Category: Batgirl

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Tim Drake: Robin volume 1 – Mystery at the Marina


By Meghan FitzMartin & Riley Rossmo, with Ricardo López Ortiz, Lee Loughridge, Belén Ortega, Luis Guerrero & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77952-057-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Created by Marv Wolfman & Pat Broderick for Batman: Year Three, Tim Drake debuted in Batman #436 (August 1989): a child prodigy who had deduced Batman’s secret identity and – from a distance – diagnosed the Dark Knight’s impending guilt-fuelled nervous breakdown following the murder of Jason Todd – AKA Robin #2 and latterly The Red Hood. Tim would become – via a torturous series of circumstances – the third Robin.

Still a child himself, Drake attempted to manipulate Dick Grayson – the first hero dubbed “Boy Wonder” – into returning as the Dark Knight’s partner before grudgingly accepting the position himself (see Batman: A Death in the Family and Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying). After a long period of training and acclimation and many dangerous adventures, a deeply impressed if not quite recovered Batman instead offered Tim the job.

This new kid took fans by storm, and Drake secured a series of increasingly impressive solo mini-series (see Robin volume 1: Reborn) and eventually his own long-running comic book. Being trained by Batman is an arduous and agonising undertaking. During the terrifying Batman: Wargames saga Drake in his turn became estranged from his moody mentor and forcibly retired from the fights ‘n’ tights game. Batman replaced Tim with Stephanie Brown, daughter of the criminal Cluemaster, who became the vigilante Spoiler to compensate for her father’s depredations. Eventually the role of Robin settled upon the tense and hostilely hunched shoulders of Bruce Wayne’s assassin-trained son Damian…

In between a massively complex solo career work with the Batman family and leading the Teen Titans and Young Justice, restless Tim dated teammates Cassie Wonder Girl Sandsmark and Stephanie – who had now evolved into one of Gotham City’s many Batgirls. Peripatetic and aloof he vanished and frequently returned, briefly employing the codenames Red Robin and “Drake” but never seemed to find a comfort zone or niche all is own. However, in the wake of continuity resetting event Infinite Frontier, Tim’s already incredible life was shaken again by a stunning realisation when Batman’s only competition for the title “World’s Greatest Detective” finally realised he was bi-sexual after rescuing old high school friend Bernard Dowd from kidnappers…

Re-presenting a tale from DC Pride: Tim Drake Special #1 (August 2022) and Tim Drake: Robin #1-6 (November 2022-April 2023) this breezy crime conundrum opens with ‘Elephant in the Room’ by Meghan FitzMartin, Belén Ortega & Luis Guerrero, previously seen in the aforementioned Pride special wherein Young Justice seek to stop a phantom pachyderm tearing up Gotham. They have no idea a mystery mastermind has targeted Tim, wrapped up as they all are in sorting out his so-fascinating love-life…

The new nemesis – arrogantly deeming himself private detective Tim Drake’s “Moriarty” – opens his campaign of terror after the other, other, other Robin moves onto a houseboat at Gotham City Marina, and spends weeks just settling into the area’s utterly unique community and ambiance. Thoroughly grounded Bernard is a big help here, but being a grown up is tough, especially after City Hall starts working to close down the artistic outsider enclave. Former costumed comrade Darcy Thomas – now calling herself Sparrow – further complicates events, turning up just as leading anti-eviction activists Mère & Cam are attacked. Mother and daughter are found butchered and dumped in a trash can…

As Mystery of the Marina begins, Tim and Bernard are still in the shaky early days of a first serious relationship… six months and counting… with our hero anxiously locked in the closet about sharing his super-sideline with his new love. Perhaps that’s why he’s happy to cede the lead investigator role to old contact Police Detective Williams – a like-minded investigator who won’t shirk, stint, jump to conclusions… or let the authorities declare this a “boating accident”. This leaves Robin to do what needs to be done in the shadows…

Secret searches and a little deduction in the wake of further outrages lead to an inescapable conclusion: Tim Drake is the true target of an obsessive hidden enemy repeatedly testing him by restaging classic literary crimes, using spectral/holographic/robot beasts like the ghost elephant and a monster orangutan (have you read The Murders in the Rue Morgue? Goldfish? The Moonstone?) to disrupt his life…

Stakes are raised when Robin is framed for a gem robbery and Williams finds himself clashing with his own colleagues, who are happy to call it another inexplicable “masks” crime in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence, and things get out of control when the challenges cost librarian Mrs Jen her life just for assisting Robin & Sparrow.

Pressure mounts on all sides as reclusive city councilman Rathbone seeks to evict all those degenerate marina dwellers, and Bernard silently accepts that Tim has a secret he can’t share yet. It’s all so fast and too confusing and Robin can’t even work out which classic tale he’s being forced to live out… until impatient, arrogant “Moriarty” overplays his hand…

Or does he?

