What is this book about?

World’s Finest chronicles the first ten-years of Batman and Superman’s relationship. It starts off with Bruce Wayne (who is secretly Batman) and Clark Kent (who is secretly Superman) attending a charity function of a mutual friend who is kidnapped and held hostage. The two heroes arrive at the scene but due to their inability to work together, they are unable to save his life. From that point on, they decide to remember that day by meeting every year and working to improve their group dynamics.

Why should you read this book?

Many who would review this book would opt for the broad overview why this is an interesting book; that it’s a great portrayal of the complicated relationship between these two characters. However, I’d like to fine tune the specific portrayal that was the most interesting to me and why.

Avid Now is not the Rhyme readers know that I am a huge fan of comics; especially comics I got into when I was kid. What comic reader isn’t? Well, I suppose the difference is I might stand in the minority when I say my favorite time in comics was during Spider-man’s Clone saga, when Diana Prince was replaced with Artemis, when Ollie Queen was dead and Connor Hawke replaced him, or when Jean Paul Valley was Batman and when four different Supermen claimed to be Superman after the original died. These are the characters I remember, these are the characters I love, and these are the characters I can relate to. So it shouldn’t surprise you that my favorite issue of this book was issue number #9.

Issue #9, has two separate stories; one for when Batman goes looking to see if any of the four new Supermen is the original by seeing if they remember that they meet every year on the same day and when Superman goes looking to see if this new Batman was told by Bruce Wayne that they meet every year.

Despite the outcry of fans that hated the replacing of these heroes and declining sales from the books after; I think it was one of the smartest things DC Comics has ever done. To have fictional characters continue to live on and on and never die is absurd to me. But that is another blog post for another time…

One of the reasons why Batman and Superman work is because the writer’s change them to suit that time era. Replacing them in the 90’s drove sales and got people back into comic books. Even though it wasn’t well received it will always be remembered and people that got into comics from those books who work for these companies later will be inspired to create books and stories based on them. Much like how creators now do with stories they grew up with from the 60’s and 70’s.

Every issue from this book is great and you should totally pick it up. You can find it here. It’s a good book for someone who is thinking of getting into comics but doesn’t want to get a ton of old books just to understand the history of the characters and the book is great for any Batman & Superman fan of any era since this books spans the entire history of the two characters and picks out significant life changing events that truly shaped the character.

On a side note, if you’re interested in books similar to this, you can read my review of Batman: Turning Points which has the same concept, except the history and friendship between Batman and Gotham City’s police commissioner James Gordon is spotlighted.