World’s Finest #176

World’s Finest #176 (1968)
by Cary Bates & Neal Adams

Despite its simplicity, I find this cover to be fascinatingly intriguing.

We begin with Clark Kent interviewing Not Vincent Price.

He IMMEDIATELY gets outed as Superman! Two things of note here:
A) this is still the first page
B) how does he keep getting hit like this when he has super-speed!?

And then it turns out the Not Vincent Price is actually an alien!!!
This is still page two. It’s going to be one of those issues, isn’t it?

Not crazy enough for you? This is the Vice-President of his planet!

Let me get this straight. This guy knew Earth has Superman and went there to hide from the assassins… but instead of immediately asking Superman to help him, he disguised himself as Not Vincent Price. Only THEN he decided to call Superman and ask for help.
So why didn’t he go to Superman in the first place!?
I’m starting to think there’s a reason this guy wasn’t elected President.

So Superman brings the Vice-Alien to the Fortress of Solitude to keep him safe… but then he IMMEDIATELY leaves for a space mission. Which is apparently of the utmost urgency, and yet that didn’t stop him from doing the interview as Clark Kent.
Did he expect the interview to take much less time or what?

Now, if that was the premise, it would be a somewhat standard plot for World’s Finest.
Except there’s ANOTHER alien that has infiltrated the Bat-Cave.
We’re still on page three!!!

The alien, Tiron, claims that the guy we just saw meet Superman is a criminal.
I rarely give props to Cary Bates when he’s writing Superman, but I have to give it to him: this is a rather solid premise.
Who is Vice-Alien, the target of an assassin as Superman thinks, or a criminal as Batman thinks?
Who is Tiron, the assassin as Superman thinks, or the law enforcer as Batman thinks?

The references to Robin being in the Teen Titans are getting more and more frequent.

As good as the premise is, however, it’s already showing some cracks.
What’s stopping Batman to simply talk things through with Superman?

Superman being under the influence of an alien is not unheard of, but typically there’s some kind of mind control involved. But here?
Batman: “I’ll ask Superman, he’s like a brother to me.”
Tiron: “Don’t, Superman unquestionably believes the word of an alien he just met.”
Batman: “Sounds legit, alien I just met, I unquestionably believe you.”

Batman COULD just call the Justice League, but we have something neat: he decides to recruit Supergirl to help him!
While I’m glad we’re past the time when superheroes kept calling each other by switching lamps on and off, surely there was a better way to get her attention?

Surely Supergirl will convince Batman to actually talk to Superman, right?
Right?

It’s also as if Supergirl was just waiting for an occasion to punch her cousin.
I can’t imagine why.

Tiron, who just followed the criminal to another planet, immediately backs away from the investigation. Yeah that’s not suspicious at all.

I miss the times when Batman’s technology had SOME limits.
(not that you need to go back to the 60s for that: even twenty years he wasn’t constantly in Bat-God mode)

Superman is just as eager to fight as Supergirl.

The Neal Adams pencils are a delight, but… WTF is going on with Supergirl’s hip in this panel!?

Superman has little trouble throwing Supergirl into the stratosphere for a while, and he manages to stop Batman before he has the chance to capture Vice-Alien.

As Superman takes Vice-Alien to safety, Supergirl rescues Batman. This really isn’t his day.

He’s still Batman, though, and Supergirl has a few years of hero experience at this point. So even Superman realizes things might get tough for him.

This leads us to the other hero promised by the cover: Batgirl, who has to deal with a statue in Gotham City coming to life.

Except it’s not a living statue… it’s Superman’s way to contact her!
Cellphones can’t be invented fast enough for these people.

Okay we have the mystery of which alien is telling the truth AND two pairs of heroes fighting each other… Superman and Batgirl against Batman and Supergirl.
Surely that’s enough plot, right?

NOPE! We also have Robin and freaking Jimmy Olsen in this thing!

Thanks to the secret monitors they access to view the Batcave and the Fortress of Solitude… they discover the SHOCKING secret of the two aliens!

Aaaand they’re immediately taken out by a mysterious attacker.
You guys just suck in this series, isn’t it?

With that out of the way, we can focus on Batman fighting Superman.
Interestingly, we have a precursor to the Kryptonite ring he’ll acquire post-Crisis.

That was a very straightforward scene that has been done repeatedly in modern times.

The Batgirl vs Supergirl fight, on the other hand… well it sucks.
What is it with Neal Adams and drawing Supergirl in awkward poses!?

There’s also some trouble with storytelling here, because Batgirl falls from a cliff seemingly without Supergirl having anything to do with it.
See for yourself: I didn’t skip anything from the above image to the following.

I could’ve given Batgirl some props if she threw herself to lure Batman away from Superman…

…but nope! Supergirl confirms she was the one to push Batgirl. Except we weren’t shown that!

On a completely unrelated note: Vice-Alien is about to die!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, is when the story turns absolutely bonkers.
Yes.
NOW.

Because it turns out that the alien was Not Vincent Price all along!!!

He was BOTH aliens in this story!!!

Now get ready for an absolutely ridiculous infodump.

Turns out Not Vincent Price had a scientist brother that invented a super-jetpack AND a new energy source AND figured out the identities of Superman and Batman!!!

Also SUDDEN EXPLOSION!!!

An explosion that gives Not Vincent Price radiation poisoning, which makes him decide to give the greatest performance of all time.

Or, to put it more succinctly:

So that’s what’s been going on the entire time: Not Vincent Price has been tricking everyone.

Now we get to the best part of the story: both Superman and Batman knew all along this was a hoax and they were just playing along to give closure to Not Vincent Price!!!

And they didn’t tell anything to either Batgirl or Supergirl because they wanted the performance to be convincing to SOMEONE.

Like I said I generally don’t like Cary Bates on Superman stories, but this final plot twist is great.
It’s basically a deconstruction of Silver Age tropes while simultaneously playing them straight!

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Historical significance: 0/10
This might be the first Batman-Supergirl team up, but it’s not exactly important.

Silver Age-ness: 5/10
This is tough, straddling the line between doing a classic Silver Age plot and changing everything at the last second to something different… which is, in itself, a very Silver Age thing to do!
Let’s split this down the middle.

Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
Surprisingly solid. It would be harder to pull off today, because the first part has to strictly follow the Silver Age formula… you could get that past the radar in 1968, but today it would be an obvious throwback and you could probably see the final twist coming sooner.
Also both Jimmy and Robin were completely unnecessary additions. What’s the point of making them discover the secret if they don’t even get to say it to anyone? 

Stupid Jimmy Olsen moment
This could’ve been a perfect opportunity for him to talk to both Superman and Batman… he can call the former with the signal watch, and remember he knows the secret identity of the latter.

Did Robin actually do anything?
Somehow he manages to solve the mystery AND be completely useless. At least it’s revealed that he was taken out by Superman and not by Not Vincent Price.

Did Superman really need Batman?
To have some fun? Maybe. To perform a very elaborate hoax? Come on, this is Silver Age Superman we’re talking about, he’s probably running five hoaxes at all times.

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Interesting letters: someone asks why Robin isn’t interested in Supergirl.

Ah yes, of course. A flying alien far stronger than him is “completely out of the question” as a Robin love interest. That has aged well.