I finally have a week off, and I’m telling you now, I’m gonna be looking to read a whole bunch of comic books and get through another TV series, so watch this space. So I wanted to return to a series that intrigued me when I read the first novel in the series. I’m talking about the New 52 run of Batman/Superman. The first novel saw our titular characters face off against their Earth 2 counterparts, so who knows what multiversal adventures may await them?
‘Game Over’ is a whopper of a graphic novel. Composed of two main stories which are further split into two separate sub-stories, ‘Game Over’ is a comic book fan’s dream. The first part of the novel deals with Toymaster, a young man named Hiro, who has designed a video game that actually takes place in real life. When he lets three games off on the loose to complete the mission to “Destroy Batman”, he unknowingly believes that this is all pretend. However, it appears that behind the scenes, his personal assistant, under the influence of the infamous Mongul has taken over. Once the games take over Batman, their new mission is to destroy Superman. The next sub-story deals with the consequences of that battle between heroes and their team-up to defeat Mongul. Now that “Warworld” has no leader, Mongul’s son Jochi attempts to take over. He summons both Superman and Batman to present two members of their ‘clan’ as sacrifice. However, things take a turn when it appears that Jochi isn’t actually in charge and there is a tournament taking place to decide who takes over, and who will destroy Earth. The Batman Clan, composed of Batman, Red Hood and Jochi and the Superman Clan composed of Superman, Supergirl and Krypto enter the tournament to settle the beef. The second main story sees Helena and Kara of Earth-2 finally meet their ‘almost’ family members. Kara whose powers have been out of control, travels to a faraway land to find out what is disrupting her. Helena reaches out to Batman and Superman to help. Can the two heroes help their relatives from another Earth? Will Kara finally get her powers in control? And just what is happening in New Gamorra? Who is pulling the strings?
So you know how I tend to complain about overly long novels? Well I’m not doing that in this case. I thought that this novel was everything that I could have asked for in a Batman and Superman novel. The stories were expansive and encompassed a lot of larger DC universe, with cameos from Nightwing, Red Hood, Supergirl, Power Girl, Huntress and Batgirl and more. I thought the relationship between our two titular heroes was awesome to see, and as the New 52 was to act as a complete reboot of the universe, it was fun to see the level of distrust these two still have for each other. In that sense the character development was excellent and I think that this series could benefit majorly if it continues in this vein.
The artwork. So, the last novel was done by an artist with a very unique style, that I wasn’t completely crazy about, but this novel had art from Brett Booth and Kenneth Rocafort who I think are tremendously talented and I love their style. The covers were all okay, but I loved this sort of retro one above. Overall, one of the best novels I’ve read from the New 52 and I’m really hoping this series keeps it up!
Favourite Panel:
Cue Dom Toretto entering the chat.
Favourite Character:
Oh wow. How do I even decide in this novel? So many characters to choose from, but I think I have to say Huntress in this one. Ironic but yeah. She handles herself so well in a parallel universe.
Rating:
Story Arc: ★★★★
Character Development: ★★★★
Artwork: ★★★★½
Enjoyability: ★★★★
Re-readability: ★★★½
Level: Intermediate