Review : Batman/Superman #22
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Gene Luen Yang
Artist: Paul Pelletier
Letters: Saida Temofonte
Colors: Hi Fi
Reviewed by: Carl Bryan
Summary
Batman/Superman #22 – SERIES FINALE! Mr. Mxyzptlk resurrecting Calendar Man from his death during A-Day is causing some reality-rattling consequences.
If Superman and Batman are going to prevent a fifth-dimensional god-being from compartmentalizing all of existence, they’re going to need to turn to some unlikely allies.
Positives
Gene Luen Yang concludes this series with an interesting “breaking the fourth wall” via the Fifth Dimension Imp Mxyzptlk and allowing Calendar Man to play a bit of a Deadpool role in this DC comic.
This series started as an outlet for Batman and Superman to take on The Batman Who Laughs. While it provided a World’s Finest team up to take on a facet of the spillover stories from the main time line, this comic quickly ran its course.
I can remember the World’s Finest from the 1970s and how those were independent stories that gave Clark and Bruce to have some campy adventures…however, back at that time, we didn’t know what campy was.
An educated reader looks for a continuation of the timeline or how a team up such as this can play into their major time lines. This is found in the major Superman and Batman books at this time, but this title strayed after the demise of The Batman Who Laughs.
Negatives….. well maybe
Mxyzptlk saves this comic. The last few issues really veered off into its own odd Multiverse. That is truly capable if you have someone like an Imp from the Fifth Dimension running things. Arguably, he should have been introduced really early as the person behind the controls of this book.
Basically, it was great to see a fitting ending to a comic series where much more could have been done.
Negatives 2.0
This was the series finale. And the entire fourth wall thing was interesting, but it was time for this timeline or series to reach a “Control Alt Delete”. I can only imagine the task before each writer in constructing an arguably blank slate using all the Superman and Batman characters, but separate from the huge drama that is going on in each of their main comic lives.
After the defeat of The Batman Who Laughs the storyline never really catapulted off anything with Batman and the Magistrate nor Superman being called to WarWorld. Again, not sure the educated reader of both heroes can take this kind of pause in their digestion of the current stories.
Verdict
Batman/Superman #22- It ends on #22 and that is probably a great thing. Do we need a World’s Finest comic? Yes….. Does it need Bruce and Clark….maybe not. As a fan, I would love to see Jonathan Kent and Damian Wayne take up this calling. They are already best friends and the future is bright for those two together!
