Batman and Superman, together again for the first time?!
Welcome, dear reader, to the world's finest double feature! Two separate sensational tales! Twice the action! Twice the thrills! You can either follow one story line to the end and then come back for the other—
—or follow both story lines simultaneously! The choice is yours!
Batman/Superman is a DC comic book that is part of DC Infinite Frontier. It is written by Gene Luen Yang, who previously wrote the DC Future State Batman/Superman miniseries. Art is by Ivan Reis, Danny Miki, and Sabine Rich.
Superman stars in "The World of Tomorrow": while Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen are covering Dr. Martha Wayne's new invention, the omni-battery, the press conference is attacked by the Unknown Wizard and Superman must save the day (and his friends), while also uncovering a mystery.
Batman and Robin star in "The World of the Knight": when the Spider Lady, the Queen of Metropolis's Underworld, tries to break out some of the inmates of Arkhan Asylum, she tells the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder that the Warden of Arkham is part of a secret society that's making the world darker and more dangerous.
In both worlds, however, the other hero doesn't exist. But what will happen... when worlds collide?
The run is seven issues long (#16-22), plus a 2021 annual, followed by the series' cancellation. Issues #16-21 form a single story arc, with the annual serving as an epilogue, while issue #22 is an unrelated one-shot story featuring Mr. Mxyzptlk. The entire run has been collected in the volume Batman/Superman: The Archive of Worlds. It is followed by Batman/Superman: World's Finest.
Tropes included in Batman/Superman (2021):
- Alternate Self: Lois Lane and the Spider Lady.
- Alternate Universe: Both "The World of Tomorrow" and "The World of the Knight" are vastly different from the main DCU (referred to as "Earth-Zero"):
- In "The World of Tomorrow", both Martha and Bruce survived the mugging in Crime Alley, but Bruce was traumatized. Twenty years later, Martha has become a genius inventor and created devices to improve the world, while Bruce can't keep a job. Also, Martha and Alfred are having an affair and Alfred appears to be using Bane's venom to stop intruders. Lex Luthor is an unknown genius, with him claiming that all of his ideas were stolen by Dr. Wayne from inside his head.
- In "The World of the Knight", a piece of Kryptonite punctured Kal-El's spaceship while in flight, so when it crashed, baby Kal-El was already dead. The Kents sold the spaceship to a private collector who then gave it to Warden Luthor of Arkham Asylum. The Daily Planet was also bombed, with everyone inside killed, and then Metropolis went to hell. Like Gotham, it is now ruled by criminal gangs... the largest of which is run by the Spider Lady, Lois Lane.
- Answer Cut: In the annual, Lois and Jimmy tell Commissioner Gordon (in the World of Tomorrow, where Batman has never existed) that Superman has asked for help with his current problem. On the last panel of the page, Gordon asks disbelievingly who Superman would ask for help; the first panel of the next page shows Batman and Robin from the World of the Knight suddenly standing behind him.
- Body Horror:
- In the World of the Knight, the warden of Arkham Asylum runs deranged experiments on the inmates, with results like a version of the Joker with extra mouths all over his body.
- In an attempt to make him strong, Martha injects her son with a serum designed to make him as powerful as Superman. He becomes “Bizarro Two-Face” as a result.
- Book Ends: Counting the Annual as the last issue of the arc, it begins and ends with issues which use creative formatting to tell simulataneous stories about the World of Tomorrow and the World of the Knight that join up at the end.
- Canon Character All Along: It seems that the Spider Lady is a repurposed serial villain. However, at the end of issue 16, it's revealed she's really that world's Lois Lane.
- Crapsaccharine World: What the World of Tomorrow actually is, extracting its undesirable elements thanks to Martha Wayne and sending them to Warden Luthor on the World of the Knight to be experimented on. The idea is to make the World of Tomorrow a utopia that Auteur.io won’t destroy, engineered by the last survivor of a world Auteur.io destroyed for not being perfect, Dr. Atom aka another alternative Lex Luthor.
- Demonic Possession: Auter.io is eventually revealed to be some sort of technological armor possessing the body of a forgotten god of stories, the son of the World Forger.
- Double-Sided Book: The Annual. Start reading from one cover, it's a story about Superman visiting the World of the Knight to defeat its version of Lex Luthor; flip it over and start reading from the other cover, and it's a story about Batman visiting the World of Tomorrow to recapture its version of Two-Face. Both stories end with Superman and Batman meeting up in a double-page spread where the panels are arranged in a spiral such that whichever direction you're reading from the panel at the top left follows on from the previous page.
- Dragon with an Agenda: Auteur.io ropes in an alternate Etrigan to do his bidding though Etrigan is angry he isn’t the “star” of his own story. Superman and Batman use this to get Etrigan to turn on Auteur.io.
