Faster than a speeding bullet, Batman Knightcast returns to cover the next adventure of the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight Detective. This time, Chris Franklin and Ryan Daly are joined by fellow Fire and Water Network podcaster Paul Kien. Learn what happens to Superman on the operating table. Discover the mysterious and deadly new villain opposing the heroes. And what’s up with Robin and Supergirl?!! Chris, Ryan, and Paul cover Batman Superman World’s Finest #2 to find out the answers.
Plus a brand new feature: The World’s Finest Questionnaire! It’s not quite as deadly as the Riddler’s games, but it’s a lot of fun. Check it out!
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Music: “The New Batman Superman Adventures Theme” by Shirley Walker; “Just A Friend” by Biz Markie.
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Another excellent episode!
It took on a bittersweet quality at the end, when you were discussing the possibility of a Peter David run on a Batman title. Given the present-tense references to him, I’m assuming that this was recorded before his recent untimely passing. I agree that he could have done excellent work on Batman; he did write the novelization of “Batman Forever” (though I haven’t read that, so I don’t know how much of his own style he might have added to the source material), and an outstanding Penguin/Commissioner Gordon story in Showcase ’94 #7, with Batman only showing up in the last few pages. And I’m sure he must have had Batman show up for a guest appearance in some of the other DC titles he wrote, though I can’t recall for certain. It’s a tremendous missed opportunity that he didn’t write more with the character.
Thanks for writing in, Erich. Yeah, if memory and calendar serve, we recorded this episode on May 19th and Peter David died on May 24th.
I’m going to answer one of your questions you talked about writers you like to see write Batman I’ll give you a list. Now most of these a writers I’m currently reading or have read and list the book or most recent comic I read that wrote and if they have wrote a Batman comic please tell me .
1.Dana Kramer-Rolls =Star Trek Home is the Hunter
2. Roy Thomas = sub-mariner comics issue 1 a marvel 70th years special.
3 D.C. Fontana =star Trek Vulcan’s Glory
Sorry I’ve bin on a Star Trek kick .
The only other person i can think of is Stuart wood the writer not drummer from the bay city rollers .
Here’s a secret question : if a member of one of you favorite band from your childhood wrote a comic of your favorite super hero would you buy and read and who would be and what hero ?
Great idea for a series of episodes since Waid’s World’s Finest is perhaps the best DC continuing title of the last several years. Waid does an excellent job bringing in all manner of classic DC characters.
One thing that I thought was interesting is the use of the Devil Nezha. B/S World’s Finest came out almost concurrently w/ Gene Luen Yang’s Monkey Prince limited series. Monkey Prince is derived from the Chinese epic Journey to the West and Nezha is taken directly from that work as well. Given that Yang and Waid wrote the Lazarus Planet event together, I wonder if they were already talking at this point. In any event, all of that inspired my wife and I to take a deeper dive into Chinese mythology and read Journey to the West.
I was already typing out my comment when you asked the question about who you’d like to see/have seen write Batman. I was thinking to myself, “Oh Mark Gruenwald! And that’ll be someone that no one else will mention.” And then, Chris Franklin said, “Mark Gruenwald”. I’ll stick with that anyway.
And as for the closing musical track, yes, nobody beats the Biz.
I don’t have much to say about the issue(s) being discussed, I will offer a suggestion for the “What Batman story would you like to see adapted into live action?” question.
My answer would be from WORLD’S FINEST #269, where a relatively common crook managed to knock Batman out and bury him alive in a coffin. Superman goes on a frantic search to find him, but Batman has to figure it out alone, by using only his wits. I think a sequence like that in the middle of a Batman movie would be AMAZING.
Lovely to hear Paul on the show, he handled the secret questions with aplomb. And excellent, as ever, to have you back so seemingly soon, Chris and Ryan.
As regards the story, Supergirl was fantastic here, a fantastically competent heroine, and the dynamic with Robin was an unexpected delight. I loved Robin being acknowledged as a ‘trained detective’.
The creative use of Superman and Supergirl’s powers is a big bonus in this age when flight, strength and heat vision are generally the only things on the Kryptonian menu.
As out Terrible Trio noted, Waid and Mora are next level in their skills. While I’m giving out compliments, Tamra Bonvillain and Aditya Bidikar deserve praise for their sterling work on colours and letters. Bonvillain always lights for location, and the hues are especially lovely when we’re with Dick and Kara up, up in the sky, and then in ancient China. Bidikar shrinks the text to indicate whispering and goes square for Robotman’s dialogue, avoiding full-on cliched computer-font.
I reckon all the jokes about people not remembering to acknowledge Robin are nods to the old World’s Finest splash pages trumpeting ‘Your TWO favourite heroes together’ as if the Boy Wonder wasn’t there.
Well done to Rhys on spotting the symbols in the World’s Finest logo, get that lad on a show! I don’t actually like this masthead very much, why is it shiny? I loved the one just before the Bronze Age cancellation of the original series, with the spotlight.
It’s nice that Batman tells Superman to fly away from Felix Faust’s magic to stay safe, but it’s not like he’ll do any better – Superman isn’t especially susceptible to hocus-pocus, he is just as prone as anyone else – so Batman should be even more in danger, being a normal human
As regards a writer we’d like to have a crack at a Batman story, yes, Ryan, Brad Meltzer is a mystery writer. So is Max Allen Collins…
Regarding Batman being just as vulnerable to magic as Superman, someone makes that very point a couple episodes later.
Yeah these Mark Waid Worlds Finest stories are great thogh I don’t think Robin and Supergirl would last long as a couple. be more fun to see her with Wally West Kid Flash or Roy Harper Speedy. it’s too bad we didn’t get more Peter David Batman, I would like to see Jeremy Adams get a crack at Batman He writes Green Lantern and Aquaman now and also did that Scooby Doo/ Supernatural teamup. Could you guys do BATMAN 310 and 319? (the Len Wein Gentleman Ghost issues).
I’ll put those issues on the list.
Great episode.
This book is Waid at his finest, able to work with some freedom in this ‘else-when’ but staying classic in town.
Without a doubt, the Supergirl/Robin stuff in this book is top notch fun. The way she is carrying him shows just how icy the whole thing is. And I love that we get to see all the insanity they mention in a later issue.
Mora is beyond good on everything.
Loved the secret questions. And yes, a bittersweet turn with the Peter David mention. He will be missed.
Truly an episode of the world’s finest podcasters.
Robin costume: hmm, not to wash Dan Mora’s car more-a, but I really like his version of Dick’s costume in this series. It may have edged its way into my top spot. But I’m bad at ranking favorites, and the Robin costume is iconic with a great color scheme. But I must admit that using green leggings is a nice touch that I loved in Tim Drake’s first costume, so that’s still leading the flock.
Batman story for the movies: I have a soft spot for 10 Nights of the Beast, and with some tweaking, it could be a great movie. An assassin targeting high profile people in Gotham City, and it takes Batman AND Robin to stop him. Put some diversity into the supporting characters, get rid of some dated stereotypes, and it could be a winner.
Batman writer options: Gail Simone has done some Batman-adjacent series, so I’d be curious how she’d handle him as the main character. Another recent fave is Ryan North and his Fantastic Four run. Use his take on family dynamics and it’d be fun to see his Batman family.
Oh, I’m glad you guys mentions My Adventures With Superman last episode. That’s become a new favorite animated series, and extremely rewatchable. So much joy put into it.