When Fate turns ugly

 One of the most interesting things DC Comics created in recent years was the limited series, "Danger Street." This unique series of 13 issues repurposed the "First Issue Specials" of the 70's into a single epic adventure starring every character to have appeared in those old post-silver age comics.

OK, maybe a little background? DC Comics has a long history of using a single comic book title to introduce new characters and concepts in two or three issues, like "Showcase" which introduced the silver age Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League. Think of it as a try-out book. The point of these books was never to create a single storyline or set of characters that overlapped, but rather to test the waters to see if a new character or set of characters would be viable.

Oh, and 'First Issue' was a marketing ploy intended to boost sales. the first issue of any successful comic (like Action Comics) would be 'collectable' and therefore it would be valuable.

So, 'Danger Street' culls those 13 issues of unconnected characters, concepts and settings and weaves them into a dramatic tale that is both cosmic and street-level. Established characters like Metamorpho and Dr Fate are now lumped in with 'Lady Cop' (Tom King actually does a great job of handling this misogynistic moniker), the Green Team, and the Dingbats. Mr King also modernizes the character concepts in ways that might not hold perfectly true to the characters we remember or to their ethos, but he does it in a way that invites the reader to more fully relate to the characters and to understand their relationships.

The replacements

For those unfamiliar with the Silver Age of comics (or Science Fiction), a familiar trope was the 'oh no, we've swapped bodies with someone else, now I'm too disorientated to function. Think Freaky Friday but with superheroes. 

What makes Superman/Batman 27's story unique isn't that two male heroes, Superman and Batman, have swapped bodies with two female heroes, Power Girl and Huntress, but that the female heroes are in essence, the someday replacements for Batman and Superman. We get past the whole gender swap comedy of errors (like men trying to cope with high heels, etc.) quickly when Superman declares that he actually sees and feels his (male) body rather than the body he seems to be inhabiting. Like I said, the story isn't about what would you do if you woke up a different gender, it's about being replaced.