Batman/Superman #9 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Greg Pak
Art By: Jae Lee
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 23, 2014

Fighting And Punching, That Is All

So it's finally out, the issue that I've been waiting for for two months.  Now I wrote a small article about this issue being part 3 of First Contact, and the fact that part 4 came out a month ago totally ruined my day.  So even though the conclusion has been out, I refused to read it until this issue hit the shelves.  So I'm going in fresh, and then after this I'll be reviewing Worlds' Finest #21 so we get the end of this story the way it was meant to be read.  So with that out of the way let's talk about what happened in Worlds' Finest #20.  It looks like Superman now has the nanite problem that Power Girl had for many months, and before his powers become a problem Batman gives him a kryptonite ring to keep his powers at bay.  So Batman and Power Girl infiltrate New Gammora to find out what Kaizen is up to, and it appears he's the one behind the nanites, he also made some Kryptonian human hybrids, and is opening a portal to Earth 2.  Got all that?  Good let's jump into this issue and see where the nonsense goes.

Explain It!:

We start the issue with Superman calling Toy Master up a day before our issue here, and looking to see if he'll air drop something for him, it's all pretty vague but Superman's powers are getting out of control way faster than Power Girl's when she had this problem.  So Toy Master says fine, and we move on to the present time.  Huntress has to take down some New Gammora soldiers when they try to take away Superman's Kryptonite necklace.  Wait wasn't it a kryptonite ring before?  Does Batman have a whole compartment of K jewelry ready to go?  Shenanigans.  But the necklace is taken away, and on top of Superman's powers going nuts immediately, the nanites also make him go temporarily insane and he almost kills Huntress.  Yeah I really don't get it.  At least Superman gets control of himself long enough to take the necklace back from Helena, and all is well for the time being.  Let's go check in on Power Girl and Batman and see how their fight with the human/kryptonian hybrids is going.

Well there's a lot of punching going on, and Power Girl thinking that Batman can't handle these bad guys.  So since there isn't a lot for Batman to do it's time for him to have a strange revelation that Superman and him had met their Earth 2 counter parts even though there isn't a real explanation on why he remembers this.  While that's going on Kaizen turns on his universal bridge.  Well lucky for us Toy Master's delivery service shows up, and drops off a containment Superman suit that he developed for people to where on a off planet amusement park.  This suit will allow Superman to cut off the signal to his nanites, and be the savior this issue needs.  Superman and Huntress bust into the complex, and Superman attempts to envelop the portal with his suit to shut it down.  The suit can't do this, and breaks apart but luckily the energy that was put out shut down the nanites inside Superman so it's all very clean and convenient.  

In the end Superman and Batman talk about their time they shouldn't remember on Earth 2, and Huntress and Power Girl look across the universal bridge to a world they don't recognize anymore.  But the question I have is, where the hell did Kaizen Gammora go?  I guess they beat all the monsters he made but what, he turned on the machine and escaped?  Some more bitching, I know I'm in the minority here but I really don't like Jae Lee's art style.  I'm constantly confused by what I'm seeing, the backgrounds are devoid of any substance, and the characters not wearing masks just looks like weird pig baby creatures.  I'm probably going to catch hell for it, but I really wish another artist would take over this book.  The conclusion to this story will be reviewed right after this, and hopefully it's better, but at this point I doubt it.

Bits and Pieces:

There is no consistency to this story, and it seems that whatever they feel like throwing in they do with no regard to previous issues, and previous continuity.  For the majority of this issue Superman wears a Kryptonite necklace and it simply takes away his powers.  Since when does Kryptonite not kill the big blue boy scout?  Just very confusing, and speaking of confusing I don't think I'll ever be able to get behind Jae Lee's art, while a panel might be nice to look at it never will be able to convey a story to me that doesn't seem erratic and missing pieces.  I was really looking forward to the First Contact story line, but at this point it might be the weakest story the New 52 has put out.

2/10