- Genre Throwback: Both "The World of Tomorrow" and "The World of the Knight" are throwbacks to the The Golden Age of Comic Books, although both are set during the "present".
- Heel–Face Turn: The heroes are able to reverse the armor’s control, transforming Auteur.io into Observer.io who now just catalogs the different worlds.
- Large Ham: Auteur.io, who is responsible for both the Worlds of Tomorrow and the Knight. When Superman and Batman break into the Archive of Worlds, he narrates their actions and then berates Superman for his "flat" acting:Auteur.io: Where is your sense of drama?! Where is your awe?! Most importantly, where is your fear?! If you two amateurs can't squeeze out a drop of authentic emotion, I'll have to squeeze it for you!
- Locked into Strangeness: After the Daily Planet was bombed, when Lois Lane woke up from her coma, her hair was completely white.
- The Maker: Auteur.io, the head of the Archive of Worlds. He created both "The World of Tomorrow" and "The World of the Knight" and many other worlds. He can even pluck items from those worlds to use, like a Kryptonite ring.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Batman reveals who he is to Martha Wayne who immediately ends their plans.
- Mythology Gag:
- The Spider Lady was the name of the villain of the first Superman film serial, who was, herself, based on the Scarlet Widow from the radio dramas.
- Similarly, the Unknown Wizard is based on the Wizard, the villain from the second Batman serial.
- Doctor Atom is also based on a Superman serial villain, the Atom Man. Who was also Lex Luthor.
- When Batman ends up in the World of Tomorrow’s caverns under Wayne Manor, Lois mentions Martha Wayne which cause Batman to wonder out loud why she should say Martha’s name, similar to the famous exchange in Batman v Superman.
- Narrating the Present: Auteur.io has a penchant for providing his own hammy narration. He gets annoyed several times when Superman and Batman don't play along.Auteur.io: Superman tries to resist the deadly radiation of Auteur.io's Kryptonite ring, but it's too much for him. As for Batman? He's worse than useless! Auteur.io even turns his own weapons against him! With his last breath, Superman utters his final words...
Batman: I'm many things, Auteur.io—
Auteur.io: That's not your cue, you imbecile!
Batman: —but useless isn't one of them. [saves Superman] - Painting the Medium: The first issue has both "The World of Tomorrow" and "The World of the Knight" stories seen as if they are film strips, with the former running along the top half of each page and the latter along the bottom half... and then burns start appearing in the film strips until a hole appears and Lois from "The World of Tomorrow" falls into "The World of the Knight".
- Prima Donna Director: Auteur.io, although he isn't directing films, but worlds.
- Reality Bleed: The realities of the Worlds of Tomorrow and the Knight have places that are thinner, where there are "holes", and one person can fall into the other world. This is what happens to Lois at the end of issue 16.
- Red Herring: In issue 16, the warden of Arkham Asylum is bald, with a beard, and round spectacles, leading to the assumption that he is Hugo Strange, but in issue 17, he's revealed to be that world's Lex Luthor.
- Running Gag: Robin has trigonometry homework due. Both Alfred and Lois comment on this.
- Sequel Hook: The final page of the arc has one of Darkseid's minions bring him news of the Archive of Worlds' existence, and Darkseid beginning to ponder how he might make use of it.
- Stealth Hi/Bye:
- In issue 16, Batman and Robin steathily disappear at the end of a conversation with the warden of Arkham Asylum. He takes his glasses off and polishes them while talking and when he glances up he discovers they've disappeared on him mid-sentence.
- In the annual, Batman travels to the World of Tomorrow to help Superman with a problem. At one point he steathily appears behind Commissioner Gordon; since this version of Gordon has never dealt with Batman before, he's taken completely by surprise and does a wild take before complaining that it's impolite to sneak up on people.
- Taking You with Me: Dr. Atom blows himself up in an attempt to get revenge on Auteur.io.
- Thin Dimensional Barrier: The Worlds of Tomorrow and the Knight are both suffering from this:Spider Lady/Lois Lane: All my life, I've been haunted by this feeling that my existence has been edited. That pieces were left on the cutting room floor. And I wasn't the only one. Jimmy felt it, too. Before he died, he told me about a theory of his...that reality is thinner where things are missing—Lois Lane: —so thin you can burn a hole through it.
- Two-Headed Coin: In the Annual, Superman asks Batman to come to the World of Tomorrow and help recapture their version of Two-Face. This version of Two-Face hasn't yet settled on the gimmick of using a coin to make decisions, so Batman gives him the idea and then sneakily replaces his coin with a two-sided one that always tells him to take the less evil option.
- Wham Line: At the end of issue 16:Lois Lane: Where am I...?Batman: You. You're the Spider Lady.
- White Hair, Black Heart: The Spider Lady has white hair and runs the largest criminal gang in Metropolis. But she isn't evil, she just knows the world is wrong.
