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Note: Text in italics are thoughts from either Superman or
Batman (S or B), quoted from Superman/ Batman: Public Enemies (S/B: PE).
Also, much of the quoted dialouge is spoken by chars who appear in same. All of
which is written by Jeph Loeb, the writer for S/B: PE. C. 2003, 2004 DC Comics.
Superman & Batman are trademarks of DC.
Batman & Superman. I won’t lie, Batman is my favorite of the two. He’s a
tragic figure. I’ve had a tragic, lonely life and I can relate to man’s pain.
My parents might not have been murdered as his had, but their relationship was
shattered by my father’s alcoholism and my mother’s insistance that the rest of
the family ignore his deficencies and not talk about his problem publically.
Other people might have seen him drink, but my mother and me were the ones who
had to be around him when he was DRUNK. He was an angry, proud, indulged
person. I could comment that he didn’t deserve to have a wife; didn’t deserve
to have her love and her faithfulness. By middle-class standards, my father was
wealthy to an extent; a white-collar thief and a liar.
He might not have been a criminal who would have shot & killed Bruce Wayne’s parents, but he would have been the man who had driven the gunman to such an extremity that he would have been ruined financially and cared so little for human life that he’d use any excuse to kill whoever the hell he wanted. (My father worked for an insurance company and his job was to catch people who’d attempted to fraud on their workman’s compensation claims. He was a predator who preyed on small-time criminals.) Okay, so maybe based on his source of employment, that might not be enough to hold him in comtempt. But he was also a racist, concieted, despicable bastard who justified his own disgraceful existence by ruining the existences of everyone around him. If you were contrary to him (if you were black, Jewish, Asian, Italian, Irish, Latino, female, homosexual, or if you were a book worm), he blamed you for every bad thing that his own bad karma caused. He always wanted to be a top dog, an alpha male. If you got a promotion he thought he deserved, he’d shove you against a wall and threaten to beat the living heck out of you. In short, well, he was mean.
Batman, in hind-sight, is very like my father. If you broke
the law, Batman was all over you. Sure, one could always say “you brought it
upon yourself” but that doesn’t justify the extent of his vindictiveness.
Batman, however, wouldn’t discriminate. He doesn’t bother to consider if the
criminal he was stalking was a Jew or anything. He might file away such things,
but he wouldn’t justify his actions by citing something like that. There’s the
innocent and the guilty. His job certainly would be easier if he killed his
arch nemesises outright, but instead he would have them sent to Arkham Asylum
on the desperate hope that eventually they might be rehabilitated. He has a
tendency to be pessimist. What I like about Bruce Wayne is that he could walk
around his fellow socialites and feel disgust, but he’d feel empathic for people
in a homeless shelter enough to donate a huge sum of money to it. In the
current economy, he’d make a fortune profiteering on the war from making
weapons, but he’d instead opt for helping to improve the humanitarian effort
because he resents killing for any purpose. The other thing I appreciate about
him is that he’s not the type of person who looks forward to a sunny day. He’s
more at home in the shadows and he specilizes in not being seen unless he
absolutely wishes to be. He’s very strategic, spends a lot of time using a
computer to get the whole story.
The villains he fights are simply average, yet greatly
disturbed mentally who dress up in odd costumes. The Joker and Scarecrow and Riddler are all skinny, frail guys who
might not have a lot of muscle, but are all clever in their own ways. They are
pyschologically abnormal rather than physically. Heck, The Mad Hater quite
literally believes he IS the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.
Superman, on the
otherhand, is an idealist. He loves everything about himself. He loves flying,
loves the people in the city he lives in. Whereas Batman protects the civilians
of Gotham out of fear that they either become criminals or are victimized by
criminals so badly that they might actually want to become like him, Superman
is completely unlike the average people. He’s an outside because he wasn’t even
born on this country, yet he looks human enough. He feels responcible for the
safety of the regulair people because he has abilities they haven’t got. Metropolis,
thanks to his efforts, is a shining utopian and model of what a urban city
should be like. Gotham, despite Batman’s efforts, is a grim, forbidding hint of
urban decay. Superman has seen both the wide-open spaces of Kansas and the
opulence of a big city. Batman has always lived in the outskirts of Gotham in a
mansion, raised by his butler Alfred. Superman’s parents died, died when his
planet exploded, but he had only been a baby and survived only because they
loved him enough to evacuate him so he could live after they were gone. (They
knew they were going to die and sent away to spare him from being destroyed
because he was their last hope in the world.) Superman, like Batman, was an
orphan, but thankfully he was discovered by the Kents who raised him as their
foster son and covered up his secret. Batman never had a second chance to have
a family. He inherited his parents’ estate. They hadn’t known they would have
died and the shock of witnessing their deaths evaporated all the hope in his
life. Superman would come flying in for the rescue if someone fell of a
building to catch them. Batman would use the most miniscule evidence available
to catch the person who pushed somebody off of that building. If you want
someone to glare menacingly at a hood and make the hood crap his pants in fear,
call Batman. If you want someone to smile in a TV commercial and tell kids
Don’t Do Drugs, call Superman.
