Superman/Batman, Vol. 9: Night and Day

Superman/Batman (12 Volumes Collected Edition)

by Michael Green, Mike Johnson, Scott Kolins (Illustrator)

The adventures of the World's Finest heroes continues in this new hardcover. First, sidekicks Robin and Supergirl must go undercover in Arkham Asylum. Then, Flash-foe Gorilla Grodd strikes at Superman and Batman through their weakest links: their closest confidants, Lois Lane and Alfred. Plus, a spooky Halloween tale delves into what scares Superman and Batman -- as well as their greatest foes, Lex Luthor and The Joker. And an epic tale tying into DC's BLACKEST NIGHT turns Man-Bat, Bizarro and Solomon Grundy loose on Superman and Batman's hometowns of Metropolis and Gotham City.

Collects BATMAN/SUPERMAN 60-63, 65-67.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Batman, Superman, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics

176 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31, 2010

About the author

Michael Green is an American television and film writer, as well as a comic book scripter. Green grew up in Mamaroneck, New York.

Green has been a contributor for Superman/Batman. He will also co-write a Green Lantern movie with Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, set for release in 2011. He wrote the six-issue story arc "Lovers and Madmen" for Batman Confidential.
Green was a producer and writer on Everwood and Heroes.

Green is the creator and writer of Kings, an NBC drama based on the biblical story of King David but set in an alternate present. Kings premiered on 15 March 2009 but was cancelled soon after. The remainder of season 1 (thirteen episodes) was shown in the summer of 2009.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collects a bunch of shorter stories including a Halloween story and crappy Blackest Night tie-in. It's pretty clear the series is coasting on fumes at this point, now that it has turned into a Legends of the Dark Knight type anthology series instead of an ongoing story with a set creative team.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. The first story was alright, but it really went downhill from there. The Blackest Night tie-in story at the end was one of the worst. Read this if you're desperate, otherwise give it a pass.

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up because I knew it tied into the Blackest Night storyline. I shouldn't have bothered.

This really a bunch of random stories, and the Blackest Night connection at the end is, by far, the weakest of the lot. Not that I was fond of the story that put Batman and Superman in a dream alternate world made up of not-entirely-clever amalgamations like Lex Joker (sigh) and Aquaborg (SIGH). Nor am I a fan of the nightmare storyline, though it's slightly better. The only good story in the collection is the Robin/Supergirl teamup. Otherwise, it's just not worth it.

[John Yelverton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection of stories (even letting Supergirl and Robin in on the action), but I'm beginning to wonder just how much gas is still in the tank for this book series.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first two stories were good. The others were mediocre.

[Colona Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, this is volume 9?! You really couldn't tell, it's a series of short stories featuring our day and night favorites. I like a majority of these tales, especially he Robin and Supergirl team up. Nice art through out as well, but what can you expect from Manapul! He's one of my favorites. ~Ashley

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book in the series.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mix of authors and artists, but an overall 4.5-star rating. I really enjoyed this volume!
First story Mash-Up by Michael Green and Mike Johnson is a fun Batman/Superman team-up in an "alternate dimension" really a dream by Dr. Destiny where a mishmash of their heroes and villains exist. Visually, it's absolutely beautiful. 5 stars for Francis Manapul!

There was a lot of emotion in this volume! Michael Green and Mike Johnson did a fantastic job writing issues #60-#63: From Zatana's dream in Mash-Up, to the horrific murder-house that was Arkham Asylum in Sidekicked (so creepy & upsetting!), to the resistance Batman led against Grodd in Night & Day : The fact that it was Alfred dying that gets Batman kidnapped because his emotions are suddenly open to Grodd's psychic attack! :'(To Batman finally figuring out a Kryptonite antidote for Superman to return into Earth's atmosphere after YEARS of Grodd's control over all of Earth... BUT then it ALL being a Batcomputer SIMULATION! AHHH!! Too much!.
I thought the writing was really well done!

Issue #65 Sweet Dreams by Peter Johnson and Matt Cherniss was also super upsetting (in a powerful way), but I found the art to be incredibly distracting. It was FUGLY and inconsistent (there were a listed 5 artists who worked on it...), but I liked the idea of the story and the fears.

Issues #66 & #67 Night of the Cure was another good one, this time by Scott Kolins. I really like both Bizarro and Solomon Grundy as characters so it was a good story for me (even though I have to think really hard to read "in opposites").

