Posted By Dan Greenfield on Apr 13, 2024 | 8 comments

Cruise ship, Smallville, or Gotham? Fast friends or uneasy allies? Yes to all!

By ANTHONY DESIATO

The unlikely partnership between the World’s Finest team of Superman and Batman (or, for 13th Dimension editor Dan Greenfield’s sake, Batman and Superman) is a decades-long tradition that has touched multiple incarnations of the characters across media. A cornerstone of the DC Universe, this pairing has seen its origin retold over a dozen times — not even including Elseworlds or other out-of-continuity tales — as the setting, tone, and dynamic continue to shift.

For this child of the ’90s, John Byrne’s post-Crisis reinvention in Man of Steel and the “World’s Finest” three-parter from Superman: The Animated Series proved foundational to my understanding of how these characters move from initial antagonists to trusted allies. Still, I was curious to examine the wider context of Superman and Batman’s first meetings over time.

To that end, I invited Silver Age aficionado Rich Roney to join me for the 4/2/24 episode of my Digging for Kryptonite podcast, in which we discussed the various tellings of how Bruce met Clark — from an inconvenient rooming situation aboard the cruise ship Varania all the way through Mark Waid and Travis G. Moore’s recent spin in the ongoing World’s Finest title, pitting our team against Jax-Ur and the Riddler. Listen on all major podcast platforms.

The following list of 13 meetings is presented chronologically and is meant to be robust, though certainly not exhaustive. Be sure to share your favorites, including any we didn’t list, in the comments below.

Here are 13 STORIES where the Man of Steel and Dark Knight met for the “first” time: 

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All-Star Comics #7 (1941). They don’t technically meet in this one, but it is the first in-story instance of Batman and Superman sharing the page. (They were, of course, already appearing together on covers of World’s Fair Comics and then World’s Finest.) The Justice Society commits to raising $1,000,000 for war orphans, but when Johnny Thunder fails to collect his share, he inadvertently commands his Thunderbolt to summon the honorary members of the team — Superman, Batman, and the Flash — who come bearing the remaining funds.

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“Mystery of the Wax Men” from the Radio Serial (1945). No stranger to debuting key elements of the Superman mythology, The Adventures of Superman radio serial also beat the comics to pairing up Batman and Superman. Alas, the chapters introducing Batman are lost to time, though Superman and Robin’s first meeting still exists. Decades later, in World’s Finest #271, Roy Thomas and Rich Buckler adapted the story in comic book form.

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Superman #76 (1952). At last, the first true meeting of the characters occurs here, where an overbooked cruise ship forces Bruce and Clark to share a room together. (By modern standards, the notion of either superhero, but particularly Batman, simply taking a vacation is wild!) When a tanker explodes outside, each man hopes to change into his superhero guise under the cover of darkness. Alas, a light through the porthole reveals both of their identities, but they quickly agree to team up and maintain each other’s secret.

Bonus: Joe Kelly, Ed McGuinness, Ryan Ottley, Sean Murphy, and Carlo Barberi hilariously retell this story in Superman/Batman Annual 2006 with the Crime Syndicate, Deadpool (in all but name), and vastly more bickering between our main duo. The line of the issue? When Clark chides Bruce for his champagne consumption, the playboy retorts, “It isn’t exactly like drinking moonshine out of a pumpkin.”

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World’s Finest #84 (1956). Edmond Hamilton, who wrote the previous entry, inserts a new chapter in the characters’ history with the revelation that a young Bruce Wayne once vacationed in Smallville — with his parents! — and tried to deduce Superboy’s secret identity to test his investigative prowess. Superboy, meanwhile, mistook Bruce for the accomplice of villain Thad Linnis and never realized who Bruce was until the present day.

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World’s Finest #94 (1958). Completing his trilogy of first meetings, Hamilton here confirms that Superman #76 had merely shown the first time Batman and Superman learned each other’s identities. The first time they actually met as adults, as shown in flashback, was when Batman and Robin tracked stolen Kryptonite to Metropolis and used their ingenuity to help Superman, who tried in vain to keep them away for their protection.

