Superman/Batman: World's Finest #3
by Dave Gibbons, Steve Rude and Karl Kesel
My faith in the inherent justice of the universe took a major hit when I saw Steve Rude begging for comic work on social media. He should be fending away offers from every comic book publisher on the planet, not begging for scraps.
Maybe it's because he spent so much of the prime of his career on Nexus, an extremely 1980s sci-fi epic that is largely forgotten today, but Rude's art has always been incredible, with warmth, vitality and humour and should be appreciated more.
Consider this series from 1990, a period when Superman and Batman were hardly friends, and any sort of team-up between them was relatively rare. The scrip from Dave Gibbons is overloaded and overcomplicated in the way of so many superhero comics of the era, but Rude's art is genuinely timeless.
His Batman is sleek, flowing and mysterious, while Superman is open and powerful, always ready with an encouraging smile alongside some feat of super-strength. With able assistance from Karl Kesel and Steve Oliff, World's Finest looks like nothing else produced in the early 90s, which makes it even more appealing today.
Rude's retro style helps with that timeless factor, but the storytelling is also always so clear, with plenty of visual gags and character moments to keep things moving. It is, quite frankly, so hard to understand why Rude isn't held up with the greats of the medium, and able to pick his projects on a whim. Maybe it's just too smooth, too pretty, and just too good for the world.
We just don't deserve Steve Rude and his incredible style.
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