DCU Comic Book Reviews

SUPERMAN/BATMAN #64

Prelude To The Big Noise

November 2009

Written by Joe Casey

Pencils by Scott Kolins

Inks by Scott Kolins

Cover by Scott Kolins

Synopsis

Several Millennia Ago…Invaders have hijacked a Kryptonian ship.  The Kryptonians attack and the two ships are on a collision course.  However, the invaders activate the Neo-Recombinant Drive, which causes it to disappear.  Some Time Ago…Batman finds the ship and decides to investigate.  He encounters Kryptonian robots, which attack.  Superman arrives to help.  When he realizes the origin of the robots, he utters a Kryptonian word that deactivates them.  Together the two search the ship.  They find the crew, who are not Kryptonian.  They also find the Kryptonian crew.  They realize the ship had been boarded and taken over by the invaders.  Superman determines the ship came from long ago, even before the time of Superman’s family.  They then find an escape pod had been used, but it wasn’t used by a crew member.  Looking around the ship, there are more questions than answers, as they wonder where the escape pod went.   

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

As I was reading, I started to get antsy and I almost put it down.  I kept wondering what the big space battle had to do with Superman and Batman.  I don’t mind a flashback to Krypton’s past, especially when it is used to set up the eventual story, but I felt the scene in this issue went on for far too long.  The interesting thing it is that it is only 6 pages.  I am not sure if that is a sign of impatience or if the unfamiliarity of the setting and the scene made me impatient (and the odd name of the other ship, The Grand Majesty Sevenfold, took a bit to understand).  However, the rest of the story was well done and I found myself intrigued by what was happening.  I liked the way Casey slowly unfolds the mystery, letting the characters explore the ship and find the clues.  Even though we know what happened to the ship, I like the way it plays, especially Superman’s reaction to learning it is Kryptonian.  It was a nice touch.  Perhaps a bit melodramatic considering the ship pre-dates Jor-el and recent events with Kandor, but it still works.  Yes, this story was all set-up, but it works because Casey is able to posit a lot of questions, not only for the reader to ponder, but also for the characters.  I am curious to see what happens and I suppose that was exactly what Casey was going for, so it worked perfectly. 

Why is Batman in space? Why is he investigating the ship?  There are probably a number of different space-related characters (either Green Lantern, for instance) that would be more suited to searching the ship than Batman.  There is no reason given why he is out there, other than the fact that he is one of the titular characters and therefore needs to be in the story. 

Why in the world would you start a story and then put it on hold for the next 3 months.  There was no way to push up the Halloween issue.  I suppose they wanted it in stores in October (with a cover date of December), but it wouldn’t hurt to have it out earlier and let it sit on the shelves before Halloween hits.  That is much better than providing a story and then asking the reader to wait 3 months before the next part of the story.  Is anyone who doesn’t read this regularly actually going to remember in 3 months when the second part comes out?

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