Mark Waid has a veritable crisis on his hands! That is, “crisis” in the old sense, when “crisis” signaled a team-up between the Justice League and the Justice Society. No multiple Earths this time around, but still the Satellite era Justice League partnered with the Justice Society through a World’s Finest lens.

There does rather always seem more Waid could do. It’s a great thrill to see these particular instances of these characters on the page together in Batman/Superman: World’s Finest Vol. 7: Total Eclipso and, as the name implies, versus Eclipso no less. But beyond that, there isn’t an awful lot that Waid does that’s necessarily different than what we’ve seen before, neither in regards to the heroes nor the villains. We’ve also lost series artist Dan Mora now and that’s a real shame — I’d have liked to see him draw this particular story, for one, and for two, I’m not sure World’s Finest’s Bronze Age aesthetic is altogether convincing without him.

[Review contains spoilers]

I’ll admit to being more inclined to the Justice League Embassy than the satellite, but equally there’s something iconic about Red Tornado and Elongated Man in his red costume. These heroes fall away in no small part as Waid’s story focuses increasingly on Superman and Batman — their names are on the masthead, I guess — but it’s always a thrill when we get to see Atom Ray Palmer against this backdrop, throwing a size-shifting punch.

I won’t even try to parse the who and what and Ragnaroks of Waid’s Justice Society here, but they’re acceptably recognizable, Green Lantern Alan Scott and Flash Jay Garrick and so on. Alan and Jay each get team-up moments with their respective counterparts, Alan and Hal Jordan having to combine their ring power, trading a few age-related barbs, and later facing off. Jay and Barry Allen also end up in Eclipso-fueled fisticuffs; ultimately I wish Waid could have found an emotional throughway less obvious than “oldsters are mad about being replaced by the young upstarts,” but still, nice to have the two teams back together.

Maybe it’s faux period-specific, but Waid’s introduction of Eclipso felt flimsy to me. The Justice League helping build a Solar City? Fine. But when Robin raises a concern about Bruce Gordon and Eclipso, Batman just brushes him off, and then sure enough, at the end of the next scene, Eclipso. Arguably Waid’s point here isn’t Eclipso, so might as well get him on the page as quickly as possible, but among all the different portrayals of Eclipso we’ve seen over the years, Waid’s felt bland, not bringing any particular vision to the villain.

In all, Waid’s Eclipso story felt off. Speaking of the Justice League Embassy, the story starts with the dialogue “One punch” coming out of the satellite; this is surely meant as an Easter egg nod, but reminding the audience of the JLI-era right at the start of a Satellite story felt at clumsy cross-purposes. Batman arrives on the satellite amidst warring League members and Waid has him saying, “Superman, what the hell —?” to which Superman replies, “You’re the detective! Just look at their faces,” equally a bit of clumsiness as if Waid doesn’t think the reader knows how Eclipso works. And as mentioned, I missed artist Dan Mora altogether; I can see how Adrian Guiterrez frenetic style worked on Blue Beetle, but here the panels were too busy or too cluttered. Guiterrez' Instagram offers some quirkier images, so maybe things will improve.

Also included is the Green Lantern/Green Arrow: World’s Finest Special by current Lantern writer Jeremy Adams, which also includes a Green Lantern/Flash team-up. Equally there’s joy in seeing Hal and Ollie back out on the road together, though Adams' “hard travelin'” story is milquetoast, all action and explosions, when Adams could’ve at least tried some Dennis O’Neil/Neal Adams-esque sociopolitical commentary, as relevant now as ever. I did appreciate that Adams dovetails the story into 1980’s New Teen Titans #2; a perfectly viable goal for World’s Finest, instead of the one-off anthology series it’s become, would be telling the stories behind classic DC stories, as this one does.

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest Vol. 7: Total Eclipso also included Waid’s Batgirl/Jimmy Olsen team-up, which is indeed fun; I appreciated the mention of Jimmy’s “Souvenir Cabinet” of Silver Age trinkets, also alluded to in Waid’s Action Comics: Phantoms, and the closing “There’s a cat?” line is priceless. In some respects this is where World’s Finest is succeeding for me — we’ve had so many Batman/Superman team-up series at this point that “Robin Dick Grayson and …” would be eminently more interesting (or, like, a Robin/Batgirl/Supergirl/Jimmy Olsen team-up book).

I am reminded that I never actually finished reading the Superman/Batman series that began with Jeph Loeb’s run, nor did DC even collect all of it the first time around after it went to anthology stories. I didn’t hesitate to read World’s Finest’s crossover with Justice League Unlimited, We Are Yesterday, but maybe this title falls a bit down my reading list after that.

[Includes original and variant covers]