written by Grant Morrison (main story), Scott Snyder, Tom Taylor, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Tom Taylor, Mariko Tamaki and G. Willow Wilson (back-up stories)
drawn by Dan Mora (main story) Hayden Sherman, Bruno Redondo, Amanda Conner and Denys Cowan (back-up stories)
After my distinctly unpleasant experience purchasing and reading the Deadpool/Batman crossover as published by Marvel Comics, I took my sweet time in buying its counterpart published by DC Comics, Batman/Deadpool. I was loath to spend the premium that the crossover special would inevitably exact if it meant putting up with another anthology of stories whose creators basically sleepwalked through creating them. However, the excerpts popping up on social media showed promise, especially in terms of what they showcased of Grant Morrison's dialogue and Dan Mora's art, so about a full month after the comic book's release, I took the plunge.
Boy, I am glad I did.
To get this out of the way right now, this book, like its Marvel-published counterpart, consists of one main story and several shorter, back-up stories. The difference, however, is that, each of them is head and shoulders above the stories contained in that book.
The main story features Batman and Deadpool, whose universes collide as a result of a dalliance between Marvel's Eternity and DC's Kismet, fighting (of course) and then teaming up to investigate a mysterious presence in Greece, which may prove to be too much for either of them acting alone. The threat is so great, in fact that for all of Batman's skill and preparation and Deadpool's near immortality thanks to his healing factor, the pair of them will need help from a most unlikely source.
I have read quite a few of Grant Morrison's stories, including the breakthrough graphic novel Arkham Asylum, a good chunk of their remarkable run on New X-Men in the early 2000s, the landmark 12-issue series All Star Superman, and the brief but memorable original work WE3. This work actually showed a new side to the writer that I hadn't seen before: they have a good handle on the humor needed for a Deadpool comic books. Unlike Zeb Wells' clunky script, Morrison's jokes are actually funny, and they don't shy away from Deadpool's dubious origins as a thinly-veiled parody/ripoff of Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke. Unlike Wells, Morrison actually bothers to come up with an explanation of how Batman's and Deadpool's universes have managed to collide, with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek framing device involving cosmic entities Eternity and Kismet having a one-night stand. The villain, whose identity I will not spoil, is a real treat as well.
As much as I enjoyed Greg Capullo's work on the Marvel version of this book, I absolutely adored Dan Mora's work here, and I desperately want to see him work on a flagship Marvel book sometime soon, preferably Spider-Man or Daredevil. Mora is a bona fide superstar, and I can really see why Morrison was keen to work with him after they collaborated on a graphic novel featuring an alt-version of Santa Claus several years ago. His work is gloriously dynamic and slick in its detail at the same time. He's got a flair for visual storytelling akin to the likes of John Romita Jr., but I daresay, he draws considerably prettier pictures.
Unfortunately, however, as with Deadpool/Batman, the page count for the main story is distressingly short at 27 pages. Given how good these collaborators are, I would have loved a few extra pages, like a nice, round thirty or forty, but it is what it is.
Fortunately, though, the slew of backup stories here, which feature crossovers between Constantine and Doctor Strange, Nightwing and the Wolverine formerly known as X-23, Harley Quinn and the Hulk (!) and Static Shock and Ms. Marvel, come surprisingly close to making me forget that this is an anthology because each one is remarkably well-done. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them, because the creators involved, writers AND artists, are very obviously firing on all cylinders. Each of these stories made me yearn to see these artists strut their stuff on Marvel books.
These anthology books, for me, are always a compromise in storytelling quality, but to draw a food analogy, if a proper story is a full-course meal, Marvel's Deadpool/Batman was the equivalent of a bag of chips, whereas DC's Batman/Deadpool was at least the equivalent of a couple of good burger sliders. Still not a fully satisfying meal, but a definite step up from the last crossover book featuring these characters.
This was worth my money; I'm just sorry there weren't more pages of crossover goodness.
8.5/10
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