As the clock counts down and atrocities escalate, the villain’s plans and motivations are revealed as the opponents finally face off, but as the literary war becomes too much like real life and our hero forgets a major maxim of plotting… it’s always the one you’ve let get too close…

Blending devious detective tropes with spectacular superhero schtick sweetened by a heaping of healthy romance, multimedia maven Meghan FitzMartin (Batman: Urban Legends Batman: Urban Legends, podcast Red Rhino, TV’s DC Super Hero Girls animated and Supernatural) is an award-winning writer who crafts tales of genre stereotypes and archetypes via emotion-driven tales in fantastic worlds. Here they’re realised by Riley Rossmo (Harley Quinn), Ricardo López Ortiz & Lee Loughridge with gripping suspense and blistering pace as this Robin finds his feet and his place in Gotham…

Also offering a variant cover gallery by Travis Moore & Tamara Bonvillain, Jorge Jiménez, Sweeney Boo, Dan Mora, Jamal Campbell, David Baldeón &Arif Prianto, Rossmo & Loughridge, Jorge Corona, David Talaski, Rian Gonzales, Todd Nauck, Simone Di Meo, Edwin Galmon, Nick Robles, Juni Ba, Karl Mostert & David Baron, this is a thoroughly modern totally traditional superhero whodunnit you must not miss.
© 2022, 2023, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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JLA Classified: New Maps of Hell


By Warren Ellis, Jackson Guice, David Baron, Phil Balsman & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0944-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Once again, we’re saddened by news of the passing of another comics stalwart who died too young and at the height of his powers. Jackson “Butch” Guice was born in Chattanooga Tennessee died on June 27th 1961 and worked in comics for most of his life, beginning on fanzines, small press and independent titles such as The Crusaders, and after making waves on The Micronauts went on to stellar career illustrating the industry’s top titles and characters (including X-Men, X-Factor, Doctor Strange, Captain America, Nick Fury, Winter Soldier, Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Birds of Prey, Resurrection Man and more), independent hits (like Swords of The Swashbucklers, Badger, Nexus, Chronicles of Corum, Eternal Warrior, Storming Paradise, Ruse, Mandalay, Olympus) with his hyper realistic style particular effective in licensed properties and adaptions like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Wild Cards, Aliens, Terminator and Predator. He died on May 1st 2025.

For a fuller epitaph and gallery of Butch’s astounding ability and variety please check out In Memoriam: Comic Artist Jackson “Butch” Guice.

Butch was very much an in-demand collaborator and switched titles swiftly and often, making finding a book fully focussed on his work rather rare. We will cover more idiosyncratic collections – like Mandalay and Swords of the Swashbucklers – later, but for now let’s revisit a short sharp superhero feast showing him in all his solo glory.

JLA Classified: New Maps of Hell

Here’s a grand, old-fashioned, straightforward, no-strings-attached superhero blockbuster: one any old punter can pick up with no worry over continuity or identification and where good guys and bad guys are clearly defined. That’s due in large part to the fact that nobody really does those anymore, but at least it gives me the opportunity to take another look at a slow burner from 2006, which definitely grows on you with every re-read.

Produced at a time when the Justice League of America was enjoying immense popularity and benefiting from a major reboot courtesy of Grant Morrison, this politically-barbed, end-of-the-world epic starring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Oracle and Martian Manhunter first ran in #10-15 of supplemental title JLA Classified (cover-dates September 2005 to February 2006), with gritty futurist scribe Warren Ellis upping the angst-quotient on a hoary old plot whilst illustrator Jackson Guice adds a terrifying veracity to events via his gifts for realism and authenticity.

It begins as Clark Kent and wife Lois Lane stumble onto a dirty little secret. Assorted, and one would assume unconnected, scientists and bean counters at President Lex Luthor’s Lexcorp conglomerate have been committing suicide in large numbers and the intrepid reporters suspect something very nasty is going on…

In Gotham City, Batman learns police and authorities have been turned away from an extremely unconventional crime-scene by Feds and a private security company, and he too starts digging…

In the Bermuda Triangle, a researcher team is invited to the Amazon’s ancient library of knowledge, only to die when the sky-floating island explodes in a horrendous detonation.

Legacy Flash Wally West has terrible dreams of his beloved predecessor Barry Allen (dead and venerated at this juncture) which lead him to a similar catastrophic conflagration, whilst Green Lantern Kyle Rayner ruminates on a primordial legend of the Corps’ origins until a wave of explosions rouse him to action…

In the ruins of each disaster the scattered, hard-pressed heroes find an ancient parchment of alien hieroglyphs, and when Superman recovers another page of the same from the shredded remnants of a plummeting space station, the call goes out to activate the League…

Tasking cyber-savant Oracle and aged Martian sole survivor J’onn J’onzz with uncovering information, the team learn of an antediluvian scourge that had wracked the red planet millions of years past: A God/Devil testing a species’ right to survive and which heralded its coming through a written code. Apparently, Luthor’s scientists have found such writings in remnants of ancient Sumeria and begun deciphering the text…

Mobilising to stop the summoning, our heroes confront Luthor in the White House but are too late. In Las Vegas the bowels of Hell vomit horrors into the streets and as the frantic super squad rush to battle they are snatched up, separated by the malign entity.

