Batman/Superman: World’s Finest vol. 7 — Total Eclipso

It’s a new era for the “World’s Finest” team-up title as Adrian Gutierrez takes over from regular artist Dan Mora.  Jumping onto a title that was illustrated by one of the best artists in comics is a difficult thing, but the new guy isn’t bad.  Gutierrez’s art does have a squirrelly look to its linework, but he brings lots of energy to this story about Eclipso’s return and sells its big moments pretty well.  Which is a good thing because big moments (and guest stars) is all this three-part arc has going for it.  Writer Mark Waid wastes no time in getting to the action, but at the end of the day this is just another story where Eclipso shows up, corrupts the good guys, they shake it off, and defeat him in the end.  Definitely not a high point in this title’s run.

What follows is better, as we get a team-up doubleheader as the disappearance of Superman, Batman, and Robin forces a titanic team-up not just between Batgirl and Jimmy Olsen (with his Elastic Lad powers) but Krypto the Super-Pup and Ace the Bat-Hound as well.  It’s as fun as it sounds, and features some appealingly distinct painted art from Fran Galan.  We also get the “Green Lantern/Green Arrow:  World’s Finest Special #1” from writer Jeremy Adams which features two stories with quality art from Lucas Meyer and Travis Mercer.  Adams has the titular heroes doing some good back-and-forth bantering early on, which gets you invested in their friendship before things start blowing up.  I didn’t care much for the deep-cut continuity nod at the end, but the “Special” as a whole still managed to be better than what I was expecting.