Big Dumb Superhero Stuff

I have a confession to make. I own every issue of SUPERMAN/BATMAN. Every. Single. Issue. Not trade paperbacks mind you. The real floppy deals. Some of them I paid a premium for as I bought the first dozen or so issues off eBay, during the height of SB’s popularity. I know, I know. I’m pretty lousy at picking stocks too. Thing is, I can’t really explain why I keep buying it. I think it’s the logo.

It’s certainly not Jeph Loeb. Although I like his work fine. To me, Loeb is like a career .270 hitter with some power. He’s interesting to watch because he knows how to work the count (tell a story) and on occasion he can go yard. (HUSH, THE LONG HALLOWEEN, SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS) His big problems seem stem from consistency and focus. But he is also a guy who can turn it on for two or three issues -- mid-story -- and then, mysteriously, shut it off again. Now in the case of SUPERMAN/BATMAN he seems to shut it down just as he’s headed for a wall, creating lots of groaning on the part of his readership. (I think this tendency is another reason I’ve kept reading. It’s like watching NASCAR for the wrecks.) (Two sports analogies in one paragraph. Is anyone still reading?)

The reason I’m thinking about all this is Greg Burgas’ recent vivisection of the first half dozen issues of S/B over at Comics Should Be Good. The title of Greg’s post was "Anatomy of a bad comic book - Superman/Batman: Public Enemies". As I read through the post I found it really hard to refute many of Greg's points, largely because I couldn’t remember a whole lot about the books. So I pulled them out and reread the first three story arcs (issues 1-18), straight through. Twice.

What?

Firstly, I didn’t mind the retelling of the origins - I saw it as not so much a rehash of things we already know, but as establishing the voices of the book. Although I’ll admit we probably didn’t need it again in issue 12, but hey, origins never get old, right?  I like the idea of Batman and Superman working together not because they’re old drinking buddies but out of respect and, on occasion, necessity. They come from different places and represent vastly different viewpoints and I thought that was where Loeb was trying to work from – giving each hero's perspective as the story evolved. The Metallo storyline seemed well suited to exploring this but was derailed all too quickly by alternate reality Supermans, giant asteroids and Luthor. Big, dumb, superhero stuff.

This also brought about the story’s greatest failing (which Greg aptly identified): The all too quick transition nearly everyone is willing to make in their regard of Superman. Presidential status notwithstanding, with his track record no one should be buying into Luthor’s claims. I was glad to see Greg point this out because I thought it might be my own little issue with this iteration of Luthor. You see, coming back to comics from a 25 year hiatus and finding Lex Luthor the president was bit jarring - the Luthor I remember was a grade A felon who spent half his time running around in prison blues, presumably to save everyone some processing time after Superman inevitably sends him back to the hoosegow. (I use the term “hoosegow” to further illustrate how old and possibly senile I am.) And yet there they all are out to bring down the world’s greatest hero with barely a question asked; pretty hard to accept from a reader’s perspective.

I leave you to digest Greg’s post for the rest of the plausibility gaps in this story arc, and while I don’t want to bore you with specifics I can testify that this sort of thing is fairly common throughout the series. Like how Darkseid, the ultimate schemer, doesn’t suspect  that Supergirl has been transported away, or how a Bruce Wayne who hasn’t trained like Batman can suddenly fight like Batman or…sorry. 

What I found the most interesting is how many Infinite Crisis precursor events and deja vu moments are in this title. The main examples are Luthor’s ouster from the presidency and the arrival of Supergirl, with a nice bit of foreshadowing punctuating the former.

In issue three of S/B the two battle what looks like the an early version of The Society from Villains United:

Obviously Luthor’s removal from office was essential to setting up many of the INFINITE CRISIS events. I’m not sure it would have made any sense to have Luthor so overtly setting up The Society if he was still president. Never mind that The Society’s Luthor is actually Alexander Luthor - the other villains don’t know that. 