I don’t know very much about Superman. Because of his nearly
demi-god existence, the villains he battles are aliens like himself who have
super powers beyond those of mortals and rather than fighting for good, they
fight for evil. Metallo (aka John Corben) is an android who used to be human.
He’s a tin man whose heart just happens to be made of Kryptonite. Yet, well,
it’s Lois Lane and Lex Luthor who I most appreciate. Lois is an energetic,
competitive woman who thrives in a male-dominated society. Men disregard her
because she is female, but she will make them eat their words by winning more
prestige than they do. She’s the kind of woman lesser men (like my father)
would speculate that she was either a lesbian or a transexual behind her back.
She and her kind mostly disregard Clark Kent, the hick from a small town with
small ambitions. People don’t realize Clark is Superman simply because they’d
find it hard to believe he could open a jar of pickels let alone bend steal
bars with his bare hands. Fly? Clark gets air-sick on air planes! Why don’t you
see Clark around when Superman’s around? Because Clark forgot his pen and had
to run all the way home to get it so he could have Superman give him an
autograph. Need someone to take copious notes during a dreadfully boring
board-meeting? Call Clark. How is it possible for someone who grew up on a
farm, milking cows to be lactose intolerant? Clark’ll find a way. If people had
to choose between watching a movie about Clark or watch paint dry on a house,
they’d pick watching paint dry. Heck, Clark’ll sell tickets. He’s tedious and
complacent. If anything, Lois sees him as speed bump in the fast lane. As
Superman thinks in S/B: PE, I know that Bruce thinks I’m being naïve. The
Kansas farmboy underthinking what is happening. … Underestimating me.
It’s a common mistake. That certainly fits. Substitute “Bruce” with “Lois”
or any other char’s name and we get everyone’s estimation of Clark Kent.
Apparently he resents this and yet Bruce Wayne completely intends to be
understimated, the whole purpose of his secret identity is to be a façade to
hide his true self behind. Superman, however, resents the fact that Clark isn’t
as respected as Superman and his average-self feels jealous of his
super-self.
Lex Luthor, well, he’s a bigot. He doesn’t like aliens (the
kind from other planets). He’s charming in that he’s a philanprophist who uses
his wealth for negative purposes. Whatever way there is to profit, he’ll find
it. He thrives in the class system because it puts him on top. As brilliant as
Batman, he’ll use his intellect to find new ways to eradicate disreputals from
the human race. He’ll launch a missile, point it at Russia, and launch it out
of hopes that Superman would try to stop it. Inside of the missile there’d be a
payload of Kryptonite rather than explosives. The plan would be to discredit
Superman by saying “he failed to stop that missile and because of that
thousands of innocents perished” and yet not admit he was the one who launched
the missile in the first place. He sees lesser people as being amusing. He
enjoys watching others humbled. “I can’t think of a morning I haven’t
woken up with the thought of strangling you in my head. But your
sanctimonious boy scout image engaged the media until no one
could see you for what you are. If I know evil --- I see it in you,” is
how he speaks to Superman. Oddly enough, he compares Superman to Jesus… no,
wait, maybe he’s more of a David Koresh because Luthor-thinks-
Superman-thinks-he’s-Jesus-when-he-isn’t?
S: Through it all, Luthor’s influence --- his
money --- would allow him to trample the law and escape unscathed. Even Bruce
--- whose wealth exceeds Luthor’s --- couldn’t work the system with such
wreckless disregard.
So Bruce Wayne wants people to think he’s a loosely moralled playboy while Luthor actually is a completely immoral human being.
Part
One: World’s Finest. Wow. Speechless. Clark and
Bruce’s origins are given in brief and juxtaposed to each other. Clark as a
baby, Bruce eight-years-old just before Clark & Pete see him. Then, p. 5,
we cut to the “present” where Superman investigates a fire at S.T.A.R. Labs. As
soon as he arrives, he is deflected by something we aren’t shown. He knocks
over a TV antenae when he crashes, he catches it before it can fall on some
pedestrians. Metallo turns out to have been what had deflected him (punched?).
