Let’s celebrate that special occasion while also celebrating the 20th anniversary of the best ongoing Superman and Batman team-up title from the modern age of comics, Superman/Batman!
Check out the issues and discussion prompts below.
Writer Jeph Loeb was a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost among many others. He has a long career in comics and is well known for his extensive use of narration boxes to reveal the inner thoughts of characters. What are your thoughts on Jeph Loeb’s use of dual-narration in showing both and ’s points of view throughout the story?
Artist Ed McGuinness is well known for his work on Deadpool, Hulk and many more across various comic companies. What are your thoughts on his art style and how he conveys motion and emotion?
Obviously a lot is being set up with these first two issues, some of which won’t pay off until much later. What do you think about the character motivations so far and our mystery guest from the future?
We get some great special appearances by some of our favorite and not as well known villains in issue #3. Can you identify some of the more obscure villains?
We are also treated to some epic fight scenes in both issues! Do you think they accurately portray each character’s abilities?
Even though the heroes suspect Luthor is up to no good, should they have broken into the White House? If they had rescued & (enemies of the state) would that have made them all accomplices and complicated things further? Does this in a way validate Luthor’s concerns with super powered individuals?
and have been friends since the beginning of their careers and although they have had some rough disagreements over the 83 years, they remain close like brothers. What do you think about this iteration of their relationship as opposed to others you are familiar with? What do you think about our two heavy hitters sharing the same title?
Not to overhype the series, but Superman/Batman is pretty much the best ongoing DC has published over the last 20 years…and you bet your cape I’m biased in that opinion.
You will love it @JusKris-El! It’s one of my all time favorites and the first time I actually bought an omnibus! And that’s after years of collecting all the trades! The animated movies are also fantastic!
While I am a huge fan of this run, particularly the first omnibus collection, the quality varied as the run went along. And while I am not a fan of the main mystery and some other aspects of the written story, I really enjoyed the art of the ten issue, essentially AU run limited run from 1999-2000 by Karl Kesel and I’m sad it’s not ever been released digitally nor has been collected in print, so many post Bronze Age readers are not at all familiar with it.
That said, I would place the 1990 three issue mini-series as the top, as far as a series run goes, unless we break it down, then the Public Enemies collection and even the one shot AU annual from that run, would place higher! I always felt that an adaptation of this 1990 mini-series, or Wagner’s Trinity mini-series, would have made far better movie, than what we got, in the sad nonsense that was BvS:
It makes me giddy how well Loeb writes their internal thoughts against each other. It’s just so fun to read their thoughts either contrasting or aligning depending on the situation. By far, that’s my favorite part of these issues!
I still perfectly remember going into the comic store and picking up the third print of #1, along with #s 2 and 3 in early November of '03.
Superman/Batman is what got me into back into comics after a three year break and it also made me a regular of the comic store I started with the series at for 8 years, until they closed in '11.
nice I didn’t really start reading comics a lot till after it was finished and I’m kind of glad it worked out that why if I had known about them making batman and superman not friends in the 90s while it was still going on it might have put me off comics at least the new ones forever
Do you have a favorite creative team or story arc from the series?
My favorite team was Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner, so you know my favorite arc is The Return of the Supergirl from Krypton (“Supergirl” for short).
Superman/Batman’s initial arc, Public Enemies, is my second-favorite of the series. It has a lot of swell moments and the Ed McGuinness art is just fantastic and then some.
I liked Superman/Batman: The Search for Kryptonite best and the annuals the tie in for batmans death was great I also liked there halloween issues and I’m still disappointed we never got superman batman Absolute Power as a movie as well
That’s a good one. I was quite a fan of it when it was coming out in singles.
You’d have thought Absolute Power would have had a movie, wouldn’t you?
It has Superman, Batman, Ra’s and the LOSH. All the prime ingredients for a solid flick, since the arc was solid.
Fun Fact: Absolute Power was the first arc I read once I got back into single issues after a year-long break from them from spring '04 to spring '05, as I was focused on trade-only reading then (you bet your bottom dollar that I bought the hardcovers of Public Enemies and Supergirl during that trade-only phase and as they came out, of course ).
I’d still like a movie based on that arc, but only if the character designs mirrored Carlos Pacheco’s artwork, so as to continue the comics to screen foundation set by Public Enemies and carried on by Apocalypse.
Yes! I love when they basically animate the artwork! I wonder with AI if that’s more feasible now. The artist is question could just dump their work in to create the characters that would then be animated CGI style. (That’s my super uneducated knowledge of AI assisted animation ) Maybe that’s a healthy use of AI with artist input and collaboration rather than just stealing human effort.
I’m kinda surprised they didn’t continue with producing more storylines from this series. It seemed like the first two were successful. Do you have any behind the scenes info on that Vroom? I think shortly after Apocalypse came out they started with the new 52 stuff so maybe that’s it, a change in direction. I would also love to see Superman for All Seasons animated
Its always been feasible. The DC Universe Original Animated Movie line just veered away from that idea as time went on, unfortunately.
I enjoyed the Hush movie we got, but I would have loved it if it had looked just like Jim Lee’s art.
Same, especially Absolute Power, since it came out when Superman/Batman was still DC’s big book.
You would think WB Animation would have at least adapted the arcs from when the series was a major seller and had a big audience wanting to see adaptations of the stories from that sales window.
Unfortunately, no. The Superman/Batman movies came and went after I did my side gig time with Warner Home Video (as Warner Brothers Home Entertainment was known then).
Apocalypse was released in 2010, while The New 52 debuted in 2011 and its first movie, Justice League War, debuted in 2014.
When it debuted in the comics, it is indeed possible someone at WHV said “We should focus on this New 52 thing at some point in the animated movie line.”, as it definitely did become a major focus of their DTV output from '14 onward and could have pushed future Superman/Batman sequels off the development table.
SN: Imagine how cool War would have been if it also looked like Lee’s artwork.
You and me both.
I bet James Gunn would too, since he’s said For All Seasons was a major influence on Superman: Legacy.
If he can flex his muscle and get WB Animation to produce a For All Seasons movie in '25 as a tie-in to Legacy’s theatrical or home video release, I would absolutely support the piece…especially if it mirrored Tim Sale’s artwork, which would be a great tribute to the legendary Mr. Sale and his legacy.
I think sometimes they choose art that is easier to animate. I remember hearing Bruce Timm talk about that when designing characters. But that was in the 90’s with traditional animation. I’m thinking with some of the really interesting new styles coming out lately in movies at least, that we’re probably at a point where anything is possible and won’t bankrupt your company lol
and 
’s points of view throughout the story?
heavy hitters sharing the same title?
Ultra 
