Noteworthy Issues: Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #7 (September, 2022)

As near as I can make out, the next storyarc for the Batman/Superman: World’s Finest series asks about whether or not Superman ever had a kid sidekick like so many other DC heroes.

This series is set an unspecified amount of time in the past, so who knows what that might mean?

 Issue:  Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #7, September 2022

Writer:  Mark Waid

Artist:  Dan Mora

The Plot:  The World’s Finest pair discover a boy, the last survivor of his world.

Commentary:  Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman famously retold Superman’s origin story with only about twelve words.  It was basic, powerful, and it really worked.  This issue seems to do the same thing with most of those same words as a pair of scientist parents send their only son away from a doomed planet.  The only issue is this doomed planet is Earth, the place being Gotham City, and it’s a parallel reality and not another planet in the same universe as the main book.  Oh, and the lone survivor is a teeanger about Robin’s age named David Sikela.  His ship comes through and he’s found by Batman and Superman, working individually, before the military can at least try to shoot him down.

David, a true orphan twice over (it’s not as complicated as it sounds), has some superpowers he can’t really control as a result of his crossing, and while Batman certainly has experience raising orphaned kids, this one may be more of a job for Superman.

So far, this storyarc retains this series’s zippy Silver Age feel.  Superman takes David to the bottled city of Kandor to run some tests, and Robin brings in some more guest stars to help David adjust to his new life as a superpowered orphan.  It sure does have that Silver Age feel without resorting to Silver Age style storytelling.  That said, given this series is set in the past, Superman’s sidekick probably has some sort of dark future, and an ominous epilogue certainly does point in that general direction.  David is already probably a little psychologically shaken given his circumstances, so a threat is there even if David seems to be someone who currently would be more accidentally harmful than anything else.  This looks to be interesting going forward, even if the promise of Superman’s sidekick does imply a tragic story when all is said and done.

Grade:  A-