Future State - Top Ten: #8. Batman/Superman

 

Writer: Gene Luen Yang

Artist: Ben Oliver

As far as I’m concerned, it seems overly difficult to find a good Batman/Superman comic. The modern gold standard is still the original, Jeph Loeb’s, which achieved its magic by relying heavily on dueling caption narrative. Of course, DC has kept a team-up title going (switching the order of the names, as Batman has once again supplanted Superman in popularity, beginning with with a Loeb comic; I still have no idea how idiot fans managed to convince themselves he’s a bad writer, which of course happened over at Marvel) ever since. No one has seriously challenged Loeb’s work.

Until Gene Luen Yang.

Yang is one of the greats working in superhero comics at the moment. He spent a bunch of time hiding in New Super-Man (the Chinese Superman), and then took over Jeff Lemire’s Terrifics, before getting this Future State assignment.

Yang always knows how to keep things lively. A lot of writers get caught up in tropes, unable to personalize them, so that a superhero comic is just a superhero comic, or try desperately to make it stand out (some succeed, some are just desperate, and only “succeed” because of equally desperate fans). Yang might be able to break off from that because he’s the rare superhero comics writer whose knowledge base isn’t totally superhero comics themselves. Yang made his name writing graphic novels translating his Chinese-American and Chinese heritage. As such he’s aware of the need to adapt rather than simply write. The result, as I’ve encountered it is a style that’s both familiar and distinctive.

His Batman/Superman is a friendship (a friendship) presented in dialogue. They aren’t rivals. It’s not secretly Batman humoring or condescending to Superman, as writers can sometimes slip into. It’s bona fide mutual respect. (Too often in superhero comics, writers will allow the popular status of a character define how they’re presented rather than depict a dynamic, engaging personality.)

With that as a base, Yang also unfolds an actual story involving a father and son caught up in Professor Pyg’s latest scheme, which also ties in with the early days of the Magistrate era that plays out in the Batman titles elsewhere in Future State. Being tangential to that arc, Yang’s story is free to do as it pleases, and also serves as an object lesson in what the other creators might have achieved had they considered their options.

The result is perhaps the Future State comic with the lowest profile but perhaps highest return on investment. Yang has since graduated to the main title, with his innovative approach wowing unsuspecting readers in his first issue, which I skipped (but corrected by the second).