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Aug 03, 2009 Web Exclusive By By Aaron Passman

Really? It seems impossible that in more than seven decades of fighting crime, Superman and Batman haven’t fought vampires and werewolves. Nobody’s written this story yet? Surely this has already been done by now, right?

Well, yes and no. The Man of Steel and the Dark Knight have battled vampires and werewolves, but they’ve never fought them both together, and that’s what makes this book different.

There’s no plot synopsis necessary here, for obvious reasons. Sure, there’s a crazy scientist, Eastern European gangsters, and cameos from Wonder Woman and Green Arrow, but basically what you see in the title is what you get. And that’s how this sort of thing should be. No need to overthink it.

Originally run over the course of six issues, the collected miniseries takes too long to really get going. But its greatest fault lies in Kevin VanHook’s reliance on too much narration, rather than letting Tom Mandrake’s art carry the story forward; a shame, because the real highlight here is the wealth of full-color, graphic horror art - the kind of thing that doesn’t often make it into superhero books these days.

Story concerns aside, there’s also an introduction by filmmaker John Landis, who helmed Michael Jackson’s legendary “Thriller” video, as well as An American Werewolf In London - in other words, a man who knows his undead. It’s not a perfect story, to be sure, but as Landis points out in his intro, with all the economic turmoil in the world now, something as simple and familiar as good old-fashioned vampires and werewolves is almost reassuring. (www.dccomics.com)

Author rating: 4/10