Everything that Dan Jurgens and Lee Weeks touch is gold.

Their collaborations on Superman Rebirth were an absolute revelation, and in many ways set up the creative boom from 2015-2018 that followed. Weeks has grown exponentially as an artist and is at the peak of his ability, demonstrated on every book he’s worked on in the last decade- Batman and Daredevil come to mind, in particular. And Jurgens, well, not much else to say that I haven’t already said about the most prolific Superman writer of our day.

DC has released a series of standard size hardcovers in recent years called “The World.” They are anthology collections of short stories from international creative teams. To my knowledge, thus far Superman: The World is the third in the series, preceded by Batman and Joker.

What a surprise!

In addition to a cover by Weeks, Dan and Lee provide the lead story for the collection, which really is DC putting their best foot forward.

The fifteen or so page story, as one would expect, is of excellent quality, and both the art and writing just pop. Really awesome stuff that makes me hope these two get more projects to work on together in the future.

The story features just Clark and Lois, not Jon, so it’s not a “Rebirth story,” per se. It’s about Superman fighting a giant alien with a wrinkle in the plot at the end. Pretty straightforward, but nevertheless highly entertaining!

On a side note- John Kalisz is an industry veteran who has colored comics for many years, and who I think does some of the most exquisite coloring work I’ve ever seen in this story! I’ve been critical of digital coloring in the past, as I feel it can overpower and look way too artificial at times. Here though, it enhances Lee Weeks’ pencils and Superman’s bright world in an incredible way. Really fantastic pairing with the other creatives.

The rest of the stories, totaling about 220 pages, are shorts by creative teams from around the world, and are quite mediocre at best.

I have always respected international comics, spending lots of time in Greece when I was a kid, reading Disney comics, Popeye, Lucky Luke and later superheroes as well. Plenty of international creators have made their mark in American comics for many years too (Jose Luis García-Lopez, Eduardo Barreto, and Ivan Reis come to mind, for starters). There is a rich tradition there with a lot of talent, to be sure.

Unfortunately, for some reason, the creators either have only the vaguest notion of Superman, or a lot gets lost in translation. I’m guessing a good deal of it is the latter. If someone were to translate who had mastery of American English with its slang and colloquialisms, and that of their country of origin, it might work. But way, way too often the writing reads as clunky, bizarre and stilted, which is really too bad as some of these creators have genuine talent.

I tried reading some of IDW’s Euro comics and other collections in the past as well, enticed by some of the beautiful art one would see, but sadly, often with the same results.

All that said, even if the story often doesn’t make much sense, some of the art is definitely top notch and nice to look at. At the very least, regardless of one’s taste, chances are you will find something visually appealing in this collection if you pick it up.

To go back to Dan and Lee, I would have paid the full price of this book even if it meant only purchasing their short story between the covers, so for me, this collection is well worth it. The enjoyability largely falls off a cliff after that, but there are still some appealing aesthetics, and some cultural and architectural imagery that can be appreciated. Overall, I enjoyed this book.

In terms of what grade I’d give it, the American story is a 10, everything else is about a 2. Which averages to about…

Capeage Meter: 7 out of 10