First off, after Jorge Jimenez’s brilliant art during the Failsafe story arc, this change in artist and art style is quite jarring. I can’t tell if it’s the pencils by Hawthorne or Bendetto’s inking, but I’m not a big fan of the overall look of the main story. There are some nice panels though, which offer some interesting perspectives.
We open with Batman lying bruised and bloody on a cobbled street. His costume’s torn and half his face is exposed. A couple steal his utility belt and there’s a reference to the drug VENOM.
Batman regains consciousness and remembers Failsafe blasting him with some kind of energy weapon. Is he in Crime Alley? Maybe not the Crime Alley he remembers.
Batman and Spawn in a crossover event? What year is this? Did we slip back in time to the nineties?
There has been a lot of hype building up to the release of this comic book. Released on Tuesday December 13th, the 48-page Batman / Spawn #1 comic will set you back $6.99. It’s published by DC Comics (Batman), not Image Comics (Spawn). I’m sure Image would’ve put it out at a cheaper price. (They have been releasing their Spawn comics for $2.99, a dollar or more cheaper than the other publishers.) Todd McFarlane writing Batman & Spawn, Greg Capullo drawing the book and McFarlane inking Capullo’s pencils. As you can imagine, a lot of comic book fans have been very excited about this release. The question is, is it any good?
My simple answer is buy it for the art. The story is okay but the art by Greg Capullo is stunning. There are some incredible double page spreads in the comic. I’ve since heard in an interview with the two creators that Todd asked Greg what he wanted to draw. Then he wrote the story around that. So it’s not like he had this great idea for a story he really wanted to tell. And it shows. The story is convoluted and requires re-reading to take everything in. It’s also a bit daft with McFarlane trying to tie-in the deaths of Batman’s parents and Spawn’s wife.
Holy Macaroni, Batman! What have they done to Tim Drake? I’m amazed this got past the editor(s). Nice cover art but it has nothing to do with the story…
I’m old and remember Dick Grayson as Robin the Boy Wonder when I started reading Batmancomics. Then Dick broke away and became Nightwing and Jason Todd arrived as a new mouthier Robin. His popularity was pretty mixed to begin with, but I kind of liked him from the start. He wasn’t afraid to question Batman, even smart mouth him at times. This eventually led to the unforgettable Death in the Family story arc where readers were encouraged to phone in to decide if Jason Todd lived or died at the climax of that story.
I missed the debut of Tim Drake as Robin because I’d moved on to reading more “adult” comics that became DC’s excellent VERTIGO line of books. Titles like Hellblazer, Sandman, Shade the Changing Man, Animal Man, Doom Patrol and The Invisibles. I’d heard there was a new Robin and he had his own series being written by Chuck Dixon. That solo series started in 1993 but Dixon had penned three mini-series before it: Robin: Reborn; Robin II: The Joker’s Wild!; and Robin III: Cry of the Huntress. After what DC Comics has just done to Tim Drake Robin, I’m really tempted to pick up each of those mini-series and read them. I am one hundred percent sure they will be far more entertaining than this comic.
This is the series which has Lucius Fox’s son Tim “Jace” Fox as a black Batman who took the mantle during the Future State story-event in 2021. Batman was missing presumed dead when Jace decided to become “The Next Batman.” The character made his debut last year in a four issue mini-series also written by John Ridley. I read the first issue but it didn’t draw me in. I guess it must have sold well enough to merit this new series. (You might have heard of Luke Fox, Jace’s older brother. He became the character Batwing back in 2013.)
I reviewed issue #1 of I Am Batman on my YouTube channel back in September last year. While the art by Olivier Coipel was very good, the story didn’t really interest me and I didn’t continue with the series. I found main character Jace Fox unlikeable and wondered whether writer John Ridley was purposely trying to court controversy with his character’s attitude towards original Batman Bruce Wayne. Yet here I am six months later writing a review of issue #7. What happened? I think it was watching the new Batman (2022) movie that got me all excited and tempted me to give this series another try. It was also the cover art, to be honest. It really stood out among the new releases. What do you think of it?
After my recent rant about the terrible ComiXology Amazon update, here’s some good news from the world of American comics; well, for me anyway. Current Daredevil writer Chip Zdarsky will take over the writing duties of DC’s flagship Batman comic book from issue #125 due out in July. I like Zdarsky’s work, especially his run on Daredevil, so I’m pretty excited by this news. Joshua Williamson has been writing the comic after James Tynion’s 31-issue run ended with issue #117. Despite Williamson sharing his good wishes towards the new creative team on Twitter, you have to wonder if this was always the plan. He claims it was, despite only getting to write seven issues.
