Spoilers and reviews follow for Batman #4, Superman #4 and Justice League #2 of the DC Comics Rebirth era.
Batman #4 spoilers and review:
After the Psycho-Pirate manipulated the super-powered Gotham last issue, we see the fallout this issue. Massive casualties; 27 dead.
Batman confronts Gotham over the body count and tells him, essentially, that he’s ashamed and disappointed in him….
…Gotham is enraged and flies off.
Batman somehow knows that Amanda Waller sent a small Suicide Squad team into Gotham City and he confronts her and easily dispatches Lois Lane’s father General Sam Lane.
Amanda Waller explains after, essentially, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman New 52 run, she and her Suicide Squad were needed to clean things up. She picked the picked the Pyscho Pirate and Hugo Strange for the mission, but…
….Hugo Strange betrayed her, the mission and the team. And, it turns out 28 people are dead not 27…
…looks like the Psycho-Pirate confused (or not) Gotham had a personal mission of revenge…
…kills even more…
…including a beat down of Batman that sets up…
…Batman #5!
So…
I’m enjoying the story written by Tom King, but it doesn’t feel like a Batman story rather its more of a DC story with this issue hosting the Suicide Squad’s Amanda Waller, a mini #Skwad in Hugo Strange and Psycho Pirate plus General Sam Lane. In addition, we have these new super-powered “heroes” (?) in Gotham and Gotham Girl. I’m intrigued, but not enamored if that makes sense. David Finch’s art is pretty and feels more like Superman art than teh kind of dark, gritty art one expects from a Batman title. So, this is an entertaining unconventional Batman title in DC Rebirth.
Justice League #2 spoilers and review:
As the alien threat evolves and the human hosts seem to coalesce or evolve into a new threat…
…Batman describes his relationship with this new Superman (the pre Flashpoint Superman who replaced a dead New 52 one) in stark terms, but…
…Batman has no choice. He needs Superman to deal with threat and has a mission for him to the center of the Earth!
So…
Artist Tony Daniel’s are is AMAZING, but I’m still underwhelmed by artist-turned-writer Doufg Mahnke’s story. The Batman internal monologue concerning Rebirth’s Superman was the most compelling part of the story for me and that was in like the last 2-3 pages of the book (minus the center of the Earth panel which I find cliched).
Superman #4 spoilers and review:
Superman and the Eradicator are battling as he wants to purge the human side of Superman and Lois Lane’s son Jon Kent…
…as the battle wages, Lois encourages her son to embrace both worlds and help his dad as…
…Superboy! That leads to a splash page Superman Family fans have been waiting for…
…Superman and Superboy vs. Eradictor!
The Eradicator shell is breached…
…send the souls of Krypton onto Earth and…
into Superman as a new Eradicator containment for them?
However, the Eradictor is still there and still wants to destroy part of Jon Kent / Superboy! Superman and his family flees, but…
…he has a plan! He puts son and mom into a submersible and takes them to…
…the moon?
So…
In the absence of the DC Comics Rebirth’s Super Sons title with Jon Kent Superboy and Damian Wayne Robin, the place to see the evolution of DC’s newest Superboy is the Superman twice monthly title. He appears in the twice monthly Action Comics title, but that book seems to focus more on Superman and his extended family of characters while the Superman proper book focused on Superman’s actual family. Very entertaining. Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason remain one of comics’ best writer-artist duos.
