DC COMICS
WRITER: Michael Green
ARTISTS/COVER: Shane Davis, Matt Banning

Superman and Batman discover that the Earth is rife with Kryptonite, the substance that is fatal to Superman. So they embark on a quest to gather it all up.  This is certainly an ambitious story, particularly for writer Michael Green who has worked on the hit TV series "HEROES" but who appears to be a newcomer to comics-writing. Green does appear to be familiar with the conventions of comics. Perhaps too familiar. He opens his story with a tongue-in-cheek scene, showing how Hollywood gets the story behind superheroes wrong. But while this scene is amusing, it takes up a lot of space and makes the rest of the tale too cramped and a bit confusing. Superman and Batman's sudden determination to rid the world of Kryptonite also seems a bit odd. It would take months to clean up the planet... months that could be better served, um, fighting crime and righting wrongs. And why use Batman to help when someone more capable of heavy lifting (like say Green Lantern) would be more suitable?

But at least both Superman and Batman are depicted correctly. Their characters are well-defined and their interaction is a lot smoother, without any of the forced conflict that many writers have injected into their partnership.

The art is a strange mix of stylish and scratchy, like a more refined, improved version of Rob Leifeld. This is not such a bad thing as Leifeld did have a flair for eye-catching, dynamic scenes.

This is a good premier effort for this new creative team which shows all the potential of getting much better. Despite some flaws, this issue gets three and a half stars out of five.