The Cast: Silver Surfer, Superman, Impossible Man, Mister Mxyzptlk

The Catalyst: The Impossible Man and Mister Mxyzptlk meet up by accident and decide to play.

The Convergence: The Silver Surfer and Superman find themselves face to face when confronted with those two impish villains who would make their lives miserable.

The Critique: With a very talented creative team at the helm, this tale which would feature both Superman and the Silver Surfer was good but also something of a letdown in one sense, mainly due to its villains in The Impossible Man and Mister Mxyzptlk. That being said, author George Perez stays true to everyone’s characteristics and personalities and overall, it does make for a bit of fun but for a meeting of these two powerhouses though, seeing them team up to fight a threat greater than themselves, some gigantic universal power or what have one would have been far more thrilling, anything better than the Impossible Man and Mister Mxyzptlk. While not every book has to be a serious one, that every meeting between heroes has to be one where they face an all-encompassing evil, this crossover might have been better served had it simply been a meeting between the two comedy characters instead of the swerve that was presented here. Still, it was an enjoyable enough time, despite the lack of widescreen action which would have been great. Lim’s artwork is solid, the man always bringing a sense of excitement with him on the page and Perez does make things fairly interesting by presenting them as fish out of water as it were at first until the two of them are able to use both their brains and brawn to get themselves out of their respective situations. As for the bad guys of the piece, in the end, they turn on each other which was inevitable and that would have been a fight that might have made for a really intriguing read given their power sets and yet would only be touched on before the book would come to a conclusion. A good book and decent read overall and nothing more.

The Credits: George Perez – Writer, Ron Lim – Artist, Terry Austin – Inker, Tom Smith – Colours, John Costanza – Letters

Companies Involved: Marvel Comics, DC Comics

Chronology: January 1997