Bat-Vember #2: The World's Finest Superheroes

Coming up quick on the release of Warner Bros. soft Superman sequel with "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" and among the images released thus far from the film, this was one that piqued my curiosity to recreate in a figure format.

Post-Crisis (that is, all events after 1986) history of DC Comics has it that Batman and Superman have always had an uneasy and shaky alliance, even while being teammates on the Justice League. In one of the issues of John Byrne's reboot of Superman's early days, "The Man of Steel", Clark has it in his mind he wants to bring in the vigilante known as the Batman, in order to assert his idealistic belief that heroes shouldn't have to hide in the shadows. Of course, being the post-Crisis version of Batman and the post-Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns/Year One Batman, Bruce has many other plans in place to keep from being underneath Clark's red boot. The issue is still a good one, but a long way from the chummy friendship DC's two flagship characters had had in years past, where their teamups in the pages of the anthology "World's Finest Comics" had been that title's biggest draw. Now, in the dawn of the grim and gritty age of the Modern Era, Batman was sure enough to try and crack Superman's jaw (as he did during the Death in the Family storyline, where Superman was dispatched to rein in an angry Batman so that he would not try and disrupt the diplomatic immunity that the Joker received as an emissary from Iran...one of those things DC wants you to forget that the Joker involved himself in).

Mark Waid and Alex Ross delved a little deeper into understanding the nature of the two's Post-Crisis relationship, where Bruce chastises Clark for abandoning the rest of the world when he couldn't confront the changes around him. But, Clark displays the one thing that has often made him slightly above par with Batman, and that was wisdom, particularly when he makes it clear that despite all the differences he and Bruce had over the years the one thing they both had in common was that they did not want to see lives needlessly wasted. Something that made them "...the world's finest team".

Seeing how that relationship will unfold will be the crux of Dawn of Justice, I feel, because while you could tell a JLA story without Batman or Superman at the helm (DC did it for decades when one or the other or sometimes neither were on the team) their relationship and approach to justice will be at the emotional core, displaying whether or not being out in the open or hiding in the darkness will be the true course of action in the burgeoning age of superheroes in DC's Cinematic Universe.