Batman/Superman vol. 3: Second chances
Collects Batman/Superman issues 10-15.
Writer: Greg Pak, Jeff Lemire
Artists: Karl Kerschel, Scott Hepburn, Tom Derenick, Daniel Sampere, Tom Raney, Ken Lashley, Jae Lee, Diegones Neves, Marc Neering
This is a collection of stories which don’t have much to do with each other. In the first story, Batman has collapsed. With his microscopic vision, Superman first finds a tiny dead man is in Batman’s brain’s blood vessels. And then a whole tiny alien city! Superman contacts Dr. Palmer. He shrinks them and they go into Batman’s brain! They encounter the aliens and, of course, battle them.
The next story is actually the first part of a Doomsday story, but the story doesn’t continue in this collection. Superman is out of control because Doomsday has poisoned him. Batman, Wonder Woman, and Steele go to the Fortress of Solitude. Doomsday escaped from the Phantom Zone, so our heroes head to the Zone as well, hoping to find a cure from there. Of course, the Zone is full of villains and monsters whom Superman has sent there… and they’re not co-operative.
This story doesn’t work as a stand-alone. If the continuation was impossible to print here, I think it should have been left out. Now, it’s almost like an ad for Superman: Doomed.
The next stories continue from the first story of volume one and the Powergirl/Huntress story from volume two. First, Bruce and Clark encounter Kaiyo the Chaos bringer again. This time she sends them to Earth 2 and they have a chance to change just one thing. Bruce and Clark hesitate while they witness the final moments of the Earth 2’s heroes.
Kaiyo isn’t impressed with them and so she strips Bruce and Clark of their memories, and sends them to Gotham City, separately. Immediately, Clark sees a giant robot trying to catch Catwoman, and helps her. She quickly realized that he’s lost his memory and gleefully takes advantage of that. Meanwhile, Bruce is getting to know his life and meets Lois Lane.
This was an interesting story. Without his memories, Bruce is a far less dark and far less determined. He’s still heroic and tries to help the people around him. But for some reason, Clark tries to take over Gotham. So, without the influence of Ma and Pa Kent, Clark would be a tyrant? I’m not sure I buy that. More light-hearted Bruce makes perfect sense, though. I was almost sorry to see him return to his default mood.
Like the previous one, this collection has a lot of artists. Mostly, their styles are pretty similar, but Jae Lee’s art is, again, very distinctive.
But I enjoyed most of the stories here, with the exception of the ending of the second one.
Writer: Greg Pak, Jeff Lemire
Artists: Karl Kerschel, Scott Hepburn, Tom Derenick, Daniel Sampere, Tom Raney, Ken Lashley, Jae Lee, Diegones Neves, Marc Neering
This is a collection of stories which don’t have much to do with each other. In the first story, Batman has collapsed. With his microscopic vision, Superman first finds a tiny dead man is in Batman’s brain’s blood vessels. And then a whole tiny alien city! Superman contacts Dr. Palmer. He shrinks them and they go into Batman’s brain! They encounter the aliens and, of course, battle them.
The next story is actually the first part of a Doomsday story, but the story doesn’t continue in this collection. Superman is out of control because Doomsday has poisoned him. Batman, Wonder Woman, and Steele go to the Fortress of Solitude. Doomsday escaped from the Phantom Zone, so our heroes head to the Zone as well, hoping to find a cure from there. Of course, the Zone is full of villains and monsters whom Superman has sent there… and they’re not co-operative.
This story doesn’t work as a stand-alone. If the continuation was impossible to print here, I think it should have been left out. Now, it’s almost like an ad for Superman: Doomed.
The next stories continue from the first story of volume one and the Powergirl/Huntress story from volume two. First, Bruce and Clark encounter Kaiyo the Chaos bringer again. This time she sends them to Earth 2 and they have a chance to change just one thing. Bruce and Clark hesitate while they witness the final moments of the Earth 2’s heroes.
Kaiyo isn’t impressed with them and so she strips Bruce and Clark of their memories, and sends them to Gotham City, separately. Immediately, Clark sees a giant robot trying to catch Catwoman, and helps her. She quickly realized that he’s lost his memory and gleefully takes advantage of that. Meanwhile, Bruce is getting to know his life and meets Lois Lane.
This was an interesting story. Without his memories, Bruce is a far less dark and far less determined. He’s still heroic and tries to help the people around him. But for some reason, Clark tries to take over Gotham. So, without the influence of Ma and Pa Kent, Clark would be a tyrant? I’m not sure I buy that. More light-hearted Bruce makes perfect sense, though. I was almost sorry to see him return to his default mood.
Like the previous one, this collection has a lot of artists. Mostly, their styles are pretty similar, but Jae Lee’s art is, again, very distinctive.
But I enjoyed most of the stories here, with the exception of the ending of the second one.