While browsing through a used book store recently I came across a little gem that caught my eye, an old chapbook reprint of the 1981 Batman Vs. The Hulk comic released in collaboration between DC and Marvel. At this point it seems like we have seen every possible Batman story at least several times, so to come across a story which not only has never been done prior, but I am almost certain will never be done again was very intriguing to me. I am glad I did pick up this book as it’s just a lot of fun.
The story was written by Len Wein and drawn by Jose Luis Garcia and is instigated by the sudden appearance of a being known as the Shaper of Worlds into Gotham. The Shaper’s gimmick is that he is a powerful cosmic entity who survives by absorbing the dreams of others, but he has unfortunately recently lost that ability and become fatally ill. He has learned that Wayne industries has in it’s possession a gamma gun which can possibly cure him so he hires the Joker to steal it for him in exchange for making the Joker’s dreams reality. Unfortunately for the Joker, Bruce Banner has taken a job at Wayne Industries working with the Gamma Gun in order to use it to possibly cure him. So when the Clown Prince of Crime riles Banner up a bit during the robbery the scene soon escalates into a three way battle between The Hulk, Joker and Batman.
The story continues on from there with Batman first teaming up with Banner to protect the Gamma Gun from Joker and then Batman having to team up with the Joker to trick the Hulk into coming to the Shaper of Worlds so that the residual gamma radiation from the Jolly Green Goliath can cure the Shaper of Worlds and prevent him from destroying all of Gotham. The story reaches it’s climax with the Joker gaining the power from Shaper to make all of his dreams come true leading to a series of spectacular splash pages as Joker shapes reality as he pleases until the strain eventually causes him to collapse. Having saved the day Batman and Banner go their separate ways.
This is hardly one of the best Batman or Hulk stories ever written, but it just a lot of fun. The story flows well and constantly switches up the plot with various twists and turns and the art while not spectacular is very solid. What really makes is special though is that because Wein has experience writing both these characters written both of the characters in the past has a solid grasp of what makes them tick and they both play off well against each other in an entertaining manner. But the most spectacular moments are near the end where Joker becomes all powerful and begins to shape the world at will. I mentioned before that I’m not that big a fan of Garcia’s work, but he can draw a real good Joker and those splash pages near the end are just amazing.
There is just something that feels so old fashioned about a comic like this. It’s a throwback to a period where it was an event when two different super-heroes would show up in the same book, Superman showing up in the Flash was a big deal and presented so many possibilities that your tiny little mind could be barely stand it. Now that there are so many crossovers and the like the team up just seems to have lost a little of it’s magic. What makes these DC/Marvel crossovers so special is that they are still events which only ever happened so rarely that as a reader you had no guarantee that something like this would ever happen again. This is even more true now, as these cross company events have gone from being very rare in the 70’s and 80’s to being non existent today. So when you read this story, you are reading what will probably be the only Batman/Hulk crossover ever written and there is just something special about that.
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