Batman/Superman Enemies and Allies Kevin J. Anderson

Oh wow...that's great news Greg! Maybe you can make Final Crisis less confusing in novel format lol.

 

Writing Final Crisis in novel format had to have been a bitch.

As far as books go I really, really enjoyed No Man's Land. I thought it was quite spectacular. I met Greg Rucka once and he agreed that it was one of his better books.

 

Greg Rucka was very helpful when I was writing "52." He let me pick his brain for about an hour regarding the Batwoman subplot . . . .

As for FINAL CRISIS . . . as usual, I had to simplify and streamline the plot a bit to adapt it to book form. But talk about a fun bunch of characters to play with: Frankenstein, evil Mary Marvel, Darkseid, the Green Lantern Corps . . . .

 

I'm more than a half way through the book and it's surprising how well written and entertaining it's been so far. This is easily my favourite work of his and I hope there is sequel or solo outings on either Batman or Superman. I'll be picking up the paperback when it comes out. I'll have a full review when I'm done.

 

Yeah, that doesn't seem like the easiest of novelization projects...I've got to give Greg major props for taking on that kind of project.

 

Greg did a great job on Infinite Crisis and 52...loved the Batwoman focus.

 

I'm 3/4 through the "Enemies and Allies" book and I really don't care for it. The only thing going for it is the "Batman and Superman in McCarthy Era" schtick. Aside from that it's very slow and not very interesting. They don't even meet until 120 pages into the book. There's no proper villain just Luthor. Why are non-comic book adapations of Superman so obsessed with a bald guy with no powers? There hasn't been one proper action scene yet in the book, which is surprising since KJA's Star Wars books were also so crazy and action packed.

 

I remember my parents buying that one for me. I read it in one night. I consumed it like a McDonald's Happy Meal. Awesome book and yes, better than the comic. Much better.

 

Greg, don't know if you can answer this, but do you know of any nuTrek books on the horizon (other than the movie adaptation)?

 

I don't know any more than you do, I'm afraid. I'm sure this will be a big topic of discussion at Shore Leave in July.

 

I finished the book on the flight to Manila, and it's hardly 50s sci-fi even though it plays with the Red Scare that was part of those flicks.

I enjoyed the novel, but felt the writing was a bit too ready-made in terms of description and character insights, certainly not as refined as Tom DeHaven's prose in It's Superman. Moreover, I thought the endgame was too much of a riff and telegraphed so much that it was hardly a twist.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the Bond-esque aspect of the plot and style, something that KJA calls himself out on throughout the book. I also like how it tied into The Last Days of Krypton a bit and touched upon a great deal of the aspects of both the Superman and Batman mythos.

While not the Earth-2 Superman or Golden Age Superamn, this was the closest interpretation since The New Frontier and It's Superman to my two favorite iterations of the Man of Steel.

 

Tell me about it, the characters kept thinking "hey this is just like James Bond!" about twelve times in the book. Kinda annoying.

 

That's what thought clouds and narration boxes are for. JMS used it with tremendous effect in his run of Spider-Man.

 

Really looking forward to reading both of those, Greg - I've enjoyed your other books a great deal.

One of the criticisms of COUNTDOWN was that it didn't do a very good job tying in to the event it was...well, counting down to (that being FINAL CRISIS itself). Were you able to rectify (or even address) any of that in the novel?

That really must have been a challenge. There are so many things in the plot of that book that either took place between panels, or were left to be inferred by the reader, or were otherwise obfuscated, that I can't imagine the adaptation process was in any way easy.

 

To be honest, I mostly treated them as two separate projects. In the FC book, I sometimes referred to the events of COUNTDOWN, but usually in a kind of vague and unspecific way.

"Rumor had it Mary Marvel had surrendered to the dark side . . . ."

"Darkseid was believed to have been destroyed . . . "

That sort of thing. It was just simpler that way.

 

I finished the book over the weekend and I must say that I enjoyed it immesenly. I agree that the build up to Batman and Superman was rather slow but it gave KJA time to do a couple of pages on their origins that I really enjoyed reading. There wasn't much action but I figured that this was meant to be a detective novel...both with Bruce using his skills as a detective and Clark as an investigative reporter. This book focused way too much on Luthor and his plan to take over the world. I would have loved if Brainiac was used some how as the villain.

Loved all the UFO references and 50's era references...it really did have a New Frontier, Superman for All Seasons type of feel to it. I can see why Anderson felt it necessary to acknowledge Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale in his acknowledgment page. Overall I would give this a 3.5/5 rating (a much stronger rating than I gave Last Days of Krypton which was a 1.5 or a 2.0.)

 

I just read The Last Days of Krypton (as I'm planning to read Batman/Superman Enemies and Allies). I thought it was surprisingly good, and it makes me interested in reading more novels by Kevin J. Anderson.

Spoiler: spoilers for The Last Days of Krypton

I could see a continuation featuring Zor-el. He could have saved Argo city using his energy bubble. That would have given him the years necessary to build the Jor-el-designed ark-ships.

 

Interesting. I couldn't get all the way through It's Superman. It just seemed to drag on a bit too much, but that could have been because I was busy with so many things at the time. It's hard to get into a book when you're stopping and starting all the time.

 

I loved LDoK. A very fun, quick read.

While I liked it, It's Superman did drag in some parts. I felt that DeHaven seemed to go into too much detail at times for the book's own good.

 

Comic books are too much of a headache (sometimes literally) for me to read. But I still love the characters. So, when I am not watching tv shows or movies with them, I read the novels. I enjoy both the adaptations and the original novels. I have been looking forward to the Superman/Batman novel every since I read Last Days of Krypton. Unfortunately I must wait for the paperback. But I am sure it will be worth it.