Overall, 4.5 stars for this volume of short independent/self-standing Batman/Superman stories.

[Tacitus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I pulled the softcover edition of this collection off the library shelf thinking it was a single-series story called "Night and Day." I couldn't find any information on the covers; I didn't realize it was volume 9 of an ongoing series.

Despite that, there were some fun, interesting, and (given how cool at least the premises were) maybe too-short stories in here. These better ones were written by Michael Green, and much of the artwork throughout them was fresh and inviting. Thematically, most involved some sort of alternate reality, much of it psychological, and attempts to escape them. I'm not sure if these ideas were exactly original, or the exposition always logically constructed, but I somehow didn't care anyway--because comic books.

In this series, which was new to me, the world of Superman and Batman, Metropolis and Gotham, collide. While those main characters don't always appear in every issue, certain characters from their respective settings do. One example: "Night of the Cure," a two-issue story involving Bizzaro, Man-Bat, and Solomon Grundy. It looks like writer-artist Scott Kolins went wild with this Blackest-Night-themed mash-up, but not one page of this story made sense to me.

The writing talents of Kolins and Green are like "night and day." Green (apparently the same Michael Green whose "Logan" script was nominated for an Academy Award) certainly shows his superhero-writing prowess here.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beauty of the this series has always been threats that require these two epic superheroes working together. This collection has multiple stories and they never seemed that epic. While the villains were, their crises were not. The dialogue between characters were decent but not great. The art was good. The standout to me was the Supergirl/Robin tale. Overall, nothing special or required but a decent read.

[Sky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved all the stories this one had to offer my favorite one being the supergirl and robin one. Both characters are very dear to my heart in there own ways so I’m really happy they got there own little story plus there was a good balance between comedy and seriousness that I love over all I really enjoyed it

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I would enjoy this volume a little more than I did because it was more of a horror oriented volume. I did like it, but not really much more than the other volumes. The Darkest Night tie in issues were almost incoherent and didn't really fit the series at all. Overall another decent volume, but really not much better than decent.

[Javi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conjunto de historias mediocres en su conjunto. Me gustan dos de ellas, la de El Espantapájaros, y sobretodo, la de el universo paralelo en el que Batman está en un mundo que parece una mezcla de Matrix con la policía del pensamiento de 1984.

[Sebastián · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't even know/remember that Tim and Supergirl ever shared stories together and it totally warmed my hearth. I love their friendship and never even thought about the fact that they have so much in common. Just that story made the whole book worth it

[Dylan Zucati · Rating 4 out of 5]

With no context for what happens in the other collections, I don't know how this fits into the "Superman/Batman" canon, but I appreciated the inventiveness of what made something a Superman/Batman comic.

[Rik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag of various stories. Not bad, not great...the supergirl/robin team up in arkham was really good though.

[Gbolahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What A weird book.

That Solomon Grundy man bat bizarro was so just. Yep, so just

[mayleh · Rating 2 out of 5]

⭐️2.5

[Kristian Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really cool collection of stories. A fun variety of art styles and leans into the psychology and dreams of heroes and villains.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of stories that ranged in quality from good, fair, to downright awful.

[Liz.Loki · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a terrible collection of different short stories, one worse than the other. I completely skipped the last issues bc I was so bored and confused.

[☀️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
the first two stories were okay but wtfart was that last one???

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

The World's Finest team finds itself in a realm of twisted combinations in this 9th volume of the Superman/Batman saga. Opening with a tussle against the mashed-up Justice Titans, Clark and Bruce discover that something is seriously wrong with reality. Add in clever combo designs such as Lex Joker, Night Lantern, and Terranado, and you have a crafty nightmarish world - all under the control of Doctor Destiny! Robin and Supergirl recall their first team-up, stopping an all-out Arkham blitz in a nice one-and-done story. An exiled Superman and one-the-run Batman must contend with a world under the control of Grodd, who strikes at the heroes through their loved ones and the mind-controlled masses. Luthor, Joker, Superman, and Batman face a night of terror, manipulated into their darkest fears by the Scarecrow. The volume concludes with a Man-Bat/Bizarro pairing, as they battle a Black Lantern Solomon Grundy. This is what Superman/Batman should be; entertaining storylines that explore the dichotomy of DC's most famous heroes.

[Victor Orozco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of stories in which Batman and Superman had teamed together before his supposed demise in Batman RIP and what was going on during the Blackest Night within their respective cities.