Just before he was sucker-punched, he’d been thinking it was “the best part of
the job” because the view of the sky between the buildings reminded him of
Kansas. Superman swiss-cheeses Metallo with blasts of heat vision. They trade
punches, Metallo gets angry because his face is torn off and the metal skeleton
underneath is revealed. Oddly, enough though he blasts Superman with Kryptonite
radiation and knocks him unconcious, he says “but I don’t want you dead – I
don’t want anybody else dead because of me ever again…” What the hell is
he talking about? I don’t know; I don’t read Superman!
Page
11, oddly enough, has Batman in Gotham City Cemetary, standing in an open
grave, and using a flashlight & tweezers to collect metal filings. This is
his idea of “the best part of the job” because B: Before the
crime scene has been trampeled and disturbed. … Here, in the
silence of the crime… I have the best chance to catch whoever did… His
thought is finished, but he means whoever had dug up the grave. Page 12 has a
joke that would have Commisoner “one of these days I’ll nail (Batman’s) feet to
the ground!” Gordon amused: Superman arrives suddenly and Batman gripes
to himself, I hate it when he just appears like that. (Giggles.) Page 13
has Superman explaining why he’s there step-by-step. Annoyed, Batman complains,
“Which one of us the detective again?” Superman replies, “It’s called investigative
journalism.” He’s saying, “There’s something else you need to know
about Corben. He was in town the night –“ but is interrupted by Metallo’s
appearance. Metallo is carrying a coffin over his shoulder that carrying his
human remains. What possible good are they? Who knows? Besides, Metallo’s a
pyscho. He doesn’t understand stuff like that because he’s delusional. Oh,
gosh, don’t you love the suspense? Oh wait. No, I don’t.
Page 14… what the heck is “Smaskd”? Metallo tells them to
backoff, carrying on his slight pacifist turn until Batman leaps into the fray
and attacks him. B: Metallo can’t win. Stastically, historically, he
must know that. … A seemingly endless cycle… Evil is a poor professor. Pretty
odd thing to think when you’re being strangled by the Sixty Bazillion Dollar
Man’s Migthy Extendo-Arm (or whatever the hell it’s called). Page 15 has
Superman considering S: I’ve known Bruce for years. I can’t decide if it’s the
hero in him that drives him --- which I respect… or the dark side that
puts him in harm’s way --- trying to desperately to mak up for the murder of
his parents. That I don’t respect. Comically, even as he’s thinking
such a reasonable thing, he’s telling Metallo “let him go” and simultaneously
giving him no choice by zapping the arm off its socket (ZZZRACK). When Batman
hits the ground, there’s a DOOSHK sound… I guess the weird onomotopea is due to
it being from the Superman crew… So, maybe Batman’s assault wasn’t such a bad
idea because he knew Superman would back him up. As Superman is distracted by
thoughts of Batman’s mortality, he’s shot in chest with a Kryptonite bullet.
Page 16 has Superman falling backward into the open grave and Batman shouting NO!
in shock. Metallo stands still between them with the gun smoking and watching
Superman fall. Page 17: Batman giving Metallo hurt burn with a well-placed
plastique charge. And on page 18, we have tweezers again! Batman laments he
might not be “fast enough to get the bullet out before the wound closes
up.” Superman wonders where The Flash is. (Unfunny.)
Batman: “Do me a favor, Clark. Lose the sense of humor.”
Superman: “Do us both a favor, Bruce. Buy a
sense of humor.” Ouch! Hm… so why are they calling each other by first names
when Metallo is within earshot?
Page 20 has Metallo (who has amazingly… in a corny sort of
way) morphed his arm into a huge shovel. He buries them alive and walks away.
Part Two: Early Warning. This is where I had
bought it into the series when it was released in individual comics. The cover
shows Superman’s arm lying prone in a pool of blood. Reflected in the blood we
see Batman kneeling next to a fallen Superman. He seems to have been carrying
his vanquished ally and has just set him down on the floor gently for a moment
to catch his breath. The tableau is profound and darkly reminiscent of the
classic image of young Bruce kneeling beside his murdered parents’ bodies. I
won’t bother with a page-by-page assesment because it must be appreciated as a
whole. It starts with Batman using Superman as a human shield, planting an
explosive on his friend’s back to absorb the shock in an attempt to break them
out of the grave they are trapped in. While Batman’s doing his part, Superman
is remembering an incident where he nearly drowned in an abandoned well that
somehow had gotten lined with Kryptonite. He is rescued by Pete using a rope,
S: He pulled on his end, while I climbed out the best I could. We couldn’t
have done it without each other.
