STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: COMICS/GRAPHIC NOVELS - “Elseworld’s Finest”

To be honest, I really do like alternate universes. There’s a reason why seeing characters we as an audience are very familiar with living very different lives and doing very different things. This is also going to sound contradictory, but these kinds of stories can also help as a starting point for new readers/watchers.

With something like Star Trek, you need to understand the characters so when their Mirror Universe stories mean something. With comics, especially for this week’s topic, as long as you’re aware of the influence, popularity, and just a basic understanding of the characters, alternate universe stories can still work for newcomers. How popular and influential can you get with Superman and Batman?

Written by John Francis Moore, pencils by Kieron Dwyer, and inked by Hilary Barta, Elseworld’s Finest is set in an alternate DC universe in the 1920s. It starts off with a young newsboy named Jimmy Olson who arrives at a university to deliver a professor’s newspaper.

When he arrives, he sees he’s being attacked and kidnapped by thugs. He escapes, and is saved from being hit by a car by Clark Kent.

Jimmy and Clark learn from the professor’s daughter, Lana Lang, that he was kidnapped along with a manuscript called the Argos Codex, which is meant to locate the ancient Greek city of Argos.

When they find out the kidnappers are members of the League of Assassins, they travel to Paris to get help from soldier-of-fortune Bruce Wayne so they can rescue Professor Lang and possibly even locate Argos, which would be the discovery of the century.

The story is only two issues narrated by Lana Lang, but you don’t necessarily know that until she finally appears. The story is clearly inspired by American pulp novels of the late 19th and mid-20th century. The fantasy and sci-fi elements are very prevalent throughout the story, and because comics are partly a visual medium, you can see what pulp novels can only describe.

While there are various cameos of characters that only DC or comic book fans will recognize, I feel comfortable bringing up this story because, the main players have made appearances in live action films and TV.

The League of Assassins made their appearance in Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Begins.

The other villain being the most famous Superman villain: Lex Luth-no wait, sorry; Alexi Luthorovich Dymtryshyn, the pirate.

The story even cleverly incorporates Batman and Superman’s origin stories, Superman is from the dead planet Krypton and Batman having a fear of bats, while also making it very unique to this world.

I read this story in DC Elseworlds: Justice League vol. 1. As someone who likes to read self-contained stories, I bought this collection just based on the cover: Justice Riders, a story about the Justice League set in the Wild West, which we’ll get to next year. Elseworld’s Finest happened to be in it, and I immediately loved it, especially since I have been reading a lot of pulp novels prior to buying the collection.

Elseworld’s Finest, I believe is a simple read for anyone who loves Superman, Batman, fantasy, sci-fi, and 1920s period pieces: an amazing combination of genres.