#cool demonic armor batman with karate grip

[superman86to99]

Legends of the World’s Finest #1-3 (1994)

A sequel to the classic World’s Finest miniseries (the one where Superman gives Batman a VHS copy of Zorro for Christmas) that ups the weirdness by like 666%. If the original mini was about “What if Superman and Batman traded villains?” this one is about “What if Superman and Batman traded dreams and got mixed up in a satanic plot to rule the world via half-Kryptonian, half-Irish super-babies?” Don’t act like you’ve never wondered about that.

This whole mess is triggered by an impertinent Irish teenager going snooping in the ancient castle of the Clan McDougal -- the place where Silver Banshee fell victim to the sexist curse that turned her into a monster centuries ago (as seen in 1988′s Superman #23). The girl finds a mysterious book in the castle and decides to perform a ritual from it, because they don’t have horror movies in Ireland. The ritual summons a demon called Tullus, who hijacks the girl’s body to bring Silver Banshee back. Turns out Tullus is Banshee’s grand-grand-grand-etc-daddy and the one responsible for her curse. Banshee isn’t exactly thrilled by the family reunion, until Tullus says he just wants to break the curse and finally allow her to take that pesky Día de los Muertos make-up off her face.

According to Tullus, the only way to break the curse is to defeat the ruler of Hell, Lady Blaze, who kept him enslaved for 1,000 years before that girl stumbled upon that book. Tullus says they’ll need some help to do this, so he magically looks up the world’s finest warriors and finds out about Superman and Batman. Unfortunately, he thinks the former is too much of a goody-two-shoes to be of any use when dealing with satanic curses (even though Superman has defeated Blaze multiple times before) and the latter isn’t powerful enough. Instead of just asking both for help, Tullus decides it would be easier to cause Superman and Batman to switch dreams and, therefore, personalities.

So, Superman suddenly starts dreaming about Jor-El and Lara getting shot down in an alley after a night at the movies...

...while Batman dreams about feeling extremely out of place in a planet full of shiny towers and bright green sci-fi tunics.

As a result, Superman becomes way darker and more violent (he almost kills some criminals until Lois Lane intervenes) and agrees to help Tullus and Silver Banshee against Blaze despite their obvious shadiness. Meanwhile, Batman starts doubting his violent methods and becomes, well, kind of a wuss. But, as the narration reminds us, courage is not the absence of wussiness; it’s finding the will to face it.

As they work together against Blaze, Banshee starts feeling attracted to the darker, edgier Superman (must be the 5 o’clock shadow that spontaneously appears whenever he’s turning evil) but she’s frustrated by his devotion to Lois. Banshee ends up impersonating a harlequin on the street to sell Lois a magical balloon that somehow turns her into a mute child, which makes Superman forget all about her and give in to his lust for Banshee. This is disturbing for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that, uh, isn’t Banshee using the body of a teenager in these panels?

Tullus and the lovebirds up there go to Hell and defeat Blaze with the help of an army of Irish zombies. Then, Tullus’ first act as new Lord of Hell is to invite his demonic subjects to a nice wedding ceremony for Superman and Banshee at old McDougal Castle. At this point everyone sorta forgets that Tullus’ goal was supposed to be ending his family’s curse -- now he wants to “foster a new race of super-beings” by “joining mortal and demon” (carnally, I guess).

However, Batman works up the courage to crash the wedding wearing the skin of a demon he slayed in a sewer and interrupts the proceedings. Since he’s seriously underpowered, he makes a deal with a weakened Blaze, who decks him out with an armor straight out of a ‘90s toy line. This is when we finally get the fight between Cool Demonic Armor Batman and Edgy Possessed Superman promised by the third cover at the top of this post.

Plot twist: Turns out that Banshee actually cares for her would-be husband, since she’s desperate to help Superman in the fight against Batman. Tullus, however, is like “Nah, let’s see what happens” and forcefully stops Banshee, which is when she realizes that he never gave a crap about ending their family’s curse (or about her in general). Banshee actually gives up her new body to free Lois, then begs her to “Save him, woman! Save my love...” as she banishes.

Superman and Batman end up unconscious during different points in their fight and get their original dreams back, turning them back into their old selves. They join forces to defeat Tullus, his demons, and Blaze (who of course betrays Batman the second she doesn’t need him anymore) and throw them all down into Hell. Both agree that the other one has disturbing dreams, and Superman reassures Lois that he think she’s hotter than Banshee.

We end with that teen from the beginning dropping off the book in the castle and getting the hell out of there while probably promising herself she’ll never read another book ever again.

Character-Watch:

It’s interesting that this miniseries has a lot more Batman villains than Superman ones (Man-Bat, Two-Face, Joker, Riddler, Killer Croc, Penguin, and Catwoman are all in it) but a lot more Superman continuity. Early on, we find out Blaze is still sore about the time Superman went down to her domain and retrieved Jimmy Olsen’s soul. There are several references to Superman #23, including appearances by the ancient ghost lady who banished Banshee to Irish Hell in that issue. She helps Batman at one point, and the story ends with the revelation that she’s Tullus’ mom.

As far as I can tell, Tullus never showed up again™ and no other comics have brought up the fact that Silver Banshee is in love with Superman and once sacrificed herself for him, but I could be wrong. There IS a Silver Banshee miniseries written by this one’s artist, Dan Brereton, which came out in 1998, but I haven’t read it yet so I don’t know how connected it is to this one. We’ll find out when we get there, if the world hasn’t been conquered by demons by then.