World's Finest
Enemies & Allies is a superhero novel by Kevin J. Anderson, where Batman meets Superman in the late Fifties, at the height of the Cold War. Batman is doing his usual thing in Gotham City, but discounts reports that the "Superman" of Metropolis is an alien from outer space. Imagine his surprise when, in the course of a late-night raid on Lex Luthor's mansion, he runs smack-dab into the Man of Steel. Their relationship is a bit rocky at first, but when Superman runs into trouble he can't handle by himself, the Dark Knight is the one to rescue him.
Enemies & Allies contains example of:
- Action Girl: Lois Lane.
- Alien Invasion: Subverted. The "alien spacecraft" were made by LutherCorp, in order to drum up business and show off his Death Raynote .
- Alternate Continuity: Although set in the 50's, the setting incorporates Post-Crisis elements such Lex Luthor as a wealthy business mogul, while Batman is early in his career and yet to ally with James Gordon ala Batman: Year One. Superman's Fortress of Solitude is based on the crystalline version from Superman: The Movie and his symbol is stated to be the family crest of the House of El.
- Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better: When Superman reveals that he knows Batman's secret identity, Batman promptly returns the favor.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: "Superman" is alien? Don't be ridiculous.note
- Artistic License – History: A note from the author at the end admits that he took a few liberties on the Cold War.
- Batman Gambit: Bruce Wayne deliberately altered the stolen Wayne Enterprises parts for the Death Ray, so he could catch Luthor in the act.
- Big Bad: Lex Luthor, naturally.
- Body Horror: The mutants the Russians send after Batman and Superman, while they are escaping from the Gulag.
- Break the Haughty: The treacherous Wayne Enterprises directors (such as the greedy and condescending Paul Hemming and the less venal but particularly rude Frank Miles) go from self-satisfied and dismissive of Bruce to gaping in shock and fear after he reveals that he knows their various dirty secrets.
- The Cameo:
- Cap. James Gordan shows up briefly as part of a sting to capture Batman, having yet to ally with him.
- At one point, Bruce Wayne hosts a charity ball as a ploy to obtain fingerprints on Gotham's more suspicious elites. At the party are Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin and Selina Kyle/Catwoman.
- Cold Flames: Wood cut from trees mutated by Kryptonite will cause fires to burn cold instead of hot.
- Cold War: The setting for this story.
- Commonality Connection: When he learns the circumstances which brought Superman to Earth, Batman develops a connection to his fellow orphan.
- Cool Plane: The "Batplane", which gets Batman into—and out of—the Soviet Union. It includes stealth, supersonic speed, V/STOL (Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing) capabilities and a motorcycle.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Batman.
- Dirty Cop: Mentioned in Batman's first scene; The narration notes that several of the crooks Batman's turned in fingered several officers as being in on the take, and so the real reason the cops are trying to capture Batman is to avoid more humiliation.
- Engineered Heroics: The crux of Luthor's schemes; he wants to create a disaster he can save the world from with his inventions. When Superman and Batman unwittingly foil his first attempt with a nuclear missile, he goes the fake alien invasion route.
- Face Death with Dignity: Lex Luthor's reaction to being sentenced to death in the electric chair...which was designed and built by LuthorCorp. Subverted as he was mentally finishing his plan to escape.
- Fluffy the Terrible: While investigating the corrupted Wayne Enterprises directors, Batman breaks into their homes. In one of them he encounters a mastiff breed of Angry Guard Dog. The dog's collar has the name "FLUFFY" printed on it.
- Forced into Evil: A couple of the Wayne Enterprises directors are only helping Luthor because he threatened their families, and another (Richard Drayling) chooses to retire rather than either aid or fully resist Luthor.
- Good Is Not Soft: Superman.
- The Gulag: Where Superman gets captured and imprisoned.
- Historical Domain Character: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev, and Joseph McCarthy all make appearances.
- I Know Your True Name: Superman and Batman do this at the end — not to intimidate, but to show that they can trust each other.