It has spent eons traversing the universe testing the worth of intelligent races and individually putting them to their sorest tests. However, the monstrous terror has never faced beings like the JLA before, or a mind like the Batman’s, and soon the horror’s own darkest secret is exposed and its fatal weakness exploited to devastating effect…

With a painted cover gallery by Michael Stribling, this tale offers simple, solid Fights ‘n’ Tights fun gilded with a cynically sly post-modern edge: a sound example of costumed action blockbuster comics at their best.
© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Finest: Justice League of America – The Bridge Between Earths


By Gardner F. Fox & Mike Sekowsky, Denny O’Neil, Dick Dillin, Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Sid Greene, George Roussos, Neal Adams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1779528377 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This stunning compilation is part of the first tranch of long-awaited DC Finest editions: full colour continuations of their chronolgically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections” highlighting past glories.Whilst primarily and understandably concentrating on the superhero character pantheon, there will also be genre selections like horror and war books, and themed compendia such as the much anticpiated gathering of early ape stories (brace yourself for DC Finest: The Gorilla World in July!).

Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the lst decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

Keystone of the DC Universe, the Justice League of America is the reason we still have a comics industry today. The day the first JLA story was published marks the moment when superheroes truly made comic books their own particular preserve. Even though the popularity of masked champions has waxed and waned a few time since 1960, and other genres have re-won their places on published pages, in the minds of America and the world, Comics Means Superheroes and the League signalled that men – and even a few women – in capes and masks were back for good…

When Julius Schwartz began reviving and revitalising the nigh-defunct superhero genre in 1956, his Rubicon move came a few years later with the uniting of his reconfigured mystery men into a team. The JLA debuted in The Brave and the Bold #28 (cover-dated March 1960) and cemented the growth and validity of the revived subgenre, consequently triggering an explosion of new characters at every company publishing funnybooks and spreading to the rest of the world as the decade progressed.

Spanning June 1966 to June 1969, this first full-colour paperback compendium of classics re-presents issues #45-72 of the epochal first series with scripter Gardner Fox and illustrator Mike Sekowsky eventually giving way to new wave Denny O’Neil and Dick Dillin with inkers Joe Giella, Sid Greene, George Roussos seemingly able to do no wrong. While we’re showing our gratitude, lets also salute stalwart letterer Gaspar Saladino for his herculean but unsung efforts to make the uncanny clear to us all…

The adventures here focus on the collective exploits of Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, J’onn J’onzz – Manhunter from Mars, Green Arrow, The Atom, hip and plucky mascot Snapper Carr, latest inductee Hawkman and a few unaffiliated guest stars as the team consolidated its hold on young hearts and minds whilst further transforming the entire nature of the American comic book experience.

The volume encompasses a period in DC’s history that still makes many fans shudder with dread but I’m going to ask them to reconsider their aversion to the “Camp Craze” that saw America go superhero silly in the wake of the Batman TV show (and, to a lesser extent, the Green Hornet series that introduced Bruce Lee to the world). I should also mention that comics didn’t create the craze. Many popular media outlets felt the zeitgeist of a zanier, tongue-in-cheek, mock-heroic fashion: Just check out episodes of Lost in Space or The Man from U.N.C.L.E if you doubt me…

Without pause or preamble we plunge straight into the fun with Justice League of America #45 (cover dated June 1966) with Fox, Sekowsky, Frank Giacoia & Joe Giella for the witty monster-menace double-feature ‘The Super-Struggle against Shaggy Man!’ A wisecracking campy tone was fully in play with the next issue, in acknowledgement of the changing audience profile. It was the opening part of the fourth annual crossover with the Justice Society of America and this time the stakes were raised to encompass destruction of both planets in ‘Crisis Between Earth-One and Earth-Two’ and #47’s ‘The Bridge Between Earths!’ Here a bold – if rash – experiment pulls the two sidereal worlds into an inexorable hyperspace collision, whilst making matters worse, an antimatter being uses the opportunity to explore our positive matter universe.

Peppered with wisecracks and “hip” dialogue, it’s sometimes difficult to discern what a cracking yarn this actually is, but if you’re able to forgive or swallow dated patter, this is one of the best plotted and illustrated stories in the entire JLA/JSA canon. Furthermore, the vastly talented Sid Greene signed on as regular inker with this classic adventure, adding expressive subtlety, beguiling texture and whimsical humour to the pencils of Sekowsky and Fox’s increasingly light, comedic scripts. The next issue was an 80-Page Giant (reprinting Brave and the Bold #29 and Justice League of America #2 and 3, represented here by its stirring Sekowsky/Murphy Anderson cover, to be followed by ‘Threat of the True-or-false Sorcerer’ in which a small team of the biggest guns (Batman, Superman, Flash & Green Lantern) must ferret out a doppelganger Felix Faust before the mage inadvertently dissolves all creation.

There’s no excessive hoopla to celebrate the fiftieth issue but ‘The Lord of Time Attacks the 20th Century’ is another brilliantly told tale of heroism, action and sacrifice that -uncharacteristically for the company and the time – references the ongoing Vietnam conflict. With “Batmania” in full swing, editor Schwartz also deemed it wise to include Robin, The Boy Wonder with regulars Aquaman, Flash, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Snapper Carr & Batman. Issue #51 concluded a long-running experiment in continuity with ‘Z – As in Zatanna – and Zero Hour!’, in which a young sorceress concluded a search for her long-missing father with the assistance of a small group of Leaguers and guest-star Ralph “Elongated Man” Dibny.