Here’s my video reaction to the news. It’s only 8 minutes long.Continue reading →
Batman #118 is written by Joshua Williamson with art by Jorge Molina. It was released on December 7th 2021 for the rising DC Comic’s price of $4.99. For that you get 30 pages of story.
Cover Art by Jorge Molina
I’m happy to say that this felt like a breath of fresh air after James Tynion’s road-to-nowhere-fast run on the title. Tynion took over after Tom King had penned 85 issues of a very mixed run on DC’s flagship title. Tynion started well with a return-to-basics style of a Batman book. Unfortunately, I felt like he was stretching three or four-part story arcs into double the length actually needed. How many parts made up “Joker War” or “Fear State”? Too many, that’s for sure. Not to mention his penchant for introducing too many new characters who struggled to catch this reader’s attention or memory. Seriously, I can’t remember half of them.
To celebrate getting 100 subscribers on YouTube, I made a video where I talk about how I got into reading comics. I cover five comic book titles that had a big effect on me and helped develop my love of the medium. It’s at the bottom of this post and is twelve minutes long. If you watch it, please let me know what you think about my choices. Also, I’d love to hear from you if you’ve read any of these titles! 😀
The FIVE comics are:
Groo the Wanderer
Groo the Wanderer #17 was the first American comic book I bought with my own money. I’d read some of my brother’s Batman comics before that. Also, the Marvel UK reprints of the popular Marvel Star Wars comic that became a big seller after the first Star Wars movie. I think it was the cover of Groo #17 that caught my eye and led me into the madcap world of this bumbling yet deadly barbarian. Sergio Aragones’s detailed cartoony style blew my young mind and I quickly fell in love with the bonkers, silly humour.
Hello again. It’s me with yet another comic book review. You can see my true colours coming out after all these years, right? Yep, I’m a comic book geek, and always have been. 😉 I don’t know why but I always struggle to get through a book in August. Weird, right? Summer just doesn’t work as a reading month for me. Bring on the autumn!
Here is my review of Batman: Reptilian #1 written by Garth Ennis with art by Liam Sharp. It was released on June 23rd 2021. You get 21 pages of story, plus the cover, for the rising DC Comics price of $4.99. This is a Black Label title so it stands alone, free of the regular Batman continuity.
Brief Synopsis & My Thoughts
The Riddler and the Scarecrow have been brutally attacked and Batman is determined to discover who did it. It seems that there is something stalking the streets of Gotham City, something more dangerous than Batman.
First off, the painted art by Liam Sharp is gorgeous. It’s dark and atmospheric and reminded me of Dave McKean’s work on the 1989 graphic novel “Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.” Garth Ennis writes a more intimidating Batman than more recent portrayals. This Batman strikes FEAR into the hearts of the criminals he faces, which is the whole point of his costume after all. I enjoyed this return to a darker Dark Knight and I’m very curious to see where the story goes from here. Issues #2 and #3 are already out and I will be picking up copies soon.
I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but growing up I was a HUGE Batman fan. I used to buy the two DC Comics Batman titles: Batman and Detective Comics. This was back in the old times before the Empire the 1989 Tim Burton movie. Out of curiosity I’ve just checked how many current monthly Batman comics there are. Are you ready for this?
Batman; Detective Comics; Legends of the Dark Knight; Batman: Urban Legends; Batman Fortnite; Batman Secret Files; Batman Reptilian; Batman ’89; I Am Batman (the race-swapped Batman); The Batman & Scooby Doo Mysteries; Future State Gotham; Batman Catwoman; Batman Superman; THIRTEEN titles! Plus two Joker titles, Robin, and Nightwing. 😵 Talk about an over-saturated market! It’s almost unbelievable when you type them all out.
I haven’t read the current Batman monthly comic for a while, so I thought I’d try the latest issue: Batman #111 “The Cowardly Lot” part 6 written by James Tynion IV with art by Jorge Jiminez. It was released August 3rd 2021 at the DC Comics price of $4.99. You get 30 pages of story: 22 for the main Batman story and 8 for the backup “Ghost-Maker” story. That’s right, a lot of the main DC Comics monthly titles now include an 8-page backup story, which is their excuse for raising the price from $3.99 to $4.99, or in some cases $5.99.
“Make me laugh. Make me cry. Tell me my place in the world. Lift me out of my skin and place me in another. Show me places I have never visited and carry me to the ends of time and space.” –Dennis O’Neil
Dennis O’Neil pictured with his ‘DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics’
I was very sad to hear the news today of the passing of Dennis (Denny) O’Neil. I got to know his work back in the late 1980s when I started buying comic books. At that time, O’Neil was editor of the two main Batman titles: Batman and Detective Comics. I used to buy them regularly. I remember being excited to hear that a new Batman title was going to launch in November 1989. That title was Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. Denny O’Neil wrote the opening five-part story: Shaman.
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