each other than these two have in their whole history. Good to see them together again!
Truth, justice and great responsibility
Tony: I’m such a mark for Superman and Spidey. They’ve long been my favorite characters, so I bought in the moment these specials were announced. I’m so glad that Waid and Jimenez are the creative team on the lead story, too.
There’s a reason Waid has continued to write comics for the past 15 years while a lot of his contemporaries have fallen into forced retirements. It’s impressive how he’s able to write stories that feel simultaneously modern and timeless. That’s exactly how this lead story feels.
Shortly after Doctor Octopus is approached by Brainiac, Clark Kent and Peter Parker team up to investigate a series of strange thefts. To their horror, those thefts include Kryptonite, and they leap to put a stop to it before Otto and his benefactor enact their plan.
It’s straightforward, it lets the story get right to the point and then it proceeds to show how our two heroes are different and similar.
Scott: On paper, these two characters 100% sound like they would mesh really well and should bounce off each other smoothly. Lucky for us, they do all of that in practical execution (on literal paper) as well.
I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments about Waid. Stories like this are naturally going to feature boiled-down-to-basics versions of characters. These are stories meant to pull in the widest audience, so they’re not looking to really use continuity and build things up in a way that would throw that audience off. Waid is one of the best writers around at being able to play in that sandbox, without making the characters feel like empty caricatures. As you said, it taps into that modern feeling while remaining perfectly timeless, without sacrificing the overall goal to dip into heavy-handed nostalgia.
Waid did all that so well, I never once rolled my eyes at the oft-used trope of Spider-Man being buried under rubble and having to psych himself up to get out. It worked perfectly with this story, so I tip my imaginary cap.
It’s also amazing (sorry not sorry) how smoothly Otto and Brainiac mesh together as the villains. Their methods are vastly different, as are their personalities, but their abilities provide a means to accomplish each other’s goals. Switching off who fought whom was a good choice too, allowing the heroes a bit of natural struggle.
Tony: Yeah, exactly. I mean, Norman Osborn and Lex Luthor were a natural matchup (which I know is happening in the Marvel entry), but Otto and Brainiac mesh surprisingly well. It even made the switch-up work well. Clark appealed to Otto’s humanity, while Peter used his cunning against Brainiac.
Also, I have to say the way Waid incorporated Kryptonite into the scheme without using the trope of “AND NOW, SURPRISE! HERE’S A ROCK!” deserves a round of applause. It’s a little bit comic book science, but it’s comic book science I can respect.
Then, DAMN, Jimenez’s art. If DC ever lets his exclusive slip, Marvel needs to snatch him up for a five-year run on Spider-Man, period. We already knew he draws Superman well, so keep that up. His Peter was perfect, though. His Spidey was agile and energetic. I adored what he did here.
Scott: I’m glad they went with the odd mix. Osborn and Luthor seems kind of too on the nose, which sadly kind of fits with the overall feeling I’m getting from the Marvel version of this.
Hell yes to the Kryptonite usage. It’s the comic book science that is akin to Star Trek technobabble. Is it outlandish and could only happen for this plot, sure, but it’s damn fun overall. And superhero comic books have always more often than not been fun, and damn it let’s embrace the fun more!
Jimenez is phenomenal. Because he’s so phenomenal and new, Marvel will forget to even approach him because he’s not nostalgic enough. All kidding aside, his art is just so damn good, and it was nice to see him stretch out and do something of this nature. I love him on Batman; he’s one of the best regular Batman artists, but seeing him do some Supes and Spidey was just as good.
Tony: No kidding. It’s a great story, but we have a boatload more to talk about. On to the backups!
Two heroes walk into a bar
Tony: Those backups. I have to say, having the backups feature a theme — Super-Family meets Spider-Family — overall made these WAY stronger than the Deadpool/Batman backups from six months ago. So, let’s hit quick thoughts on each one in order of publication.
Tom King and Jim Lee’s Lois and MJ story was one of the worst. I liked the conceit of these two being so jaded that they can carry on a “catch-up” conversation amid a life-threatening super-crisis. Otherwise, the dialogue was stilted, there was no connection between the characters, the Gambit cameo was eye-roll worthy and Lee’s art was extremely stiff. What did you think of it?
Scott: I agree wholeheartedly (again) on all of this. My eyes glazed over reading this backup. We didn’t even actually get a crossover with the two doing something that fits into their sphere. It was all still centralized around the men in their lives. They were just supporting pieces to a background story of the two men fighting a Sentinel.
And yeah, the Gambit cameo was ridiculous. Overall pointless, and the Sentinel being a threat to Superman in any fashion, no matter how they explained it, was beyond ridiculous.
Tony: Priest and Daniel Sampere’s Superboy Prime/Symbiote Spider-Man story surprised me. Sampere is one of my favorite DC artists right now, so to no one’s surprise, I really liked the art. But Priest (who is very hit or miss to me) actually did a great job of giving Prime some humanity. He makes the meta-stuff work, and Peter’s almost mentor-style conversation with Prime worked really well for me.