Zatarra was a magician-hero in the Mandrake mould. In the 1940s he fought evil in the pages of Action Comics for over a decade, beginning with the very first issue. During the Silver Age Fox had Zatarra’s young and equally gifted daughter, Zatanna, go searching for him by guest-teaming with a selection of superheroes Fox was currently scripting (if you’re counting, these tales appeared in Hawkman #4, Atom #19, Green Lantern #42, and the Elongated Man back-up strip in Detective Comics #355). Thanks to a very slick piece of back writing the roster included the high-profile Caped Crusader via Detective #336’s ‘Batman’s Bewitched Nightmare’. For that full story you could track down Justice League of America: Zatanna’s Search…

Experimentation was also the basis of #52’s ‘Missing in Action – 5 Justice Leaguers!’, a portmanteau tale showing what happened to those members who didn’t show up for issue #50. Hawkman – plus wife and partner Hawkgirl – Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Superman reported their solo yet ultimately linked adventures, whilst The Atom referred them to his time-travelling escapade with Benjamin Franklin from the pages of his own comic (The Atom #27 ‘Stowaway on a Hot Air Balloon!’). Batman still managed to make an appearance through the magic of a lengthy flashback, showing again just how ubiquitous the TV show had made him. No editor in his right mind would ignore a legitimate (or even not-so much) chance to feature such a perfect guarantee of increased sales.

‘Secret Behind the Stolen Super-Weapons!’ saw Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow & Hawkman – again with Hawkgirl guest-starring – deprived of their esoteric armaments and in desperate need of the Atom, Flash, Aquaman & Superman whilst card-carrying criminals returned in ‘The History-Making Costumes of the Royal Flush Gang!’: a taut mystery-thriller with plenty of action to balance the suspense, and fed into another summer-spectacular team-up with the JSA.

Boasting a radical change, the Earth-2 team now starred an adult Robin instead of Batman, but Hourman, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Wildcat, Johnny Thunder & Mr. Terrific still needed the help of Earth-1’s Superman, Flash, Green Lantern & Green Arrow to cope with ‘The Super-Crisis that Struck Earth-Two!’ and ‘The Negative-Crisis on Earths One-Two!’

This cosmic threat from a dying universe was in stark contrast to the overly-worthy but well intentioned ‘Man – Thy Name is Brother!’ in #57, where Flash, Green Arrow & Hawkman joined Snapper Carr in defending human rights and equality via three cases involving ethnic teenagers: a black kid, a native American/Apache (and if that modern phrase doesn’t indicate the necessity and efficacy of such stories in the 1960’s then what does?) and an aid-worker in India. Morepver, although it’s all beautifully drawn and obviously heartfelt, I still ponder on the fact that all the characters are male…

Eventually comics would confront even that last bastion of institutionalised prejudice….

Another Eighty-Page Giant cover – by Infantino & Anderson – follows as #58 reprinted Justice League of America #1, 6 & 8, which is followed by the extremely odd conceptual puzzler ‘The Justice Leaguer’s Impossible Adventure!’ wherein the heroes battle beyond realty to prevent raw evil poisoning the universe before another “hot” guest-star debuted as JLA #60 featured ‘Winged Warriors of the Immortal Queen!’ and pitted the enslaved and transformed team against DC’s newest sensation: Batgirl.

However, by 1968 the new superhero boom looked to be dying just as its predecessor had at the end of the 1940s. Sales were down generally in the comics industry and costs were beginning to spiral, and more importantly “free” entertainment, in the form of television, was by now ensconced in even the poorest household. If you were a kid in the sixties, think on just how many brilliant cartoon shows were created in that decade, when artists like Alex Toth and Doug Wildey were working in West Coast animation studios. Moreover, comic-book heroes were now appearing on the small screen. Superman, Aquaman, Batman, the Marvel heroes and even the JLA were there every Saturday in your own living room…

It was a time of great political and social upheaval. Change was everywhere and unrest even reached the corridors of DC. When a number of creators agitated for increased work-benefits the request was not looked upon kindly. Many left the company for other outfits. Some quit the business altogether.

The remainder of this collection increasingly reflects the turmoil of the times as the writer and penciller who had created every single adventure of the World’s Greatest Superheroes since their inception gave way to a “new wave” writer and a fresh if not young artist.

Kicking off the fresh start is ‘Operation: Jail the Justice League!’ by Fox, Sekowsky & Greene: a sharp and witty action-mystery with an army of supervillains wherein the team must read between the lines as Green Arrow announces he’s quitting the team and super-hero-ing!

George Roussos replaced Greene as inker for ‘Panic from a Blackmail Box!’, a taut thriller about redemption involving the time-delayed revelations of a different kind of villain, and ‘Time Signs a Death-Warrant for the Justice League’, where the villainous Key finally acts on a scheme he initiated way back in Justice League of America #41. This rowdy fist-fest was Sekowky’s last pencil job on the team (although he returned for a couple of covers). He was transferring his attentions to the revamping of Wonder Woman (for which see the marvellous Diana Prince: Wonder Woman volume 1 ).

Fox ended his magnificent run on a high point with the 2-part annual team-up of League and the Society. Creative to the very end, his last story was yet another of Golden Age revival of the kind that had resurrected the superhero genre. JLA #64 & 65 featured the ‘Stormy Return of the Red Tornado!’ and ‘T.O. Morrow Kills the Justice League – Today!’ with a cyclonic sentient super-android taking on the mantle of the comedic 1940s “Mystery Man” who appeared in the very first JSA adventure (if you’re interested, the original Red Tornado was a brawny washer-woman/landlady named Ma Hunkle, who fought street crime dressed as a man).

