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A review by captwinghead
Justice League: Gods & Monsters by Bruce Timm
3.0
So, this started out as interesting.
The first story is about the origin of Hernan, son of Zod. It details his life being raised by hispanic immigrants in the south. His father believes in the American dream but Hernan thinks he's just fooling himself. They're migrant workers and they've been asking Hernan to hide his abilities his entire life. It's clear that his family loves him, even as they sometimes fear him. Hernan is an angry character, very unlike Clark. He curses America, his family, God. It causes a rift with his family until an incident with some racist townspeople leads him to leave his family for a while. He travels the world and finds himself saving others. He doesn't appear that arrogant in this story so what happens later confuses me.
The second story is about Kirk Langstrom. I don't like the art as much in this portion but the story is decent. Kirk is the Batman counterpart but in name only, in my opinion. He doesn't really have any cool gadgets until the last story and he doesn't seem to have that same need to be alone, the way Bruce does. Kirk's a vampire because of some story we don't get that much information on. There's a plot where he befriends the son of a crime boss he killed and this ends in a way that confused me. Not only because there were several panels where I thought that character was going to make out with Kirk but because the last panel of this character was ambiguous. Anyway, Kirk's a semi sympathetic character.
The least impressive to me was Bekka, the Wonder Woman counterpart. I like that she wants to bring peace to the world, which is very Diana. I like that she was unapologetic about her sexuality. That's about it. I didn't love that the thing that set her apart from Diana was that instead of joining the humans during World War II, she enters America during the 60s and becomes a flower child. I didn't like this segway into Across the Universe and the cult storyline just bored me. The fact that it ties into the Genesis storylines sealed this book's fate.
I enjoyed the first two stories and then it was all downhill from there. I would have rather seen a lot more of these characters interacting. I have not seen the film but I have to hope it shows more of the relationships between these characters. The last half of this book is pretty much plot heavy with a few character moments thrown in. I wanted to see Kirk and Hernan meet. There was a relationship there that really interested me. I loved seeing a Batman/Superman story where Batsy is the vulnerable one and Superman the confident one. Well, aside from the Supes in Injustice, typically its Clark that feels uncertain.
So, long story short, I wanted more of the characters interacting. However, I loved the origin stories for this version of Superman and Batman. So, I recommend Justice League: Gods and Monsters - Superman #1 and Justice League: Gods and Monsters - Batman #1. That's about it.
I'll have to check out the film.
The first story is about the origin of Hernan, son of Zod. It details his life being raised by hispanic immigrants in the south. His father believes in the American dream but Hernan thinks he's just fooling himself. They're migrant workers and they've been asking Hernan to hide his abilities his entire life. It's clear that his family loves him, even as they sometimes fear him. Hernan is an angry character, very unlike Clark. He curses America, his family, God. It causes a rift with his family until an incident with some racist townspeople leads him to leave his family for a while. He travels the world and finds himself saving others. He doesn't appear that arrogant in this story so what happens later confuses me.
The second story is about Kirk Langstrom. I don't like the art as much in this portion but the story is decent. Kirk is the Batman counterpart but in name only, in my opinion. He doesn't really have any cool gadgets until the last story and he doesn't seem to have that same need to be alone, the way Bruce does. Kirk's a vampire because of some story we don't get that much information on. There's a plot where he befriends the son of a crime boss he killed and this ends in a way that confused me. Not only because there were several panels where I thought that character was going to make out with Kirk but because the last panel of this character was ambiguous. Anyway, Kirk's a semi sympathetic character.
The least impressive to me was Bekka, the Wonder Woman counterpart. I like that she wants to bring peace to the world, which is very Diana. I like that she was unapologetic about her sexuality. That's about it. I didn't love that the thing that set her apart from Diana was that instead of joining the humans during World War II, she enters America during the 60s and becomes a flower child. I didn't like this segway into Across the Universe and the cult storyline just bored me. The fact that it ties into the Genesis storylines sealed this book's fate.
I enjoyed the first two stories and then it was all downhill from there. I would have rather seen a lot more of these characters interacting. I have not seen the film but I have to hope it shows more of the relationships between these characters. The last half of this book is pretty much plot heavy with a few character moments thrown in. I wanted to see Kirk and Hernan meet. There was a relationship there that really interested me. I loved seeing a Batman/Superman story where Batsy is the vulnerable one and Superman the confident one. Well, aside from the Supes in Injustice, typically its Clark that feels uncertain.
So, long story short, I wanted more of the characters interacting. However, I loved the origin stories for this version of Superman and Batman. So, I recommend Justice League: Gods and Monsters - Superman #1 and Justice League: Gods and Monsters - Batman #1. That's about it.
I'll have to check out the film.