Coo-coo for comic books
Not content with merely making the World’s Finest cereal, General Mills has teamed up with DC to put collectible Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice comics in some of your favorite morning vittles. More than simple marketing gimmicks, these four minis feature creators whose names comic fans will recognize, and self-contained stories that feature various kids relating to our favorite heroes, both in concept and in person.
You are the men and women of tomorrow
This issue revolves around Zoe, a student at Metropolis Middle School (let’s forgive Gage for naming that school as though a city as large as Metropolis would have only one middle school–it’s a pretty easy way to establish where they are without saying it outright or indicating it in an overlay), who, like Jacob from #1, finds herself on a field trip gone wrong. Her class is visiting a Wayne Enterprises office in Metropolis when a band of thieves breaks in to steal some Kryptonian weapons (leftovers from the Battle of Metropolis) currently held by Wayne for analysis. Zoe finds herself separated from the rest of the students and face-to-face with the criminals, but she is far from on her own. The Man of Steel is close by, and a certain billionaire playboy philanthropist gets involved before it’s all over.
Wayne Enterprises has a ton of top-secret projects
Up front, I’ll say that I find this to be the weakest of the four. That’s not to suggest that it’s bad, because it’s not. But it is certainly more self-aware than the others. Granted, some of that self awareness is fun, such as this foreboding bit:
But even in the clip above–specifically in the top left panel–Gage doesn’t even attempt to be artful about conveying the moral of the story. He just plops it, unclothed, in the dialogue. I don’t think it would have been surprising at this point if Bruce had sat her down on his knee and talked about how things were when he was a kid. Which, given his most obvious formative event, might be a bad idea. Anyway…
I guess there’ll be another chance to meet Superman
As in the other three books, the artwork is nice and solid. I hadn’t heard of Federico Dallocchio or Jim Charalampidis prior to reading this, but the digital collection shows that each has done a bit of work for DC, though nothing especially noteworthy at a quick glance. Here, both do a good job working with Gage’s script. Dallocchio’s layouts keep things moving nicely, and his finishes are largely attractive, though the occasional awkward pose shows up from time to time. Charalampidis avoids the plastic look of some earlier Batman v Superman tie-ins. Overall, the artwork is not top-tier, but it would work very well regularly on a monthly book. Dallocchio is a good storyteller, and I could see him doing right by one of DC’s ongoing series.
Recommended if…
- You like prizes in your cereal.
- You like comics.
- You like comic prizes in your cereal.
- You like decent, fun books with better-than-average artwork.
Overall
This may be the weak link in the chain, but it’s still an entertaining read with good artwork. If you bought some cereal and found this inside, be grateful. It is legitimately better than some of the books I’ve paid $3.99 for in the past eleven months, and if you were buying the cereal anyway, that’s a pretty good deal.
SCORE: 7/10