Scott: Loved the Sampere artwork. Definitely is also on my list of modern artists that I’m loving. Funny enough, my feelings about Priest are similar. Sometimes he’s cooking, and other times not so much. This mostly worked for me. The interplay was solid, and the concept at least made sense. The execution felt a little off for some reason, but overall I enjoyed it for what it was.
Tony: I outright hated Sean Murphy’s Superboy/Spidey 2099 story. It was decompressed, confusing and then got cut off just as the story actually started. Also, it seemed like Murphy just wanted to write a Batman Beyond/Spider-Man 2099 story but that wasn’t the assignment, so Superboy got stuffed in there. The art was fine, but that’s the best I can say about this.
Scott: Utterly a waste of time. I don’t like Murphy as a creator or as a person, and even beyond that this was just boring and pointless. The only positive thing I’ll say is at least DC’s version of this team-up has only one craptastic creator in its roster. Yeah, I’m talking about you, Marvel.
Tony: I was very happy to get Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber back together on Jimmy Olsen. The setup of Jimmy going on an exchange program to the Daily Bugle was a great hook, and then he runs into Carnage. It was goofy, unexpected and genuinely shocking. I laughed pretty hard at the twist, as well as Jonah Jameson’s reaction to it. One of the best of the book.
Scott: I own the complete Fraction and Lieber Jimmy Olsen collection, yet have never actually read any of the issues. That’s how much I like the creators working together and how well the word of mouth from friends and follows on my feed really turned out to be. This was one of the best backups hands down, just funny and practical with the outcome of how such a meeting would go with Carnage.
Tony: Jeff Lemire and Rafa Sandoval’s Ben Parker/Jonathan Kent (Pa, not Superboy) short was exactly what it needed to be. Just showing Ben and Jonathan being the characters who made our heroes who they are was enough. The narration — a conversation between Clark and Peter — struck just the right balance. Sandoval’s art continues to be great. It was good, but overall slight, probably the story most people will forget was even here, but I’m glad we got it.
Scott: There is a version of this story that feels far too sappy and forced and over the top. That they were able to strike a balance and not reach that level is a big thumbs up for them. Like you said, it did what it needed to do. I’ll be one of those that probably will forget about this one over time, but it’s good that they put it out there.
Tony: Greg Rucka and Nicolas Scott’s story was even worse as far as forgettable. I’ve read it three times and still don’t quite remember what happened. Doing it all as talking heads didn’t help. It looks good, though. Scott needs to do more work, but overall this was fine but mostly a miss.
Scott: How forgettable is this story? I literally had to go back right now as I’m writing this to even remember what the heck this story was. One of the overall points of note about this crossover is how little some of the creators seem to be able to make crossing over characters from these families work. I’ll always love seeing Scott’s work (not because we share a name in any fashion), so yeah that looked good. This was just not a good showcase for her talents.
Tony: My favorite backup may be Gail Simone and Belen Ortega’s Power Girl/Punisher team-up. Frank Castle is undercover as a bouncer at a seedy bar, and Power Girl shows up on a blind date. Her date turns out to be Paul. THAT Paul. He sucks so bad that PG can’t wait to get out, some villains show up thinking Paul is Vandal Savage (a stretch but OK), and PG and Punisher team up to stop them. They end up having so much fun together that she ditches Paul and they take off to fight more bad guys. It’s silly, it’s tongue in cheek and it’s pop culture aware without feeling like it’s just too online.
Scott: My feelings about Simone as a writer in this modern era tend to revolve around how much her constant trolling seems to diminish a lot of the things I used to love about her writing. Her hopping on the “drop more on Paul” train actually was funny, and reminded me of more of the past Simone that I liked following. I enjoyed seeing a crossover that didn’t use Spider-Man or Superman at all, just these other characters from their family (though the idea of Punisher being in the Spider-Family is ehhhh). It’s just a mostly fun story that uses the two characters in a way that works. Which is a lot for me to say, as someone who generally does not like the Punisher as a character.
Notes of Steel
- I know they’ll be in the Marvel-published special, but it’s weird that there’s no Miles, Gwen, Kara, Conner, Jon, Cindy, Kenan, etc., in this one.
- Krypto and Ham, too.
- Seriously, it’s the Summer of Supergirl, give us some Supergirl and Spider-Gwen or something!
- I did like how they just went for the combined-universe crossover, rather than wasting time with portals. Helped the story get right to the point.
- This issue had 26 covers, and ALL of them were open order. Points to DC for not doing any ratios, points away from DC for doing so damn many.
- I picked up the Mitch Gerads, Jimenez wraparound and blank covers for myself, and Chrissie Zullo’s Krypto/Spider-Ham cover for my kiddo. First time in years that I’ve picked up more than one cover of ANY book.
- The Marvel version of this has a pretty high bar to clear, even with the more “meh” entries of this one-shot.
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. Follow him @brawl2099.bsky.social.
Scott Redmond
Scott Redmond is a freelance writer and educator fueled by coffee, sarcasm, his love for comic books and more "geeky" things than you can shake a lightsaber at. Probably seen around social media and remembered as "Oh yeah, that guy." An avid gamer, reader, photographer, amateur cook and solid human being. Follow him @scottredmond.bsky.social.
