Review by Frank Plowright
It’s been a long time since Marvel characters last met DC characters (or DC characters last met Marvel characters – don’t worry corporate lawyers, we’ll switch the credits for companion collection The Cosmic Kiss Caper & Other Stories). Both volumes have Deadpool meeting Batman, and Spider-Man teaming with Superman, but the accompanying shorter stories feature some more obscure ideas.
The Dead of Knight & Other Stories leads with Deadpool crashing through the windows of Wayne Manor, leading to a Batman team-up hunting down the Joker. Zeb Wells contrasts Deadpool’s non-stop patter with Batman’s sullen one-line responses, and having him meet the Joker is a treat for comparing two different types of madness. The breaking the fourth wall element for Deadpool is Wells feeding in assorted fan theories of Batman’s relationship with the Joker and others, which is the weakest element, being a little too obvious. The comedy writing’s at a higher level when Deadpool meets Commissioner Gordon. With Greg Capullo’s solid superhero art, though, not too many people will be nitpicking.
As both Marvel and DC have introduced extensive multiversal alternates in 21st century, this isn’t necessarily the core characters meeting, underlined in Chip Zdarksy and Terry Dodson’s teaming of Captain America and Wonder Woman. It occurs with Cap on the verge of assassinating Hitler during World War II and on an Earth mixing the superheroes from both companies. It’s surprisingly dry, and features the frankly creepy illustration of a young female Robin sitting on Cap’s knee.
Brad Meltzer’s idea for pairing Spider-Man and Superman is an extended clever homage to one of Spider-Man’s most iconic moments, with two trapped heroes considering their motivations. There’s minimal use of villains, with Meltzer’s greater concern being the interaction of very different people, and it’s all rather sweet. Pepe Larraz sells the action there is, and brings a naturalism to the quiet moments.
There’s a second Spider-Man/Superman meeting, but this time featuring Spider-Man Noir targeting Luthor back in the 1930s when Superman is relatively new. Dan Slott and Marcos Martín supply the period phrasing and atmosphere, but it’s slight.
Fourteen shorts feature, over half of them mixing characters from Spider-Man and Superman’s worlds, sometimes alternate versions of the heroes, and sometimes villains or supporting cast. Humberto Ramos is excellent drawing a meeting of Gwen Stacy and Lana Lang, with Joe Casey’s clever script contrasting Peter Parker with Clark Kent, and Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli’s meeting of Miles Morales with Superman also stands out. Louise Simonson and Todd Nauck throw a good surprise into Hobgoblin battling Steel, Al Ewing scores highly by mixing the legends of Thor and Shazam, and by having Rocket Raccoon as a Green Lantern.
Be warned going in that roughly a quarter of the page count of both this and the companion volume is occupied by the massive array of alternate covers for the collected comics. There’s some great art, but 25% of the book without actual comic stories is a high percentage.
Overall, this is a slightly better selection than The Cosmic Kiss Caper & Other Stories due to pretty well all the shorts hitting the spot.