Fox’s departing shot saw the artistic debut of veteran Blackhawk artist Dick Dillin: a prolific draughtsman who would draw every JLA exploit for the next 12 years, as well as many other adventures of DC’s top characters like Superman and Batman. His first jobs were inked by the returning Sid Greene, a pairing that seemed vibrant and darkly realistic after the eccentrically stylish, almost abstract late period Sekowsky.

Not even the heroes themselves were immune to change. As the market contracted and shifted, so too did the team. With no fanfare Martian Manhunter was dropped after #61. He just stopped appearing and the minor heroes (ones whose strips or comics had been cancelled) got less and less space in future tales. Denny O’Neil took over scripting with #66, opening with a rather heavy-handed satire entitled ‘Divided they Fall!’ wherein defrocked banana-republic dictator Generalissimo Demmy Gog (did I mention it was heavy-handed?) used a stolen morale-boosting ray to cause chaos on a college campus. O’Neil was more impressive with second outing ‘Neverwas – the Chaos Maker!’: a time-lost monster on a rampage. However, the compassionate solution to his depredations better fitted the social climate and hinted at joys to come when the author began his legendary run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow with Neal Adams.

‘A Matter of Menace’ featured a plot to frame Green Arrow by daft villain Headmastermind , but is most remarkable for the brief return of Diana Prince. Wonder Woman had silently vanished at the end of #66 and her cameo here is more a plug for her own de-powered adventure series than a regulation guest-shot. This is followed by a more traditional guest-appearance in #70’s ‘Versus the Creeper’ wherein the much diminished team of Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern & Atom battle misguided aliens inadvertently brought to Earth by the astoundingly naff Mind-Grabber Kid (latterly seen in Seven Soldiers and 52) with the eerie Steve Ditko-created antihero along for the ride and largely superfluous to the plot.

Eager to plug their radical new heroine, Diana Prince guested again in #71’s ‘And So My World Ends!’: a drastic reinvention of the history of the Martian Manhunter from O’Neil, Dillon & Greene which, by writing him out of the series, galvanised and reinvigorated the character for a new generation. The plot introduced the belligerent White Martians of today and revealed how a millennia long race war between Whites and Greens devastated Mars forever.

Closing down this outing, ‘Thirteen Days to Doom!’ offers a moody gothic horror story in which Hawkman was turned into a pillar of salt by demons, precipitating another guest-shot for Hawkgirl, but excellent though it was, the entire thing was but prelude to O’Neil’s first shot at the annual JLA/JSA team-up in issues #73 and 74.

For which you’ll need a different volume…

With iconic covers by Sekowsky, Dillin, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Joe Kubert & Murphy Anderson, these tales are a perfect example of all that was best about the Silver Age of comics, combining optimism and ingenuity with bonhomie and adventure. This slice of better times also has the benefit of cherishing wonderment whilst actually being historically valid for any fan of our medium. Best of all the stories here are still captivating and enthralling transports of delight.

These classical compendia are a dedicated fan’s delight: an absolute gift for modern readers who desperately need to catch up without going bankrupt. They are also perfect to give to youngsters as an introduction into a fabulous world of adventure and magic. Although an era of greatness had ended, it ended at the right time and for sound reasons. These thoroughly wonderful thrillers mark an end and a beginning in comic book storytelling as whimsical adventure was replaced by inclusivity, social awareness and a tacit acknowledgement that a smack in the mouth doesn’t solve all problems. The audience was changing and the industry was forced to change with them. But underneath it all the drive to entertain remained strong and effective. Charm’s loss is drama’s gain and today’s readers might be surprised to discover just how much punch these tales had – and still have.

And for that you need to buy this book…
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Birds of Prey volume 1


By Chuck Dixon, Jordan Gorfinkel, Gary Frank, Jennifer Graves, Matt Haley, Sal Buscema, Stefano Raffaele, Dick Giordano, Greg Land & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5816-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Truly groundbreaking at the time, the exploits of the Birds of Prey recount the missions and lives of a rotating team of female crimefighters led by Barbara Gordon, the computer genius and omega level coder known to her inner circle as Oracle. Child of Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon, her own career as Batgirl was ended when the Joker blew out her spine during a terrifying kidnap attempt. Trapped in a wheelchair, she hungered for justice and sought new ways to make a difference in a very bad world…

Reinventing herself as a covert information-gatherer for Batman’s clique of avengers and defenders, she made herself an invaluable resource for the entire superhero community, but in the first of these collected tales Babs undertakes a new project that will allow her to become an even more effective crusader against injustice…

This volume contains the numerous one-shots, specials and miniseries that successfully introduced an eye-popping, mindblowing blend of no-nonsense bad-girl attitude and spectacular all-out action which finally convinced timid editorial powers-that-be of the commercial viability of a team composed of nothing but female superheroes. Who could possibly have guessed that some readers would like effective, positive, clever women kicking evil butt, and that boys would follow the adventures of violent, sexy, usually underdressed chicks hitting bad-guys – and occasionally each other? Or even eventually spawn their own TV series and sub-genre?