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Adventure Comics #275 (1960). New decade, new hidden chapter revealed. This time, Bruce and his parents outright move to Smallville! Superboy is excited about the newest resident, as he knows all about their future partnership thanks to his time-telescope. Bruce, meanwhile, makes a deal with Lana to uncover Superboy’s secret identity and also briefly adopts the Flying Fox moniker and costume. In the end, Bruce asks Superboy to hypnotize him into forgetting this experience.

This story gets a follow-up in Superboy #182, one of Dan’s earliest comics. Take it away, Dan!

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Man of Steel #3 (1986). Hand in hand with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, John Byrne’s revamp of the Superman mythology brought a dramatic shift in dynamic for the longtime chums. Now, Superman invades Gotham to bring in the “outlaw,” who only keeps the Man of Steel at bay with the threat that breaching Batman’s force field will detonate an explosive and kill an innocent in the city.

The “innocent,” of course, stands revealed as Batman himself by the end; this clever, selfless gambit and their teamwork in taking down Magpie (the story’s choice in villain remains its biggest drawback) lays the groundwork for détente between the men. In the post-Crisis era, Superman and Batman might not have been outright buddies, but successive stories would build upon the foundation here to create a bond that went even deeper than before — to the point where Clark eventually entrusts Bruce with a Kryptonite ring.

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“World’s Finest” from Superman: The Animated Series (1997). Thankfully, the DC Animated Universe eschewed the likes of Magpie for Lex and Joker, paving the way for Superman and Batman to team up against their most formidable adversaries (while navigating a love triangle with Lois, no less) in an epic first meeting that remains the gold standard for a generation of fans.

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“When Clark Met Bruce” from Superman/Batman Secret Files (2003). This bittersweet two-pager from the For All Seasons team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale shows an almost-meeting between the boys when Bruce and Alfred’s car breaks down in Smallville during a cross-country road trip. Clark wishes he’d asked Bruce to play ball, and Bruce does too, even though he knows his path was already set.

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Superman #710 (2011). A lesser-known entry, this one came during the “Grounded” arc (though J. Michael Straczynski had already handed the writing reins over to Chris Roberson) right before the New 52. It finds Clark and Bruce reminiscing about a time during their pre-costumed globetrotting days that they teamed up to save Bhutran from an attack by Vandal Savage. Interestingly, it references an obscure 1999 one-shot called Superman: The Odyssey that tracked Clark on his travels before Metropolis.

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Batman/Superman #1 (2013). Technically, the New 52 iterations of the characters first meet in battle at the end of 2011’s Justice League #1. Two years later, though, Greg Pak and Jae Lee’s Batman/Superman title revealed an earlier, forgotten adventure that paired the New 52 versions with their Earth-2 counterparts. In a nice callback, the Earth-2 back story homages the Loeb/Sale Smallville tale but shows what would have happened if the boys had played ball.

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). This film doesn’t exactly lend itself to a short blurb! (A 2-hour podcast episode, on the other hand…) Specifically within the context of these first meetings: Clark’s concern over the methods used by “the bat vigilante” echoes what we’ve seen before. However, BvS notably gives Bruce a strong motivation to take the fight to Superman, as his feeling of powerlessness during the Zod battle evokes the helplessness he experienced as a child outside the theater. And even in this polarizing movie, with greater tension and a more brutal battle than we typically see between these characters, their animosity still eventually gives way to understanding and cooperation.

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World’s Finest #18-19 (2023). Most recently, Mark Waid and Travis G. Moore put an engaging new spin on the familiar tale with a two-parter that felt fresh and modern while also synthesizing many elements from previous tellings. The story opens with a crime scene on a ship (a la Superman #76), Bruce deduces that Clark is Superman by charting flight paths (one of the methods Bruce employed in World’s Finest #84), and even Magpie makes a (mercifully brief!) appearance.

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MORE

— GOLDEN AGE GOLD: 13 of the Greatest BATMAN AND SUPERMAN COVERS Ever. Click here.

— 13 COVERS: When SUPERMAN and BATMAN Switched Identities. Click here.

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Anthony Desiato is a documentarian, podcaster, and lifelong Superman fan. He hosts the Superman podcasts Digging for Kryptonite and Another Exciting Episode in the Adventures of Superman. His most recent documentary film, My Comic Shop Country, is out now on Amazon, Apple TV, and Tubi. Visit Flat Squirrel Productions for more film and podcast projects.