I have to say that whenever a combination hero/villain story set up its something you expect out of Mxy. But thankfully this was an interesting turn of events. Someone has set up Batman and Superman in a dreamlike world that has combined the Teen Titans and the Justice League into one. All the while leading to an interesting conclusion involving Zatanna.

Love how Robin and Supergirl complete a sort of world's finest sidekicks thing while their mentor is away. Whoa boy, it must have been creepy for Kara having to see the Arkham Rogues gallery that way.

I definitely enjoyed how they worked the Blackest Night with Grundy. But with Batman at this point gone and Superman either at Smallville or Coast City we see Batman and Superman Rogues against each other. Bizarro and Man-Bat taking on Black Lantern Grundy.

Engaging set of stories. B

[Anya · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was bad, but somehow less bad than the other Superman/Batman collections, despite being a series of completely unrelated stories that can't even be internally consistent within a single issue. They should have called this collection, "Dreams" or "Fake-out"...
The first one, is hilariously bad, guess what? it's all a dream! The second seems like an excuse to have Supergirl (and all the female villains) strike sexy poses while managing to be a horror story full of gore at Arkham. The third and title story featuring Grodd is actually a simulation Batman is running! The fourth story is a series of nightmares caused by none other than the Scarecrow, trapping Batman and Superman and giving them bad dreams instead of killing them... In case you thought it couldn't get any worse, the final story is a mass of confusion featuring Solomon Grundy, Man-Bat, Bizarro, and Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein...

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Superman/Batman title is one of my all-time favorite comic book series -- easily within my top three. So it pains me to say that I found this 9th collected volume to be so lackluster.

Unlike some other titles in the series, this collection contained a handful of one-shot "short stories," as opposed to the entire collection telling one overarching plot. That's definitely not a bad thing -- my absolute favorite volume in the collection, the preceding "Finest Worlds," was also a handful of unconnected short stories, as opposed to one giant story -- but, unfortunately, I didn't care about most of the stories in this one.

The single exception was a truly excellent Halloween tale near the end, which was fantastic.

Overall, an okay effort. I'm not sorry I read it, but I doubt I'll be picking it up again when I turn to rereading the series.

[Chris Aylott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up thinking it was a graphic novel, though I suppose I would have known better if I were paying more attention to recent Superman and Batman comics. "Superman/Batman" is apparently the current incarnation of the old "World's Finest" comic, and Night and Day made a lot more sense once I figured out it was a grab-bag of individual stories and stopped looking for continuity that doesn't exist.

That said, it's not a particularly good collection. The best story features Robin and Supergirl teaming up to deal with a crisis at Arkham Asylum, and there's a Batman vs. Gorilla Grodd story that's almost as good. Those two earn the stars for the book, while the other three stories range downward from okay to well-nigh incomprehensible. I like the World's Finest concept, but if this is representative of the series average then it's batting below my personal Mendoza line.

[Fugo Feedback · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pero qué requete bonito que dibuja Manapul. Albuquerque, Kolins, y los otros dibujantes que se pasean por las páginas del recopilatorio también están muy bien, pero siguen siendo las páginas de Manapul las que más me engolosinan las pupilas, hasta el punto de que no me interesa si el guion es bueno o no, o si es todo una excusa para meter a muchos personajes (varios de ellos, amalgamas de otros dos), yo disfruto mirando los diseños del filipino.
Veo que no son los únicos capítulos de la serie que dibujó, así que cuando vaya consiguiendo otros, bienvenidos serán, así los ojos comen contentos.

[Jacobi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has just turned into a silly spot for writers to tell random stories staring Bats and Supes. I dig it! Where else am I going to read a story with the world's of Batman and Superman fussed together to create such villains as Lex Joker ( a mix of Lex Luthor and Joker), Jimmy Two-Face (Jimmy Olsen and Two-Face), and Brainycat (a mix of Catwoman and Brainiac) -- to name a few? No where. It's ridiculous. It's popcorn. It's fanfic-y. I'm glad it exists.

[TJ Shelby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weak sauce. I absolutely HATE 6 issue arcs that are fill-in-combinations. The first arc is a 2-issue alternate universe mish-mash combining Justice League/Teen Titan members. It was actually alright. The Robin/Supergirl team up was a yawner, as was the Blackest Night crossover with Grundy, Bizarro and Man Bat. For die-hard fans only.