Superman/Batman #50 – Review

Michael Green, Mike Johnson, (writers) Ed Benes, Matthew Clark, Allan Goldman, Ian Churchill, (pencils) Matt “Batt” Banning, Norm Rapmund, Marlo Alquiza, Rob Hunter,(inkers) John Rauch, (colors) Andrew Robinson, Greg DiGenti, (Krypton sequence), Rob Leigh, (letters) Ethan Van Sciver, Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines,  Dave McCaig (covers)

This issue has The League rebuilding Smallville and fighting it out with more rogue Kryptonian tech. As great as Superman is he just can’t seem to save us from his planet’s technology. After Brianiac, The Phantom Zone, and a Kryptonian probe, what’s next? But throw in a chance meeting between Thomas Wayne and Jor El and you’ve got a great start to this new arc.

Michael Green and Mike Johnson have done an excellent job with their run on this title. It’s unclear to me if the connection between Thomas and Jor El will carry through, or if it’s just a standalone scene – I’m thinking it’ll probably be the latter – in either case it’s very effective. Personally, I found it a little annoying that Batman and Superman are barely in the issue. Still, learning the details of their fathers meeting is great. It makes me wonder what things would’ve been like if Superman had crashed in Gotham.

A highlight of the book is definitely the pencils. The team is pretty massive, but everyone does a great job. The battle scenes are chaotic, but very detailed and easy to follow. My favorite of which is the fight between Batman, Superman and the crystal projections in The Fortress of Solitude. Not only does it feature their best villains, but awesome action as well. The backgrounds on Krypton during the flashback have a lot less detail, but it still fits really well. I’ve always thought Krypton would have a very streamlined architecture. I’m a big fan of the coloring during this sequence and the use of cool blues is a great choice, definitely better than your standard black and white.

Batman and Superman are like brothers in many ways, and this story reinforces that. Having Thomas Wayne reverse engineer much of Wayne Tech from his time on Krypton is a great touch. That said, I feel my biggest complaint is that it doesn’t seem like much happened; since most of the issue is a flashback it’s hard to really feel that progression. While it remains unclear if we’ll continue to see Thomas Wayne and Jor El in this book it’s still a good read with lots of good stuff for any fan. (Grade: B-)

-Ben Berger