Gathered here, Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey #1, Birds of Prey: Revolution, a pertinent section of Showcase ’96 #3, Birds of Prey: Manhunt #1-4, Birds of Prey: Revolution #1, Birds of Prey: Wolves #1 and Birds of Prey: Batgirl #1 (collectively spanning cover-dates June 1996 through February 1998) comprise a breathtaking riot of dynamic, glossy crimebusting, heavily highlighting the kind of wickedness costumed crusaders generally ignored back then: white collar and thoroughly black-hearted…

Opening tale ‘One Man’s Hell’ is written by Chuck Dixon and illustrated by Gary Frank & John Dell: set at a time when veteran martial arts crime-crusher Black Canary (AKA Dinah Laurel Lance) was slowly going to hell after the death of her long-time lover Oliver Queen. Of course, he got better a few years later (don’t they all?).

Broke, uncontrolled and hellbent on self-destruction, the increasingly violent, adrenaline-addicted heroine is contacted by a mysterious unseen presence and dispatched to a third world country to investigate a series of “terrorist attacks” that always seem to profit one unimpeachably benevolent philanthropist. With nothing left to lose, the Canary undertakes a tragically brutal mission and gains an impossibly valuable prize: purpose.

Peppered with an intriguing array of guest-stars and villains, this socially-conscious high-octane thriller established the Canary as one of the most competent and engaging combatants of the DCU and a roving agent of conscience and retribution more than capable of tackling any villainous scum clever enough to stay below regular superhero radar: a reputation enhanced in the sequel ‘Revolution’. Here Dixon, Stefano Raffaele & Bob McLeod craft a superbly compelling tale from a time when Oracle is no more than a rumour to everybody but Batman and Dinah Lance – and even they only get “intel” and advice from an anonymous voice over phone, by text or via radio-jewellery in a mysteriously provided new combat Canary uniform. Here Dinah and her silent partner track a human trafficking ring to failed state Santa Prisca and stumble into a dirty campaign by American interests to topple the standing dictator. Not for long…

When the venerable Showcase try-out title was revived in the 1990s it was as a monthly anthology highlighting old, unemployed characters and tapping into events already originated, rather than offering wholly new concepts. It swiftly becoming a place to test the popularity of DC’s bit players, with a huge range of heroes and team-ups passing through its eclectic pages. This made it a perfect place to trot out the new team for a broader audience who might have ignored the one-shots with girls on the cover…

Showcase ’96 #3 cover-starred Black Canary and Lois Lane, featuring a frantic collusion between the reporter, the street fighter and the still “silent partner” Oracle in a tale scripted by series editor Jordan B. Gorfinkel, laid out by Jennifer Graves and finished by Stan Woch. ‘Birds of a Feather’ sees Superman’s then Girlfriend and the Birds taking out a metahuman gangmaster who enslaves migrant workers to work in Metropolis’ secret sweat shops. Punchy and potent, the tales led to a 4-issue miniseries introducing a new wrinkle in the format – pairing Oracle and the Canary with an ever-changing cast of DC’s women warriors.

‘Manhunt’ has Dixon again scripting a breakneck, raucous thriller which begins ‘Where Revenge Delights’ (illustrated by Matt Haley & Wade Von Grawbadger) wherein the Birds’ pursuit of a philandering embezzler/scam-artist leads them to heated conflict and grudging alliance with The Huntress – a mob-busting vigilante even Batman thinks plays too rough…

She also wants the revoltingly skeevy Archer Braun (whom she knows and loathes as “Tynan Sinclair”) but her motives soon seem a good deal more personal than professional…

The two regular agents cautiously agree to cooperate, but the mix gets even headier after Selina Kyle invites herself to the lynching party in ‘Girl Crazy’ (enjoying additional inking from John Lowe). Over the strident objections of the never-more-helpless and frustrated Oracle, Canary consents. Braun, it seems, is into bigger, nastier crimes than anyone suspected and has made the terminal error of bilking the notorious Catwoman…

Fed up with Babs shouting in her ear, Canary goes offline, subsequently getting captured by Braun, ‘The Man That Got Away’ (inked by Cam Smith) and clearly a major threat. He might even be a secret metahuman…

Shanghaied to a criminal enclave in Kazakhstan for the stunning conclusion ‘Ladies Choice’ (with art by Sal Buscema, Haley & Von Grawbadger) Canary is more-or-less rescued by the unlikely and unhappy pairing of Catwoman & Huntress, but none of them is ready or able to handle Braun’s last surprise – Lady Shiva Woosan – the world’s greatest martial arts assassin.

Birds of Prey: Revolution (#1, February 1997, limned by Stefano Raffeale & Bob McLeod) then switches locale back to Caribbean rogue state/playground of the evil idle rich Santa Prisca, where the Canary trusts the wrong allies but still manages to shut down a human trafficking ring and drug-peddling general with delusions of grandeur.

