DCU Comic Book Reviews

SUPERMAN/BATMAN #24

With A Vengeance, Chapter Five:  The Price Of Our Sins

January 2006

Written by Jeph Loeb

Pencils by Ed McGuinness

Inks by Dexter Vines

Cover by Ed McGuinness and Dexter Vines

Synopsis

In outer space, Superman frees Darkseid from the Source Wall.  In Gotham City, Batman finds in is in a world founded on a Matriarchal Society and he is facing Superwoman and Batwoman.  Along with Superlad, they take him to the batcave.  Because he arrived via a boom tube, they introduce him to Miss Miracle and Big Bard.  Elsewhere, Supergirl tries to make sense of Bizarro, who has brought with him several other Supergirls.  At the Maxidome, the Maximums are planning to deal with Batzarro when they are transported to an empty arena.  There, the Joker tells them they are to fight Batman, Batwoman, Superwoman, Superlad, Miss Miracle, and Big Bard.  In the fight, Joker shots at Batman, who is saved by Batzarro.  Joker then states that he killed himself a Batman and before the night is over, he is going to kill every Batman there ever was.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

On the one hand, this is gratuitous, over-the-top action and with McGuinness’ art anchoring the events, it is a quick, fun read and frankly on that level, this is some top notch material.  But on the other hand, the more I read (and I read these issues twice before doing the review) the more I realize that it is gratuitous, over-the-top action, but without any sort of story beyond the plot.  There are moments when Loeb tries (like Superman’s assessment about debt or Batman seeing Helena) but it falls flat because these moments are solitary without any emotional heft because there needs to be more action.  But, damn, if isn’t really, really good action. 

For the past several reviews of this storyline, I have lamented that the characters of Bizarro and Batzarro have been an extreme nuisance.  Finally, in this issue, Loeb gets to the crux of the reason he was using these characters by having Batzarro make his sacrifice.  And I found I cared little for that moment.  Because of the backward talking, because of the stupidity of the Bizarro world, I just could not care about him and therefore it did not really matter.  Personally, I think the Batwoman character would’ve been a better choice, but only if Loeb was willing to actually allow us to get to know this character rather a little bit more than we have.  Instead, Loeb is more interested in tossing everyone around into the plot generator to reach the arena for the BIG battle. 

Sadly, the ending is probably going to occur when Superman gets Mxyzptlk to say his name backwards in some fashion.  I hope Loeb comes up with something a little more ingenious, but we will have to wait and see.

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