Richard Friend

The book begins with a young housewife having a series of inexplicable magical moments--her hair starts changing color, insects crawl out of her throat at odd intervals, her clothes start whipping around her as though in a gale. This is by far the best part of the Madame Xanadu series thus far, but it ends far too soon. A loooong series of stories about Nimue and Morgana growing up follows, in which Nimue is perfect in every way and Morgana is evil in every way, blah blah blah so boring I could die. The art is better than the last book, but not good enough to make up for the (yet again) trite storyline and truly terrible dialog.… (more)

It seems natural that Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor should come into conflict: each is an international businessman who works in technical industries, each of them with a secret agenda, only one does so for good... and the other for evil. Andy Diggle, Whilce Portacio, and Richard Friend pit the two against each other in this tale of their first meeting, but it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. I don't think the book adequately digs into the philosophical distinctions between the two men that ought to exist despite their seeming similarities. Each man wants to save the world, each man has raised himself to be a form of human perfection, and yet despite Bruce Wayne's wallowing in the darkness and Lex Luthor's seeming magnanimousness, Bruce is fundamentally optimistic, and Lex fundamentally cynical. I don't see that really depicted here, and it seems like Batman's early days ought to be especially fertile ground for this, as Bruce Wayne builds himself into the man he wants to be. There is some of it-- the end of the story sees Bruce (re?)establish the Wayne Foundation-- but most of the book is somewhat generic superheroics, let down by Whilce Portacio's confusing, jumpy storytelling.

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