Review: Batman/Superman World's Finest #49

Batman/Superman World's Finest #49 came out last week, the finale of a quick two-parter sending our heroes to Earth-3. The first part really threw out a lot of ideas that I thought could be mined. But this one came and went quickly setting up next issue's anniversary fiftieth issue.

Mark Waid is joined by writer Mark Russell on this story. I wonder why that happened. Waid has been writing a lot of titles and took over Flash during DCKO. So perhaps he needed a little script help? The other thought I had was that this was some sort of backdoor pilot for Russell. I can imagine a Earth-3 mini-series by him with villains as heroes and heroes as villains. Regardless, this is a bit of a sprint to the finish which sort of left me feeling a little bit empty after the full joy of part one.

Marcus To is on art and gets to play in the sandbox, bringing in a bunch of characters from the DCU into the story including a team of 'heroes', classic DC villains flipped on Earth 3. I had to grab this variant by Nathan Szerdy with Kara and Dick out for burgers and perhaps dishing a bit about the other date we see in the shadows.

I loved the last issue as we got to see the other 'syndicates' on Earth-3. So I hope that Waid (and/or Russell) gets to explore this world again some time.

On to the book.

Review: Batman/Superman World's Finest #48

Batman/Superman World's Finest #48 came out last week, the first part of a new arc focusing on Earth-3. There is a lot to love about this issue as the story unfolds. First, this book has done such a great job of riffing off the idea of World's Finest duos, so why not an World's Un-Finest? Focusing on Owlman/Ultraman makes perfect sense in this book. 

I have commented on how Mark Waid seems to be able to take classic DC ideas and freshening them up. Here, he moves beyond the classic Earth-3 idea that the Crime Syndicate rules the whole world and instead expands it wonderfully. The unholy Trinity is one syndicate. But other hero groups form other syndicates running their turfs. It opens up the world for way more stories, showing us evil versions of other heroic teams. This issue gives us a little bit of a quick tour of a few of these groups.

But in what I love as a meta take, Waid is looking back at this book and having teams that aided our World's Finest now fighting this World's Un-Finest. This has to be intentional. And as a fan of the book I love it.

Marcus To is on art for this arc and he brings an inkier, more shadowy style than I am used to seeing for him. This makes sense for an evil world. In places, and perhaps appropriately, it reminded me of Richard Case's work on Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. 

I have read many Earth-3 stories. This one felt completely fresh. Kudos to the creative team! On to the book.