New Revised Review
By Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0323-8 (hardback)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 978-1-4012-0220-0 (paperback)
For many years Superman and Batman worked together as the “World’s Finest†team. They were best friends and the pairing made perfect financial sense as National/DC’s most popular heroes could cross-sell their combined readerships.
When the characters were redefined for the post-Crisis 1980s, they were remade as suspiciously respectful co-workers who did the same job but deplored each other’s methods and preferred to avoid contact whenever possible – except when they were in the Justice League (but for the sake of your sanity don’t fret that right now!).
After a few years of this new status quo the irresistible lure of Cape & Cowl Capers inexorably brought them together again with modern emotional intensity derived from their incontestably differing methods and characters.
In this rocket-paced, post-modern take on the relationship, they have reformed as firm friends for the style-over-content 21st century, and this is the story of their first outing together. Outlawed and hunted by their fellow heroes, Superman finds himself accused of directing a continent-sized chunk of Kryptonite to crash into Earth, with Batman accused of aiding and abetting…
To save Superman, the world and their own reputations they are forced to attempt the overthrow of the United States President himself. Of course said President is the unspeakably evil Lex Luthor…
I deeply disliked this tale when I first read it: Plot is reduced to an absolute minimum in favour of showy set-pieces, previously established characterisation often hostage to whatever seems the easiest way to short-cut to action (mortal foes Captain Atom and Major Force work together to capture our heroes because President Luthor tells them to?) but after nearly a decade it’s worth another look and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve changed my opinion somewhat…
Collecting the first six issues of hip reboot Superman/Batman #1-6 and a vignette from Superman/Batman Secret Files 2003, October 3003-March 2004, it all begins with ‘When Clark met Bruce’ (“A tale from the days of Smallvilleâ€) from the latter.
In the bucolic 2-page snippet, Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale effectively tease us with the question of what might have been, had the go happy-go-lucky Kent boy actually got to have a play-date with that morose, recently orphaned rich kid from Gotham City…
The main attraction – illustrated by Ed McGuiness & Dexter Vines – opens years later with ‘World’s Finest’ as the Dark and Light Knights follow telling leads in separate cases back to shape-shifting cyborg John (Metallo) Corben, discovering the ruthless killer might have been the at-large-for-decades shooter in the still unsolved double murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne…
Even that bombshell seems inconsequential after the mechanoid monster shoots Superman in the chest with a kryptonite bullet before burying the stunned duo under tons of Earth in a Gotham graveyard…
Meanwhile at the Pentagon, President Lex is informed that a toxically radioactive lump of Krypton the size of Australia is on a collision course with Earth. Implausibly adopting the line that Superman has summoned it, the Federal Government issues an arrest warrant for the Man of Steel and convenes a metahuman taskforce to bring him in…
Escaping certain doom thanks to Batman’s skill and unflappable nerve, the blithely unaware heroes reach medical help in the Batcave in ‘Early Warning’ only to be attacked by an older version of Superman, determined to prevent them making a mistake that will end life on Earth…
After a massive nuclear strike (somehow augmented by embargoed Boom Tube technology from hell-world Apokolips), Luthor overrules Captain Atom’s qualms about his mission and orders his anti-superman squad to apprehend their target wherever he might be hiding. The President then goes on television to blame the alien for the impending meteor strike and announces a billion dollar Federal bounty on the Action Ace…
Man of Tomorrow and Man of Darknight Detective respond by direct assault in ‘Running Wild’, hurtling towards Washington DC only to be ambushed en route by a greed-crazed army of super-villains and mind-controlled heroes before Atom’s group – Green Lantern John Stewart, Black Lightning, Katana, Starfire, Power Girl and certified quantum psychopath Major Force – join the attack…
As the combatants ‘Battle On’, in the Oval Office even fanatical civil servant Amanda Waller – commander of covert Penal Battalion the Suicide Squad – begins to realise something is wrong with the President. For a start, his behaviour is increasingly erratic, but the real clue is that he is juicing himself with a kryptonite-modified version of super-steroid venom…
The blistering battle between the outlawed heroes and Atom’s unit extends as far as Japan, (where the Cape & Cowl Crusaders are secretly organising a last-ditch solution to the imminent Kryptonite continent crash) before Major Force begins to smell a rat and realises some of his team are actually working with Superman and Batman.
Military-martinet Captain Atom is not one of them, but eventually even he is made to see reason – only moments before the deranged Major goes ballistic and nearly turns Tokyo to ashes…
Using his energy-absorbing powers Atom prevents the holocaust, but the monumental radiation release triggers his “temporal safety-valve†and the silver-skinned soldier materialises in a future where Earth is a barren cinder where only an aged, tragic, broken Superman resides…
Meanwhile in the present, the Presidential Pandemonium has prompted the venerable Justice Society of America to step in; despatching Captain Marvel and Hawkman to apprehend the fugitive Superman and Batman.
Apparently successful, the operation triggers a back-up team (Supergirl, Nightwing, Superboy, Steel, Natasha Irons, Robin, Huntress, Batgirl and even Krypto) who invade the White House only to be defeated by Luthor himself, high on K-venom and utilising Apokolyptian technology in ‘State of Siege’…
With extinction only moments away and a deranged President Luthor on the loose, Superman and Batman prepare to employ their eleventh-hour suicidal salvation machine but are caught off-guard when a most unexpected substitute ambushes them to pilot the crucial mission in ‘Final Countdown’…
This chronicle also includes a dozen covers and variants plus 5 pages of roughs and design sketches by McGuiness & Vines.
In so many ways this compilation is everything I hate about modern comics. The story length is artificially extended to accommodate lots of guest stars and superfluous fighting, whilst large amounts of narrative occur off-camera or between issues, presumably to facilitate a faster, smoother read.
On the plus side however is the fact that I’m an old fart. There is clearly a market for such snazzy-looking, souped-up, stripped down, practically deconstructed comic fare. And if I’m being completely honest, there is a certain fizz and frisson to non-stop, superficial all-out action – especially when it’s so dynamically illustrated.
Public Enemies looks very good indeed and, if much of the scenario is obvious and predictable, it is big and immediate and glossy like a summer blockbuster movie is supposed to be.
Perhaps there’s room enough for those alongside the Hergés, Eisners, Crumbs, Gaimans, assorted Moores and Hernandezes…
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