Theno

To me, most of the World’s Finest stories seemed to be really forced, struggling for ways to make Batman useful (usually by making excuses for him to use his “deductive skills”)…at least once we were past the age where Batman was fighting aliens and gaining super powers. I think this is one of the reasons that World’s Finest became a Superman team-up book during the 70′s (similar to how Brave and the Bold was a Batman team-up book).

And for some reason, I’m reminded of one of those one panel joke “What Ifs?” that used to fill in the back of some issues. Usually the joke was pretty much just the title itself, and the one I was thinking of was “What if Wonder Man was a Woman and Power Man was a Girl?” And the picture was covered up for legal reasons.

Sorry, that was totally unrelated.

(Still don’t like the Adam West take on the character, though. The TV series always gets on my nerves.)

I think it was a matter of tone, more than anything. The mood of WORLD’S FINEST was dark, mystical, even gothic—Deadman was a semi-regular guest star—and shadowy, noir-ish art from the underrated Dick Dillin. Some of the *ideas* were pure Superman—the Super-Sons concept has “Imaginary Story” written all over it, for instance—but the execution was (relatively) down-to-earth—much more in line with the Batman stories of the day. The stories had ironic twists that would have been alien in a Superman story.

Put it this way: In his own book, Superman was always more of a “daytime” superhero; but in the Bob Haney/Dick Dillin WORLD’S FINEST, he seemed like an uncomfortable tourist in a creepy night-time world.

I really enjoy seeing them work together because the simple fact is both of these guys are heroes and they are intelligent. They wouldn’t be enemies because they’re smarter than that. They’re better than that. Sure there would be friction at first and that IS fun to play. Superman only knows Batman as this vigilante, Batman only knows Superman as this mangod the Daily Planet uses to sell papers and then they meet face to face to much drama. But past that having them as enemies is just cheap-heat for fans to have “My Dad can beat up your Dad!” style debates about who would win. Which is really what most hero vs. hero feuds are and why they’re one comics cliche that deserves a friggin rest.

Does this mean I think Superman-Batman is a great title, not exactly. I think more than any of Loeb’s other works it has often suffered from his “give the artist as many characters to draw as possible” approach. I mean hey, I like seeing Ed McGuiness draw DC characters as much as anybody but you don’t need em all in the same story.

Heh, now I’m just picturing Superman vs. The Riddler. Quickest fight ever.