Title: World's Finest Comics
Issue: 217
Date: May, 1973
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Bob Haney
Artist: Dick Dillin, Murphy Anderson
After a sequence of mishaps, Metamorpho ends up with all of the abilities of Superman and Batman, in addition to his own powers. Eager to used his newfound powers for good, Metamorpho ends up upstaging both Superman and Batman, who become jealous of all of the attention that Metamorpho is getting, and decide to defect to one of America's enemy nations where they pledge loyalty to a military dictator. Metamorpho is sent to bring Superman and Batman back to America... by any means necessary.
There is a plot twist, as one might expect, that reveals that Superman and Batman were actually working for the cause of good, but they end up admitting that they really were jealous of Metamorpho, so not all of their obnoxious behavior is quite explained away. The villain, the dictator of the imaginary enemy nation, is basically a walking set of cliches, but really, so are Batman and Superman in this story. Metamorpho, meanwhile comes off as reasonably sympathetic. His actual battles against Batman and Superman are generally goofy, but he does manage to drop a couple of good chemistry facts here and there as he uses his elemental powers.
This was harmless fun, although it relied pretty heavily on Superman and Batman acting in ways that most fans would consider out-of-character for the sake of the plot.
Rating: 4.5/10