Reading this, I recall the scene from Batman: Year One where
Batman had, on his first excursion in costume, spooked a thief so badly that he
almost fell to his death over the side of a fire escape. Batman clung
desperately to the young man’s leg while the other two took advantage of his
distraction and tried to kick the crap out of him. Instead of helping him save
the life of their friend, they were so callous as to be willing to let him die
as collateral damage just so they could beat the up some freak in a mask to
prove how cool they were. One punk is so frustrated, he tosses a TV set at
Batman’s head, the same TV they’d been attempting to steal. Those two certainly
worked together in an attempt to make the wrong choice and, luckily, Batman
took out both thugs and managed to pull the third to safety. If he had help at
the time, the whole debacle would have been easier. So, in retrospect, Frank
Miller had certainly made a case for Robin’s necessity. With his absence (to be
fair he hadn’t yet become part of the fight at that time), Batman was at a
distinct disadvantage.
Back to the action: They fall into a sewer. Batman almost
drowns, but Superman resusitates him with mouth-to-mouth. (We see Superman’s
head on Batman’s chest, looking for a heartbeat, Batman coughing out the water,
so they avoided showing the middle part where Superman is breathing the air
into Batman’s lungs… which could have looked a little like kissing… interesting
omission, but we can put together what happened and Batman’s … air …! fills us in a little more with the
context. Batman, ofcourse is offended. He’s back on his feet and commenting “I…
=koff= thought I was supposed to rescue you.” He’s got to
re-establish the hierarchy. He’s the rescuer and Superman is the rescuee.
Team-work is still a foreign concept to him, but they shake hands. And then
walk arm-in-arm down the sewer towards the cave. Their differences are
reflected in a brief talk about “Magpie” a villain they’d fought in Batman/
Superman: The World’s Finest. Batman at first doesn’t know who Superman is
talking about.
I suppose Superman is commenting on the fact that Magpie
didn’t have a very good gimmick. She was a bad villain because her gimmick was
silly and she did her job as a villain not very well. Superman seems to wish
all his run-ins with villains were that easy. Would be almost be like a fun
diversion or an Easter Egg hunt. Unfortunately, the bad villains die off and
the good ones, the ones who make his job a really difficult one & do the
most damage to the innocents never do. I guess he’d catagorize Metallo or
Luthor as “good villains.” Batman, should he be willing to play along, would
probably say Condiment King (Batgirl: Year One) were a bad one and Joker
was a good one.
We have a reprisal of Superman’s thoughts on wealth when
regains conciousness on the surgical table after Alfred has removed the bullet.
S: Through it all… Alfred has been there for Bruce. A father figure… and
yet… something more. … They are
not exactly friends. Bruce makes it clear that Alfred works for him. …
Having grown up in Kansas and not from a world of privilege, maybe I’ll never
understand… Alfred had washed Superman’s shirt to get the sewer smell off
of it, emphasis on washing. Superman replies, “I’m sure my wife will
appreciate that more than anyone.” Does he wish Alfred would wash his wife?
Certainly an interesting vibe. He had to make it clear that he had a wife and
at the same time niether Bruce nor Alfred are married. Hm… Wonder what he feels
the “something more” could be? Guess he’d rather not think about it.
(Chuckles.) Batman apparently hasn’t washed his own uniform… he’s busy hacking
on the computer. Ten minutes… he’s been hacking for ten mins Alfred had been
operating for ten mins…
B: Nothing haunts me more than finding out
who killed my parents. … Their unsolved murder changed Gotham City, it’s as if
their blood wouldn’t wash off the hands of the policemen who worked the case. …
To the innocent, knowing that people like Thomas and Martha Wayne could
be shot down in the street meant no one was safe. … And to the criminal element,
it said you could get away with murder.
So John Corben apparently is a suspect in the murder because
he’d been in Gotham the same night and had possesed “the same caliber
handgun“ as the one that shot them. He’d been detained at S.T.A.R. Labs
where they’d found out this information. Batman’s really upset, but it’s odd
that he had waited so long before hacking into the lab computer in all the time
he’d known Superman… as they are arguing, someone makes a Terminator-esque
time-traveling appearance. (Not saying who.) During the resulting altercation,
Superman confronts Batman, “You know what I got sick of, Bruce? You kicking the
crap out of me with your toys,” rips off his utility belt, then
backhands him. “When you’re nothing but a man. … A man who got to stay
alive only because I let you.” Batman crashes into the 60s Batmobile and
Superman is about to finish him off by dropping it on him. “You should have
killed me you had the chance. … But that will never happen now. I’m taking away
that choice, the one you ultimately fail to make.” Yeesh, so now he’s
talking like Metallo? Yet Superman shoots Superman with the Kryptonite bullet
using Alfred’s discarded shotgun. Wha?
