I’ve been pretty harsh on Judd Winick I must admit. But can you blame me? The stuff before his career had been revived with Generation Lost (still need to read that) most of his work was painful to read. It felt like the man lost his touch and everything he touched turned into a black hole of suck. The premise of this issue intrigued me a lot because it never felt like it was explored at all until now. Superman better have damn well been depressed that his best friend died. Even with Winick as writer I was determined to try and see how this story was going to play out. I’m glad I did.

This is some of the best work Winick has done in a long time. It walks the fine line of being ‘cheesy’ and ‘depressing’ very well. At no point does this feel over dramatic and at no point does Winick not add on the weight of sadness onto Clark’s shoulders. He handles the transition from Superman to Dick/Tim very well. When we finally get into Grayson taking on the mantle, that’s where the issue hooked me for good. Superman just being plain pissed anyone would try and pretend to be Batman just felt right. I really thought it was going to get ugly and fast; but Winick is able to wrap things up in a nice bow. There are some weird references in this; probably from his short stint on Batman. Overall though this was a great, emotional read from start to finish.

Never really read anything with Marco Rudy as artist but if I had to sum up his style it would be: JH Williams III simplified. There are really no panels; just pages with virtually anything happening in them. There are some unique pages like the splitting of Clark and Grayson; or having the Batsymbol to be a panel. There are also some great single images in this; like the beginnign with Clark holding the body. I’m not saying everything is perfect; some of the faces look a tad off at points. But I really loved a lot of what I saw here.

So yeah…..This was pretty amazing to read. It was emotional and told a great story on Clark’s emotional struggle with losing his friend. Then again it does seem very obvious for a guy like Winick to do this story. Nevertheless; this was a great read and it had some great artwork to boot. I think this could really be the new phase in Winick’s career. Can’t wait to read Generation Lost that’s for sure.