Cover-dated October and illustrated by Dick Giordano & Wayne Faucher, one-shot Birds of Prey: Wolves #1 sees long-festering tensions over suitable targets seemingly split the core duo. However, after separately stopping Eastern European mobsters and a gang of high-tech home invaders, the heroes realize that flying solo is for the birds and they are better together, before the action and adventure pause after the long-awaited Birds of Prey: Batgirl #1 (February 1998, with art by Greg Land & Drew Geraci). The launch proper offers a baffling mystery, with a somehow fully physically functional Batgirl battling beside Black Canary to end the threat of the mindbending Mad Hatter and a host of Batman’s most vicious foes. All is obviously not as it seems, but the true nature of the spellbinding threat is almost too much for cerebral savant Oracle. Almost…

To Be Continued…

These rollercoaster rides of thrills, spills and consistently beautifully edgy, sardonic attitude finally won the Birds their own regular series. It quickly became one of DC’s best and most consistently engaging superhero adventure series of the nineties and Noughties and has manifested some type of team for readers ever since. This opening salvo is both landmark and groundbreaking and is still a fantastically fun adventure to delight any comics Fights ‘n’ Tights follower.
© 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Harley and Ivy The Deluxe Edition


By Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Ty Templeton, Shane Glines, Dan DeCarlo, Ronnie Del Carmen, Rick Burchett, Stéphane Roux & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6080-4 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Psychosis and Spice and Everything Nice… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for comedic effect.

Created by Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids, the breakthrough TV animation series revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and immediately began feeding back into the print iteration, leading to some of the absolute best comicbook tales in the hero’s many decades of existence.

Employing a timeless visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all iterations of the character and, without diluting the power, tone or mood of the premise, reshaped the grim avenger and his extended team into a wholly accessible, thematically memorable form that the youngest of readers could enjoy, whilst adding shades of exuberance and panache that only most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to. In fact, so many didn’t object over the years that in August 2024 we got a fresh bite of the cherry. If you love Batman, are steeped in the vast mythology of Gotham City and adore stylish animated wonderment, you owe it to yourself to watch the Reinvented-But-Just-As-Good show Batman: Caped Crusader…

Thirty-plus years ago (!) the original TV series offered a superbly innovative retro makeover for many classic supervillains and even added one unexpected candidate to the Rogues Gallery. Harley Quinn wasn’t supposed to be a star – or even an actual comic book character. As soon become apparent, however, the manic minx had her own off-kilter ideas on the matter…

Harley was first seen as the Clown Prince of Crime’s slavishly adoring, abuse-enduring assistant in Joker’s Favor (airing September 11th,1992) where she instantly captured the hearts and minds of millions of viewers. From there on she began popping up in the licensed comic book and – always stealing the show – infiltrated mainstream DC comicbook continuity and into her own title. Along the way a flash of inspired brilliance led to her forming a unique relationship with toxic floral siren and plant-manipulating eco-terrorist Poison Ivy – a working partnership that delivered a bounty of fabulously funny-sexy yarns, and has brought the pair film and TV fame as a romantic power couple…

Collecting the eponymous 3-issue miniseries from 2004 plus cool stuff from Batman Adventures Annual #1 (1994), Batman Adventures Holiday Special #1 (1995), Batman and Robin Adventures #8 (July 1996), Batgirl Adventures #1 (1998) and material from Batman: Gotham Knights #14 (April 2001) and Batman Black and White #3 (2014), this spiffy deluxe hardback/eBook is an amazing cornucopia of comic treasures to delight young and old alike, and a perfect reminder why Batman & Co. remain so popular even after 85 years (and counting…).

It begins with a global-spanning romp written by Dini, illustrated by Timm & Shane Glines from Batman: Harley & Ivy #1-3 as the ‘Bosom Buddies’ have a spat that wrecks half of Gotham before escaping to the Amazon together to take over a small country responsible for much of the region’s deforestation and spreading a heady dose of ‘Jungle Fever!’. Once Batman gets involved the story suddenly shifts to Hollywood and the very last word in creative commentary on Superheroes in the movie business. ‘Hooray for Harleywood!’ delivers showbiz a devastating body blow Tinseltown will never recover from…

As we all know, Harley is (certifiably) insanely besotted with killer clown The Joker and next up Dini, Dan DeCarlo & Timm wordlessly expose her profound weakness for that so very bad boy when she’s released from Arkham Asylum only to be seduced back into committing crazy crimes and stuck back in the pokey again, all in just ‘24 Hours’…

‘The Harley and the Ivy’ comes from Batman Adventures Holiday Special #1 wherein Dini & Ronnie Del Carmen depict the larcenous ladies on an illicit shopping spree thanks to a dose of Ivy’s mind-warping kisses and up-close-and-personal close encounter with Bruce Wayne…

‘Harley and Ivy and… Robin’ (Batman and Robin Adventures #8, by Dini, Ty Templeton & illustrator Rick Burchett) features more of the same, except here the bamboozled sidekick becomes an ideal BoyToy Wonder: planning their crimes, giving soothing foot-rubs and bashing Batman until a little moment of green-eyed jealously spoils the perfect set-up…

Batgirl Adventures #1 was the original seasonal setting of ‘Oy to the World’ (Dini & Burchett) as plucky teen Babs Gordon chases thieving, thrill-seeking Harley through Gotham’s festive streets and alleys only to eventually team up with the jaunty jester to save Ivy from murderous Yakuza super-assassins. Next up, Batman: Gotham Knights #14 gifts us brilliantly dark yet saucily amusing tale ‘The Bet’ (Dini & Del Carmen). Incarcerated once more in Arkham, the Joker’s frustrated paramour and irresistible, intoxicatingly lethal Ivy indulge in a small wager to pass the time: namely, who can kiss the most men whilst in custody. This razor-sharp little tale manages to combine “innocent sexiness” with genuine sentiment, and packs a killer punch-line after the Harlequin of Hate unexpectedly pops in…

The madcap glamour-fest finishes with a late arriving moment of monochrome suspense (from Batman Black and White #3, by Dini & Stéphane Roux) as ‘Role Models’ sees a little girl escape her manic kidnapper and find sanctuary of a sort with the pilfering odd couple…

For years DC sat on a goldmine of quality product before finally unleashing a blizzard of all-ages collections and graphic novels such as this one: child-friendly iterations (and others not-so-much) of key characters stemming from the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm Batman series. These adventures are consistently some of the best comics produced of the last four decades and should be eternally permanently in print, if only as a way of attracting new readers to the medium.

