Batman/Superman [2019] #15 - DC Comics

BATMAN/SUPERMAN No. 15, February 2021

As self-contained, single edition long stories go, Joshua Williamson’s “Snow Fight” probably pleased many within the ongoing series’ audience with its thumpingly good tension and interesting take on Alfred Bester’s co-creation Solomon Grundy. But whilst the twenty-two periodical’s plot certainly does a solid job of squaring off this comic’s titular characters against the Secret Society of Super-Villains, it arguably does so due to its California-born writer having to force a few illogical leaps of faith.

For starters, just why Superman can’t simply convey the suddenly radioactive zombie to Slaughter Swamp on his own is never convincingly expounded upon, especially when the accepted alternative to the Man of Steel flying him in his arms is supposedly Batman placing the highly explosive prisoner in the Bat-Wing and piloting his bound passenger through a terrifyingly turbulent snowstorm. The notion that Kal-El’s super-speed may well detonate a volatile Grundy makes sense, however surely a simple alternative would therefore be for Colonel Marie Jonas to just ask the Kryptonian to fly a little less fast, and perhaps even go as so far as to encase Solomon in some sort of protective containment vessel first..?

Likewise, the pair’s mission to transport the white-skinned living corpse has seemingly only just been conceived, and yet Poison Ivy already knows that the plan has somehow miraculously reached the ears of The Secret Society of Super-Villains. Such an incredible breach of security is implausibly explained away by Pamela Isley as being due to information leaving “Arkham so quickly that you’d think it was an inmate”. Yet that doesn’t explain how word got back to a seemingly incarcerated “Doctor Green” that the criminal group plan to use the zombie as a weapon of mass destruction, or why Deadline’s attack squad know precisely where to intercept the Dark Knight during a blinding blizzard..?

Disappointingly, even Andrei Bressan’s artwork isn’t without its flaws either, despite the Brazilian illustrator certainly proving his worth when it comes to Superman, or even Solomon for that matter, laying a serious smackdown upon their ever-arrogant opponents; “The Society didn’t give me all the details, Lady Vic. But if we get Grundy, we get paid! Take ‘em down!” Sadly, Williamson’s script seemingly ends with the highly proficient penciller still needing to populate a fair few more panels, and the resultant snowball fight disconcertingly depicts a decidedly impressionable Bruce Wayne taking on a facially very similar-looking Kal-El.

Writer: Joshua Williamson, Artist: Andrei Bressan, and Colorist: Alejandro Sanchez