Throwback Thursday: Batman/Superman #4 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Greg Pak
Art By: Jae Lee, Ben Oliver
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 16, 2013

Here is a review from Eric for Throwback Thursday.  It features Deathstroke and also, if I don't feature at least one review from America's Sweetheart, he gets grumpy!  Enjoy...

Wishing Crystal, Grant Me a Mind Wipe

When last we saw our heroes, and our heroes from another Earth.  We find out that the government has found a wishing crystal, well it's a crystal that does whatever you want it to do.  So the government wants to use it to make a weapon to kill Superman.  And off we go.

Explain It!:

We start out with Earth 2 Superman, and Batman, taking down the two guys that control the weapon.  One of them being a Earth 2 Deathstroke.  Then we spend most of the issue with the two sets of heroes arguing about who deserves the crystal, that will save their world from this Darkseid monster they heard about.  Well the Earth 2 set want to destroy the crystal, because their heroes, and no one should have that kind of power.  Now our heroes being the younger versions are not as experienced as the others, and make rash decisions.  So of course a fight breaks out.

So our guys get some lucky shots in and grab the crystal, and it gives them exactly what they want.  Superman creates zombies of his dead parents, and Batman starts turning into a bat.  Yep our beloved heroes are fucked up.  Hopefully they'll grow out of it.

During the commotion of dead parents, and lycanthrobats, Deathstroke gets back to the machine and zaps Superman Earth 2.  He gets shot in space, and during this time Catwoman and Lois Lane are crashing a plane (yeah some other stuff was going on with them, but I can't hold your hand through the whole story)  So our Superman has to go out and save them, and end up flying for the first time.  Back to the Superman getting shot into space, that Supes uses a Waynetech satellite to bounce the energy back destroying the crystal.

In the end we find out that this was all a test by the Trickster Goddess to see what heroes had the strength to claim the crystal for themselves and destroy Darkseid when he invaded.  Both lost the test and what is the booby prize?  Mind wipes, and all is put back the way it was supposed to be our heroes on our earth, and the Earth 2 heroes none the wiser.

Bits and Pieces:

This was an alright book.  That's it.  We're given the first adventure of Batman and Superman, but in the end the story does nothing.  How many times in our lives do we have to have something immediately not count because of a mind wipe?  The artwork is good, it's just not for me, everything in these first four issues seemed like something out of Tim Burton's nightmares.  I can't wait until next month when Brett Booth takes over.  But all bitching aside, like I said this is an alright book.  I love the interactions between the parallel versions of our heroes, and the fact that the villain of the story will continue in some extent.  But the first story arc was fun, so go check it out.

6.8/10