- Mythology Gag: Various coming from both Batman and Superman's collective history and other parts of the DC Universe.
- The ship Superman saves is named "The Star City Queen" alluding to Oliver Queen and his hometown of Star City. Queen Consolidated is later mentioned as a company LuthorCorp is in competition with.
- James Gordon transferred to Gotham from Chicago like his Post-Crisis counterpart in Batman: Year One.
- Superman's first interview with Lois is framed similarly to their meeting in Superman: The Animated Series
- Kryptonite is shown to cause mutations like its depiction in Smallville
- Batman thinks back on an incident where his father saved the life of an injured crime boss who came to Wayne Manor for help, a nod to The Long Halloween where the boss in question was Carmine Falcone.
- Tyler Pharmaceuticals is mentioned at one point, nodding to Rex Tyler/Hourman.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Scott Thomson and Larry Buccheim (the respective heads of marketing and propulsion technology at Wayne Enterprises) may seem like a pair of bottom feeders without much to contribute to either Bruce or the man they are betraying him to, but both of them are surprisingly good at drawing up engineering specs to pass on to Lex Luthor for some of his key villainous endeavors.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Batman leans heavily into this, with Bruce Wayne appearing to be a playboy with no interest or ability to run Wayne Enterprises. Unfortunately, it works against him when Bruce is unable to get one of his few honorable executives to confide in him.
- The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Luthor loathes Lois Lane due to his rampant misogyny and her investigation into his affairs, but in his last scene, he shows grudging respect for her objective writing while covering his trial.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: In-universe example, while watching a sci-fi movie with Jimmy Olsen, Clark Kent realizes that Hollywood's depiction of aliens is part of the reason why nobody believes Superman's claims of being one — he looks too much like a human, as opposed to the bug-eyed, tentacled monsters of the big screen.
- Shoot the Builder: Luthor engaged in a passive version of this (save with a few especially knowledgeable workers he outright assassinates with a sabotaged ship) by not warning the workers building his private nuclear reactor about the risks and personally handling their medical care in an implicitly lackluster manner so they would die or radiation poisoning before telling anyone his secret. Not everyone got sick, though, and one of the survivors tips off Lois.
- Sketchy Successor: Thomas Wayne's original board of directors were brilliant and highly ethical businessmen devoted to his philanthropic vision, but most of them have died or retired, and their successors, while fairly competent executives and/or engineers, were either always out to enrich themselves regardless of the cost or proved to be corruptible.note
- Spanner in the Works: Batman had no idea what Lex Luthor was going to do with the stolen Wayne Enterprises parts, but decided to trick Luthor into taking some sabotaged machines to trip him up. As a result, Luthor's Death Ray doesn't work at first.
- Too Clever by Half: Lex Luthor's Fatal Flaw; as Batman notes, Luthor's smart, but to arrogant to believe anyone could be smarter than him. This leads to him making a critical blunder with his Engineered Heroics ploy; He needs to shoot out the Russian missiles with his Death Ray, but because he assumed it would work and it ''didn't', he's caught flatfooted. He didn't even have a backup plan because he assumed the main plan was perfect. Even Luthor's Dumb Muscle bodyguard knew better than to point out the obvious flaw in that line of thinking.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Lex Luthor is trusted by powerful politicans.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Batman and Superman.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Batman calls out Captain Gordon for wasting a ton of manpower that could have been spent actually preventing crimes just to go after him.
- You Have Failed Me: After Bruce blackmails the Wayne Enterprises directors Luthor suborned into giving Luthor worthless technology for his evil superweapon, Larry Buchheim goes to Luthor, reveals what happened, and offers him the necessary design specs to undo Bruce's sabotage in exchange for a new job. Luthor accepts the plans but then shoots Buchheim for 1) getting caught and 2) not tipping Luthor off sooner. Luthor then sends his hitmen after the other compromised directors as well (although several survive).