In the Absolute Power storyline (the third arc) the Legion of Super Villains alter the timeline, turning Superman and Batman into Earth’s less than benevolent dictators. They are soon met with a superhero uprising led by Wonder Woman and the Freedom Fighters. Superman deals with WW in manner eerily reminiscent of Max Lord’s fate:

The Freedom Fighters fair just about as well in IC as they did in S/B:

I'm thinking the Freedom Fighters are maybe a group to avoid if you're a new hero to the DCU and looking for a team to hook up with.

Both books also involve an alternate reality Superman coming back to try and make things right -- something that happens several times within the pages of SUPERMAN/BATMAN -- and inevitably toeing up with the current iteration of Superman.

One of the undercurrents in Absolute Power is the idea that the world Superman and Batman now live in isn’t so great a place -- despite, or perhaps because of, the presence of superheroes -- and that maybe the two have not done enough. (No argument from Alexander Luthor, Superboy or Earth II Superman, eh?) This, along with a markedly increased bond between Bruce and Clark, become the anchors from which Loeb can make the two do some pretty horrific things without completely losing the characters. It compares well with the direction Alexander Luthor appears to be taking. 

In the epilogue (of sorts) of Absolute Power (S/B #18), WW and Superman have this exchange:

A little more foreshadowing of things to come.

For many readers this may have been their first real look at a more hard line Wonder Woman -- especially considering her own title was selling at about 1/5th the clip of SUPERMAN/BATMAN -- it was certainly the first introduction I’d had to this facet of her character. And looking back on how things have played out, doesn’t it seem like it should have been WW threatening to blow up Apokolips instead of Batman? Who has really shown they have the “strength of character it would take to destroy an entire planet”? (If that doesn’t make sense, see the SUPERGIRL storyline for specifics.)

One thing in evidence throughout the build up to INFINITE CRISIS and INFINITE CRISIS itself is DC’s desire to recapture some of that Silver Age magic. The return of a teenage Supergirl, Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern Corp, and Donna Troy; the emergence of a more traditional Lex Luthor character, presaging (I think) a return to a clearer delineation between good and evil across the board; and even the possibility of a return of the multiverse, all seem to be efforting this cause. Does this mean we’ll see Snapper Carr and all those wonderful, if slightly goofy, Silver Age tropes The Absorbascon has been exploring lately? Not likely. But I do think we’ll eventually see the return of a Bruce Wayne Batman -- especially as he relates to Superman and other heroes -- that is much more in line with what Loeb has shown us here rather than the Dark Jerk of the past decade or so.

One exercise which can be interesting when examining large crossover events is to look at an individual issue or story and ask what the impact would be if the events therein had never occurred. Would the overall story now be unclear or incomplete? Would the missing events have to occur somewhere else in order for the narrative to maintain any kind of logical flow? Many of the so called “tie-ins” scattered across the DCU might just have easily carried a HOUSE OF M banner for all they actually lent to the main story, but SUPERMAN/BATMAN, for all its flaws, contained several key developments that had to occur somewhere and a number of clues (intentionally placed or not) as to the direction IC would take. This isn't really surprising since it has served as DC's flagship title for most of its existence, but I think some of the themes and events of the book get lost amid all the big, dumb, superhero stuff.

Sidenote: If you haven’t already, check out this panel from the recent WonderCon. Tons of post Crisis info.

Comments

[Guy LeCharles Gonzalez]

You see, coming back to comics from a 25 year hiatus and finding Lex Luthor the president was bit jarring...

Same here. I never did process that bit of info, though, and it was one of the reasons I dropped Adventures of Superman shortly after Rucka lured me into it.

Thinking about it, not being invested in either company's recent continuity, it may be why House of M appealed to me a bit more than Infinite Crisis has, because Marvel pretty much jumped right into their story and are focusing more on its aftermath, whereas DC's spent nearly three years now building towards their big change, with nearly everything they publish tieing into it at some point or another.