Batman/Superman: World’s Finest Annual #1 // Review
Gorilla Grodd is trying to manage a very weird and convoluted plan to defeat Earth’s greatest heroes. He’s going to have to work in the shadows with some of the most dangerous criminals in the DC Universe. Time travel will be employed. What could possibly go wrong? The writing team of Christopher Cantwell and Mark Waid continues a long walk with Grodd in Batman/Superman: World’s Finest Annual #1. The story makes it to page and panel courtesy of artist Dan McDaid and colorist John Kalisz. Waid and Cantwell weave a very complex story in and around a LOT of DC Universe machinery to tell a surprisingly coherent third chapter in the “We Are Yesterday” storyline.
The plan involves heading into the past in order to destroy a whole bunch of time travel devices. This is going to involve getting a whole lot of attention from a whole lot of different heroes. Naturally, Grodd is going to have to slam together many different deranged dynamics as he employs The Joker, Sinestro, Lex Luthor, Bizarro and the rest of the Legion of Doom. Grodd’s plans just might come together if he can keep everything from falling apart completely before it comes to a close.
Cantwell and Waid have an impressive mastery of all of the different elements that Grodd is bringing into his scheme. The problem with any plot of this level of complexity IS that its ultimately going to underestimate the tactical and psychological complexity of everyone involved. The Joker alone would be a force of chaos strong enough to take control of Grodd’s plan and take it in some kind of insane direction. Throw-in a formidable instinct-driven hnter like The Cheetah and just about everyone else in the team and it feels absurdly unlikely that Grodd would have been able to make something like this work as well as it appears to do in the course of this issue. It’s kind of fun to read, though.
Though there IS an almost breathtaking range of different emotions and personalities rendered for the page by the art team. it the rendering feels a bit sloppy and gloopy around the edges of the panels. The style DOES find its spaces and places to work quite well, however. A scene involving Plastic Man works particularly well with the art style in question. And the classic renderings of Batman and Superman fit quite well on the page too.
Cantwell and Waid have some fun with a 20th century version of Batman and Superman. It’s nice to see the classic image of Wonder Woman making an appearance as well. McDaid might have met with a bit more success in conjuring the images if he would have followed the classic DC Stylebook rendering of José Luis García-López. His style fits the overall mood and atmosphere of the script more or less perfectly.
