As far as World’s Finest is concerned, “We Are Yesterday” is done. The event still has a few more entries over in Justice League Unlimited, but the Bronze Age Batman and Superman now return to their regularly scheduled adventures. As is often the case in between big arcs on this title, we get a much lower stakes one-shot to act as a sort of breather. Though “breather” in this case might be a misnomer, as the headliner of the story involves a giant Batman mech fighting a kaiju. If nothing else, it’s a comic that grabs people’s attention.
The framing for the story begins with Commissioner Gordon going on a “dude-bro” podcast to defend against accusations that Gotham is a “festering Hellhole” (let’s be honest, isn’t it though?) The host is a clear riff on a Joe Rogan type, with a bit of Andrew Tate antagonism thrown in for good measure to make you really hate him. This may surprise those who picked up the comic based on the cover, title, or tagline, all of which make clear references to late night TV talk shows. I don’t know if that was the original plan that got changed at some point, but it still was enough to justify a plug on Stephen Colbert’s actual late night talk show thanks to his variant cover, so I guess it worked out.
Regardless of any behind the scenes reasoning, having Jim go on a Podcast to defend Gotham is a fun premise, though one that makes less sense when you see it play out. There’s never a great justification for why Commissioner Gordon specifically would be here, why Bruce Wayne would be tagging along for “moral support”, or why the staff of the Daily Planet would be involved. That being said, it’s at least enough to work if you squint. I only wish there was more time to have an interesting back and forth with the idea for more than a page before the real meat of the story comes in to interrupt: the giant robot vs monster fight.
Speaking of things that are fun so long as you don’t think too hard, this certainly fits the bill. I know I sound like a joyless curmudgeon when I criticize this, but it really does feel like a lot of style over substance. At one point Batman shows up in a mech suit hundreds of feet tall in a way that’s never explained, he just appears with it in the middle of the city after “popping through the cave”. The mechanics of how that happened aren’t important. You can tell that the story is in a rush to get to “the good stuff”.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun sequence of six or seven pages with lots of punching and almost no dialogue when you accept it for what it is. If you simply want a giant Batman mech fight with a kaiju in Metropolis with the slimmest of justification, this will deliver in spades. Artist Adrián Gutiérrez does a great job fully utilizing the space to draw some impressive splash pages of robot on monster action. There’s a lot of energy behind the fight and even the sound effect text gives everything that extra bit of juice.
Back at the studio, Lois, Gordon, and Perry are trying to figure out what’s going on. Their B-plot makes sense, an certainly has the shape of a investigation story, but doesn’t quite get there. Once again, everything just happens so fast that there’s hardly enough time to follow their line of reasoning. The way they follow clues are either wild shots in the dark that happen to be right, or they’re just immediately presented with the information. Everything needs to be solved, and they only have a few pages to do it. Once they do figure out what’s going on, Batman and Superman show up to immediately resolve it. It’s enough to service the larger story, but too frantic to be engaging in its own right.
Recommended If
- Parodies of Joe Rogan and other online influencers are your thing
- You’re a fan of big, high energy spectacle
- You just want to see a giant bat robot fight a monster
Overall
The hooks for Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #40 are clear: the inherent fun of having Gordon and Perry do a TV/Podcast interview, and obviously seeing a giant robot fight against a kaiju. The fight itself certainly delivers, with plenty of big pages of exciting action as they duke it out. The problem is that everything else, interview included, feels so rushed that it only barely holds itself together. It’s flashy yet superficial action that’s can be lots of fun but definitely needs more room to breathe.
Score: 7/10
DISCLAIMER: DC Comics provided Batman News with a copy of this comic for the purpose of this review
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