“Yesterday’s” Comic> Superman/Thundercats

Considering how high up they are, Superman better catch Lion-O before he uses one of the nine lives up.

Superman/Thundercats

DC/Wildstorm (January, 2004)

Mumm-Ra comes across magic orbs that might get him into Cats Lair, but a woman named Lantana Lin shows up telling him that he can travel to another world to find a sister version of the Eye Of Thundera. This just happens to be in the Metropolis Museum. The Thundercats follow the mutants to the DC Universe and after the usual misunderstanding that’s been in every Thundercats team-up Wildstorm put out they join Superman in stopping the mutants. Although it turned out to be a trick by Mxyzptlk to take back his dimension-hopping booster orbs. Superman puts the second Eye in a vault at the Fortress for safe keeping.

What they got right: I will give Winick credit for some good thinking. The Thundercats speak their own language and need a translating staff to be able to communicate with Superman, leading to trouble when they (for some reason) are the only ones who can see the invisible Mutants running around Metropolis. The art is rather good.

What they got wrong: The Sword Of Omens will not attack anyone good. This has been shown time and again. So why is it so willing to attack Superman? (At least Winick remembered Superman is vulnerable to magic, although they also appear to blame the Kryptonite that for some reason can make the Mutants invisible, a plot device to keep Superman from attacking them at the museum I guess but that’s resolved so quickly it wasn’t worth bothering. The Thundercats are uncharacteristically savage, at least compared to how they actually act. And while it’s nice to see Snarf treated as a decent part of the team for a change in a Wildstorm book when did he become practically a mage? (I’m convinced only one writer at Wildstorm ever saw the show, and that’s the guy who turned Cheetara into a rape toy for the Mutants.) The worst crime of the this book, however, is that it’s boring. The only parts that had me interested were the parts with Mumm-Ra and Latana Lin/Mxyzptlk and Clark, Lois, and Jimmy at the museum or Superman and Lois at the Fortress. The main part of the story I just didn’t care about. Maybe it was the forced “misunderstanding fight” or the bad characterization of the Thundercats characters and setting (why are the only Thundercats stories set on Third Earth the Star Comics ones?) but nothing about the important parts interested me at all.

Recommendation: This isn’t as rage inducing as the Battle Of The Planets crossover Wildstorm did but that’s because I couldn’t get any reaction at all. Just skip this one.