Batman and Superman have been at the center of the some of the greatest comic book titles in DC Comics’ long history, but one of the best DC has ever produced remains the World’s Finest’s team-up book Superman/Batman. The Man of Steel and the Dark Knight have frequently joined forces as a duo in the comics, most notably in the World’s Finest Comics series that ran from 1941 to 1986, which earned the two heroes their collective nickname of the World’s Finest, with the two also acting as leaders of the Justice League throughout their superhero tenure. Superman/Batman would subsequently bring the pair together for regular adventures as a team, with DC first launching the book in 2003. Superman/Batman ran until 2011 for 87 issues, along with five special stories known as annuals.
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While Superman and Batman have both remained staples of all DC media ever since, Superman/Batman really stands as a highlight comic book for both characters. Not only did Superman/Batman give comic book readers an engaging 21st century spin on the World’s Finest concept, the general template of the book itself really delved heavily into the essence of Superman and Batman both as individual heroes and as a duo.
Superman/Batman Excelled As A World’s Finest Book
The shorthand term for Superman and Batman as a duo of the World’s Finest accords an obvious level of reverence to the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight as the world’s first two superheroes and the ones who set the example for all others who followed them. Superman/Batman had a particularly strong grasp on World’s Finest storytelling. The biggest reason lies in how much it saw Superman and Batman as kindred spirits, and even brothers in some ways.
Every Superman/Batman story captured both hero’s individual perspectives and roles in the story with their internal thought monologues, with Batman and Superman’s individual thoughts frequently running in tandem with each other to open or close a story, or even do both. What’s more, Superman/Batman knew what it had in terms of the unique style of teamwork the two heroes would implement as the leaders of the Justice League and DC’s community of superheroes. It’s easy for many World’s Finest stories to fall into the trap of portraying their alliance as boiling down to “Batman = brains, Superman = brawn”, but Superman/Batman always showed there was a far greater depth to their partnership, with each hero bringing a variety physical and mental skills to the table along with a different perspective on the world and humanity that proved essential to their individual and collective work as superheroes. Few World’s Finest books or stories have consistently gone as far beneath the surface and into the heart of the duo’s sworn alliance as Superman/Batman always did.
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Superman/Batman Pulled Off The Same Trick As An Elseworlds Story (Without Overtly Being One)
Another side of Superman/Batman that makes it a stand-out DC comic is how much the book itself tells a standalone story. In the comic book world, DC is truly the king of the multiverse, with countless parallel realities existing alongside the mainline DC continuity, typically referred to as “Elseworlds” stories. DC stories like Kingdom Come, Injustice, The Dark Knight Returns, DC’s Earth One graphic novels, and DC’s new Absolute Universe line all fall into the category of being Elseworlds tales. Superman/Batman itself arguably meets the qualifications of being classified as a DC Elseworlds book.
The stories told within Superman/Batman did not feed directly into the primary DC Comics continuity, which was very much to the benefit of the book as a whole. The advantage of the multiverse and Elseworlds stories lies in allowing different storytellers to present radically different takes on DC’s core characters without any one continuity, story, or universe overriding the other (which also gives the reader themselves great freedom in effectively being able to choose their own set of DC stories or continuities as the one they primarily follow.) In keeping DC’s main comic book continuity at arm’s length, Superman/Batman consistently had great freedom to chart its own path, and it also delivered on the Elseworlds concept without ever explicitly being declared an Elseworlds DC comic. Readers flipping through the pages of Superman/Batman can essentially decide for themselves where the title fits among the infinite Earths of DC, or whether that even matters to them at all, adding to Superman/Batman‘s legacy as a DC comic that epitomizes standing alone and a unity of two heroes simultaneously.
Superman/Batman Told Some Unforgettable World’s Finest Stories
The concept of Superman/Batman provided a great foundation for writers and artists to work within, and the book itself produced some of the greatest and most enduring World’s Finest stories in DC history. One of the biggest stand-outs is Super/Bat, which answered the age-old question of what would happen if Superman lost his powers with Batman taking them on. True to Superman/Batman‘s theme of deconstructing the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight side-by-side, Super/Bat is one a phenomenal four-part story that remains one of the title’s biggest highlights.
Other stories in the Superman/Batman highlight reel include Absolute Power (in which the time-traveling Legion of Super-Villains wipe out all other heroes and raise the young Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne to become humanities rulers), With a Vengeance! (which builds upon the bargain Batman was forced to make with Darkseid to undo the Legion of Super-Villains alterations to history), K (in which Superman and Batman try to rid Earth of all Kryptonite), and issue #50’s The Fathers (which reveals that Superman’s Kryptonian father Jor-El selected Earth as his son’s destination after speaking to Thomas Wayne through a holographic probe sent to Earth, with Wayne then using said probe to develop new technology for Wayne Enterprises that Bruce Wayne later adapts to fight crime as Batman.)
In each of its best stories, Superman/Batman went far beyond simply making its two heroes into partners, but actively interwove their roles and individual stories together in a way that shows how deep their alliance runs in the DNA of DC. Simply bringing Superman and Batman together on a shared mission has led to the creation of many enduring World’s Finest stories. Operating from that foundation, Superman/Batman always went the extra mile in delving into what makes the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight tick as solo heroes and as a team, which spawned many great comic book stories with the duo and made Superman/Batman into one of the best comic book titles in DC history.