Part Three: Running Wild is really quite good, too.
The two heroes are on their way somewhere, but are hampered by a bounty that
President Lex Luthor has put on Superman’s head. Luthor blames Superman for a
Kryptonite asteroid heading towards earth. There’s an incredible battle of two
versus about thirty aggressors. Green Lantern & Star Fire and five other
schmucks I’ve never heard of before appear to play cavalry, but they actually
intend to cash in on the bounty. Part Four: Battle On has them fighting
against Luthor’s possee. Uh? JSA… whatever that is… sends in Hawkman and
Captain Marvel after five members of the possee are put out of commission and two
of them side with Batman & Superman. Who the heck are these people? The
fight ends on the snow-covered peak of Mount Fuji, Japan and Superman &
Batman apparently have been taken captive. Part Five: State of the Siege
brings in the clowns as they attempt to break into the White House to rescue
the “captives.” Nightwing, the “new” Robin (Tim Drake), and the “new” Batgirl
are accompanied by four meddling kids and their mutt. Honestly, what the hell
is this? Super Twins? What the hell is this Huntress-chick wearing? How lazy is
Superboy? He’s wearing a black T-shirt with a red S-symbol on it with blue
jeans. Who’s the chick in the purple armor with the big hammer?
Luthor is confronted by the Batty Kids (or whatever the hell
they’re called). He tells them that there’s been a nerve gas pumped into the
room. Luthor comments “I’ve always been curious as to why Batman --- who
has such a reputation for being a lone wolf --- would surround himself
with children…” Uh? I won’t comment on that one. Luthor mentions the “Homeland
Security Act”. He even references the Presidential Guidelines for Physical
Fitness. UGH! I swear, he’s much more amusing when he’s complaining in Superman:
Red Son that he had to kill all of the scientists who’d made Bizarro
because Bizarro beat him at chess. (Giggles.) Robin accuses Luthor of being a
Bond villain and then passes out. Nightwing puts up a fight and despite the
nerve gas getting clobbered by a steroid-pumped Luthor, he stays on his feet.
Luthor comments “it’s good to be the President” (a reference to Mel Brook’s
line “it’s good to be the king” from History of the World Part One).
“Blow, wind! Come, wrack!” (reference to the play King Lear, words that
King Lear had spoken in his madness as he egged on a storm that rained upon
him, refusing to cower before it, trying to prove he wasn’t afraid of the gods’
wrath.).
Superman confronts Luthor, holding him by the neck in a
one-handed strangle-hold. S: My dad taught me that when the fox is in the
chicken house, you have to kill it… unless you plan on losing more
chickens. Batman watches on and doesn’t attempt to stop him, he even says,
“… there are ways we could make it look like an accident. Or better still ---
as if he’d disappeared without a trace.” Incredibly, he’s ready to conspire to
aid in a man’s murder. Luthor might be a villain, but he’s still a man and
taking a life is still taking a life. But Superman spares him. Part Six:
Final Countdown is a wonderful conclussion. I have to say parts four and five are really quite hammy, I don’t like the fact we aren’t shown how
the Batman & Superman versus Hawkman & Captain Marvel fight was
resolved. Powergirl & Katana disappear into Toyman’s lab without a trace. I
mean, he’s a thirteen-year-old horny kid… what kind of weird crap could he be
doing with them which we aren’t shown. Did they help save Superman and Batman?
As compilations goes, it’s mostly okay. I knew who Solomon
Grundy, Green Lantern, Toyman, Star Fire, Robin, Nightwing, Mr. Freeze, and
Batgirl were but I had no idea who many of the other cameos were. But, heck,
maybe they’re Superman chars? Don’t know. Probably just some misscelaneous DC
villains lying around that they decided to add for some reason. I swear, the
guy dressed like an eskimo is a Mega Man villain! The whole thing didn’t have
much of a lame Super Friends vibe to it in most places. The plot was entirely
easy to follow and had many twists and turns. When I’d seen Metallo in the
Superman Animated Series, I hadn’t thought much of him. But I felt pretty
sympathetic for him. The guy’s trying to reclaim his humanity and if he’s
desperate enough to dig up his own grave, well, that’s a pretty tough choice to
make. The plot starts out fairly straight-forward, then things are complicated
by the asteroid, Luthor’s meglomania & grand-standing imitation of George
Bush (blaming a Kyrptonite asteroid on Superman is as nutty as blaming all of
the terrorism in the world on Saddam Hussien). I’m looking forward to see if
Volume Two gets any further along with Metallo’s exploits. Presumably Joe Chill
(Batman: Year Two: Fear the Reaper) has been rejected as the murderer of
Thomas & Martha Wayne.