Future State: Batman/Superman #2: Pyg Out!!

Aside from a really weird editorial choice (it’s a timing thing) I pretty much enjoyed this issue as much as I did the first one. Writer Gene Luen Yang finishes a story that’s intricate but leaves plenty to the imagination. The thing that works best about this story is that it’s a Batman story and a Superman story, which happen to be the same story. A lot of times in Batman/Superman they both team-up to fight one villain and most of the time it gets awkward because there’s more for one of them to do than the other, while the other is left checking out a lead somewhere else that never pans out or is explained away with a throwaway line. But here, both heroes are extremely vital to the story. If you were to leave either out, you wouldn’t have a complete tale and the result wouldn’t be the same at all. In fact, it would be pretty messy. Since the Byrne Man of Steel series in the ’80s, Batman and Superman have sort of “tolerated” each other. They’re not the best of friends that they were in the Silver Age comics. Their relationship here is pretty much the same, but they’re a little closer than they are now, which is nice, hopefully, the writer of the regular series keeps that. It gets a little tiring reading a comic book that’s basically JLA meets Grumpy Old Men. 

The art here is very unique. You have breakdowns by the legendary Scott McDaniel, with finished art by Ben Oliver and Stephen Segovia. While I can’t tell which artist did certain pages, I can see Scott McDaniel’s hand all over this issue and it’s nice to have some old-school comic are back in the DC Universe. The future look of Gotham City and its tech are great. Nothing too far out, but things that will logically change in the future. A great experience, art-wise.