Batman/Superman #11 discussion thread: return of the Phantom King!

[Superlad93]

Ladies and gentlemen mr. Greg Pak!! The man literally explains almost every question we had in this thread (the steel thing, the idea of the Zone, Doomsday, what happened to the zone among other thing) and still manages to tell a damn good story with no retcons (from what I can tell) of the Morrison run. And to top it all off he links everything to his Action run and builds on it. Oh yeah AND he brings back the freakin Phantom King Xa-Du, my favorite new villain of the new 52. Oh yeah AND he tell on hell of a story to boot!

I'm speechless. I really didn't see it being this freakin good. The only thing missing was that sweat sweat Lee art if I had to say something. I imagine Morrison off somewhere reading this book (along with all of Pak's Superman) and nodding in approval.

In Pak we trust

[DochaDocha]

I tend to think the book's art was better served for having Kerschl, Derenick, and Sampere.

Now exactly how did Jimmmy Olsen manage to take that picture at that moment? Maybe he's freakin' DC's Spider-man...

I had to read it twice to get a better appreciation of it. Really good stuff. I used to joke that the best DCAU Superman stories were the ones in which they talk about Superman, but Superman wasn't actually featured (because for some reason, they had trouble actively portraying Superman as great as opposed to talking him up...). This issue kind of reminded me of that, but I mean that purely as a compliment, with no backhand. Batman's our lone narrator, and it works great. It really gives a reminder to the reader why Superman is awesome.

Most of all, though, I think Pak is doing better with Morrison's ideas than Morrison did himself. I might do an about-face at the end of this run, but so far Doomed has been pleasant to read.

[Auguste Dupin]

Ladies and gentlemen mr. Greg Pak!! The man literally explains almost every question we had in this thread (the steel thing, the idea of the Zone, Doomsday, what happened to the zone among other thing) and still manages to tell a damn good story with no retcons (from what I can tell) of the Morrison run. And to top it all off he links everything to his Action run and builds on it. Oh yeah AND he brings back the freakin Phantom King Xa-Du, my favorite new villain of the new 52. Oh yeah AND he tell on hell of a story to boot!

I'm speechless. I really didn't see it being this freakin good. The only thing missing was that sweat sweat Lee art if I had to say something. I imagine Morrison off somewhere reading this book (along with all of Pak's Superman) and nodding in approval.

In Pak we trust

Yeah, Xa-Du is surprisingly awesome. In this issue, he really felt like a magnificent bastard.
And that issue was rad, man.

[devinofthedead]

Well with this issue, it confirms what I already knew. Greg Pak is the man. The Superman! They are making Doomed a very good event so far. DC has like 3 or 4 events going on right now, and they are all good. The Phantom Zone must be freezing over. Can't wait til The next chapter!

[Sacred Knight]

Loved not only using Xa-Du, but actually making him a character of utmost importance as he's actually one of the guys who made this possible.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Yeah, Xa-Du is surprisingly awesome. In this issue, he really felt like a magnificent bastard.
And that issue was rad, man.

Xa-Du has always been awesome, man.

[Auguste Dupin]

Xa-Du has always been awesome, man.

I know, but I didn't expect other writers to do him that much justice (well, I didn't expect them to use him at all).
But here.....man, screw Zod, screw Doomsday, that guy should be the bad guy in the next Superman crossover.

[Prime]

I wonder if he will use Nimrod as well. Even though he was Kraven 2.0. But it was a pleasant experience seeing Xa-Du.

[Batman Forever]

What's with the cereal box art? Where does DC find these guys? This is supposed to be one of their top-tier titles. It's unacceptable, especially considering how expensive comics are.

I don't know if this is the first time they've shown steel's new costume, but it's the first time I've seen it, and to see it drawn so poorly makes me feel like I haven't really seen it yet.

[Robotman]

Yeah I wasn't really excited about this whole storyline but Pak and Charles Soule are both so damn good that now I'm totally invested in this event.

[L.R Johansson]

I'm going to agree that Soule and Pak did an excellent job. =) Great story!

The art did have some weaknesses at times tho'... felt like some of the panels were straight out of the PRE-90's, circa 1989, before more advanced styles came into vogue.

It kinda' didn't jig with the script, because the script in no way had that old-school feel, it definitely had a more modern feel to it, than the art.

[K. Jones]

I thought the art wasn't my favorite, but that's not to say it's bad. Like, it was decent. Satisfactory. Capable. Whatever. It told the story, had some interesting frames, good splashes, nothing was terrible. Better than workmanlike, but worse than "really sharp".

Story was aces, though. A headlong dive right back into the first 18 issues of Action Comics. And in those heady "5 Years Ago" waters, Morrison had beats for "early Batman" and "early Wonder Woman" and how they thought of Superman, and they seem to come into play with a story like Doomed (albeit with the moderately interesting baggage of more recent constructs like the SuperWonder relationship). Steel, too. Steel, obviously a big factor in Morrison's Action run. Seeing him in a bit more of a full-fledged Steel armor actually had me do a flashback to Action # 9, "Curse of Superman", and the Black Justice League, where Batman is the token white guy, just because that's the last time we saw "STEEL", not "proto-Steel". In a parallel universe. It's about time he upgraded to full superhero status.

The Phantom King is epic. I honestly never saw it coming that he might be linked to The Tower's whole ghosty ghost dynamic. I mean the groundwork was already there - it was mega-mystic Phantom Stranger who guided Superman into Xa-Du's domain and rescued Krypto, all while touting that Kryptonian hyper-technology and surreal earth magic aren't actually particularly different from one another. There's no difference between being literally and figuratively "trapped as a ghost".

I also remember reading the preview and thinking "Mongul showing up again already? Seems a bit early, no?" but I've realized in the interim that all the Phantom Zone stuff Pak did, sending War World and Mongul into the Zone, was actually setting up this storyline, to an extent. I'm curious how the plan changed to go with Doomed, because it all feels very well planned and coordinated.

If I could change one thing about this issue it would merely have been to have Travel Foreman pencil it so it was more of a sort of sequel to "Ghost in the Fortress of Solitude". But that's just me putting on my wishing cap.

[Bruce Wayne]

What's with the cereal box art? Where does DC find these guys? This is supposed to be one of their top-tier titles. It's unacceptable, especially considering how expensive comics are.

One of the problems I believe with the particular set of editors that Pak has ended up with on Batman/Superman is 1) a propensity on using multiple fill-in artists on a book giving it the cereal box art look you are talking about such as in Pak's first B/S story and 2) being too overly fond with inter-book crossovers. I think it would have worked better if they had only used two sets of artists, one for the scenes outside the Phantom Zone and one for all the scenes within the Phantom Zone.

[Krypto]

It was also said somewhere that this was a tight squeeze in the schedule because it was a last minute addition to the Doomed event as we know issue 11 was supposed to be something else. This might of caused the art to suffer a bit. Still though a thoroughly enjoyable issue.

[Bruce Wayne]

What was the original solicited story?