When an old and forgotten case from the league's past ends up biting them in a big bad way many years in the future, all of history will be at stake. What will happen next? Well, let's hop into the pages of Batman Superman World's Finest issue number 38, the kickoff to the brand new crossover, We Are Yesterday, and find out what happens next together, shall we?
All righty then. And so if it's been a little bit since you've read Batman Superman, basically this Mark Wade series chooses to focus on the early days, but not too early days in the famous relationship between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel. Today, Bruce and Clark are in Africa testing out a brand new state-of-the-art fighter jet, courtesy of the engineers at Wayne Enterprises.
Well, actually, they're not testing it out. Clark is writing about it for the paper. Bruce is showing off.
and Green Lantern. How Jordan is actually doing his own day job by taking this brand new scout craft for its maiden voyage. Superman says to Batman that he's surprised at him.
After all, Hal is quite the cowboy. And that's a big investment. He's in charge of flying around right now.
Batman retorts by saying, "Hey, if anything goes wrong, he can just Green Lantern his way out of it, right? And save my investment. " The punchline to this conversation being that Hal actually doesn't bring his Green Lantern ring with him when he flies.
you know, takes too much of the edge off. You know, he needs the sense of danger to be good at his gig. And that Batman would know all of this already if he didn't insist on skipping post briefs from the Justice League.
Naturally, Hal does indeed run into problems when his instruments start malfunctioning. Not due to any fault of his own, but due to interference from some secret unseen forces on the ground. The man who would be Green Lantern ends up evacuating his aircraft, though he disappears from everyone else's scanners.
And this is because poor Green Lantern ends up falling directly into the famed Gorilla City, a place you would know all about if you're a big Flash fan. It would seem that today of all days, Gorilla Grod, one of the Flash's most powerful and hated foes, is leading a massive coup to try and depose Gorilla King Solivar. And again, because this is a younger Batman and Superman, they have no actual experience with Guerilla City or Gorilla Grod.
And because of that, they end up tapping Barry Allen, the Flash, to come and assist them. As the Scarlet Speedster explains, Guerilla City is a technologically advanced wonderland many decades ahead of the rest of humanity that hides itself away behind a special cloaking device. As far as Gorilla Grod goes, he's an absolute supremacist who believes that apes are better and more intelligent than the rest of humanity who should be subjugated.
Furthermore, not only is Gorilla Grod built like a brick house and could easily rip you in half using just his gorilla strength, he also just happens to be one of the most powerful telepaths on Earth and the master of what he calls the force of mind. Now, using his ability to radiate his molecules, the Flash is able to get the world's finest inside Guerilla City. Together, the trio of heroes make short work of Guerilla Grods.
rebel gorilla army. Though they admit that this is all coming way too easily and they assume that they must have been walking into some bigger type of trap. And indeed they are.
It seems that the devious gorilla Grod was ready for a fight with Superman and as such he decided to bring on in a giant sized ringer in the form of Titano the ape with the kryptonite eyes. By god I can't remember the last time I've actually seen this wonderfully weird silver age creation in earnest. This is why Mark Wade is such a beloved elder statesman of comics.
Now, while Superman handles all of this monkey business, Batman goes to bust out Solivar and Hal. The king admits that this impromptu uprising really doesn't gel with Gro's otherwise tactical and long game nature. It's all just really sloppy and really out of nowhere, meaning that he almost certainly has a secret plan under this current plan.
And as Barry Allen fights Gorilla Grod regularly, it doesn't take him too long to figure out what exactly is going on here. It seems that Grod plans to use his telekinesis to move his own mental consciousness into the incredibly powerful body of Superman while weakened by the effects of kryptonite. And you know what?
Somewhere out there, the ultraumanite is just kicking the air and cursing out loud, thinking that he was the only gorilla who was able to try and steal people's bodies. Now, a rampaging Grod Superman ends up being a real problem for everyone, especially as that moment the military ends up showing up to try and investigate what's going on in the newly discovered Gorilla City, meaning that the heroes need to not only save the day, but also stop a fullon international incident from getting kickstarted. Now, Grod uses Superman's amazing powers to knock around his friends.
But the genius didn't seem to realize that inheriting Superman's powers also means inheriting his weaknesses, too. And because they still have Titano's amazing kryptonite vision on him, the heroes can stop Superman dead in his tracks. Though dead actually becomes quite a sticking point.
Batman uses Titano reluctantly on Superman, knowing full well that too much kryptonite could actually spell the end to the man of steel. While Solivar, on the other hand, feels that Gro and Superman's body is way too dangerous and that they need to do whatever it takes to make sure that he doesn't break containment. Thankfully, this is where Barry Allen once again ends up coming in.
absolutely clutch. He thinks fast and realizes that if he can grab Grod's empty body and phase shift through mind controlled Superman at super speed, then well, he just kind of hopes Clark can work out the whole mental thing from the inside. Yes, the science and implications on this one are absolutely insane, but we have three superheroes fighting intelligent gorillas in their super city, so just go with it.
Naturally, this crazy gamble ends up working and Superman is saved, regaining control over his body. Hell, Solivar and the rest of Guerilla City are so grateful to the Justice League for saving them, they even decide to keep Titano around in hopes that they can reverse what was done to him by mad science. Which I guess too, when we stop and think about it, retroactively explains why we don't see Titano anymore in modern stories.
With Grod defeated, he is once again put in Guerilla City Prison. only. Here's the thing.
At his absolute lowest, he ends up getting contacted by his future self, the gorilla Grod who led Inferno, aka a brand new version of the Legion of Doom, who has been duking it out with the new Justice League Unlimited in the other Mark Wade book on the shelf right now. It seems that after gaining control of Martian Manhunter's amazing mental abilities, Guerilla Grod decided to put in action a decadesl long revenge plot to bring down the league once and for all, even if it meant having to cross time and space to do it. And it's on that note right there the comic comes to a close, everyone.
And so that was Batman Superman World's finest issue number 38. And I got to say this was a damn fun issue both as a kickoff for the we are yesterday crossover and just a really solid oneandone self-contained story on its own. You know, as a work of day comic critic and consumer advocate, my work with comics often means sometimes I have to skip books that I know I would probably end up loving.
And this Batman Superman book is definitely one of those. You can just tell Wade and Mora are having as much fun working on this book as we, the reader, are actually reading it. There's also something kind of wonderful, too, about Gorilla Grod being this big bad crossover villain who has reconvened a younger version of the Legion of Doom to fight the League, especially when we stop and consider Wade's own considerable history with the Flash family of books.
So, naturally, he would pick a Flash villain to be the big bad of his new Justice League run. Beyond that, I don't really know what more there is to say about this one. It was fun.
It was exciting. The art looked great. It was a fun throwback to teamups of yestery year and it promises even more cool stuff to come in the bigger crossover.
Overall, I would give this one a very solid 8 out of 10 and I can't wait for the next JLU issue to see what happens next. Hey there everyone, it's your pal Cape Jewel again and if you're seeing my face right now, that means you watched to the end of the video and I'll always be grateful for that. Retention helps in this crazy YouTube game and so does becoming a patron.
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