Now a bone fide Christmas tradition – just like arguing about Die Hard or pondering what to do with brussels sprouts (eat them if you like them, pass if you don’t?), Batman: Harley and Ivy is a frantic, laugh-packed hoot that manages to be daring and demure by turns. An absolute delight and an irresistible seasonal treasure to be enjoyed over and over again.
© 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2014, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Haunted Knight


By Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1 401-28486-2 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-7795-1638-1 (Deluxe HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless Seasonal Wonderment… 9/10

The creative team of Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale tackled many iconic characters in a number of landmark tales, but their reworkings of early Batman mythology – such as The Long Halloween – must certainly rank amongst their most memorable. Set during the iconic Batman: Year One scenario created by Frank Miller, and originally released as a 13-part miniseries (running from Halloween to Halloween), that epic shed new light and plenty more shadows on the early alliance of Police Captain Jim Gordon, District Attorney Harvey Dent and the mysterious vigilante Batman, to destroy the unassailable mob boss who ran Gotham City; Carmine Falcone: “The Roman…”

However, prior to that epic undertaking, the creators coproduced another All Hallows adventure; one that grew like Topsy to eventually become a triptych of Prestige One-Shot Specials under the aegis of Archie Goodwin’s most significant editorial project…

After the continuity-wide reset of Crisis on Infinite Earths, and with DC still in the throes of re-jigging its entire narrative history, a new Batman title launched, presenting multi-part epics refining and infilling the history of the post-Crisis hero and his entourage. The added fillip was a fluid cast of prominent and impressively up-and-coming creators…

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight was a fascinating experiment, even if ultimately the overall quality became a little haphazard and hit-or-miss. Most early story-arcs were quickly collected as trade paperback editions – helping to jumpstart the graphic novel sector of the comics industry – and the moody re-imaginings of the Gotham Guardian’s salad days gave fans a wholly modern insight into the ancient yet highly malleable concept.

As explained in ‘Trick or Treat’ – Editors Goodwin’s reproduced introduction from the 1996 compilation – the first Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special began life as a story-arc for the monthly series, before being cannily promoted to a single, stand-alone publication released for October 1993. Its success spawned the two sequels also included in this volume and the aforementioned Long Halloween epic. If you spring for the spiffy Deluxe Edition from 2022, there are even more secrets revealed…

Otherwise, collected in one spooky, stripped-down paperback and/or eBook compilation, those three scary stories comprise a raw and visceral examination of an obsessive hero still learning his trade and capable of deadly misjudgements as seen in initial yarn ‘Fears’.

Here, after spectacularly capturing terror-obsessed psychopath Jonathan Crane, the neophyte Caped Crimebuster leaves him to mere policemen ill-equipped to cope with the particular brand of malicious insanity cultivated by The Scarecrow…

It’s fair to say that the man behind the bat mask is distracted; still attempting to reconcile his nocturnal and diurnal activities. Young Bruce Wayne is currently floundering before the seductive and sophisticated blandishments of predatory social butterfly and matrimonial black widow Jillian Maxwell. Faithful major-domo Alfred Pennyworth, however, is not so easily swayed. Left too much to his own devices, The Scarecrow has run wild through Gotham, but when he abducts Gordon, he at last makes a mistake the Dark Knight can capitalise upon…

One year later, another Halloween brings ‘Madness’ as rebellious teen Barbara Gordon choses exactly the wrong moment to run away from home: a night when her dad’s mysterious caped pal is frantically hunting Jervis Tetch – a certified nutcase abducting runaways to attend decidedly deadly Tea Parties orchestrated by a truly Mad Hatter…

Steeped in personal nostalgia as a maniac rampages through his city, inadvertently trampling upon some of Bruce Wayne’s only happy memories (of his mother’s favourite book), the heroic pursuer almost dies at the hands of the Looking Glass Loon, only to be saved by unlikely angel Leslie Thompkins – another woman who will loom large in Batman’s future…

The final fable here pastiches that Christmas classic by Charles Dickens as ‘Ghosts’ sees a delirious Bruce uncharacteristically taking to his bed early on the night before Halloween.

After socialising with young financier Lucius Fox, eating bad shrimp and crushing baroque bird bandit The Penguin, our sick and weary playboy lapses into troubled sleep, only to be visited by three spectres…

Looking like Poison Ivy, The Joker and the corpse of Batman himself, whilst representing Past, Present and inescapable Future, these phantoms prove that only doom awaits unless the overachieving hero strikes a balance – or perhaps truce – between his two divergent identities.

Trenchant with narrative foreboding (long-time fans already know the tragedies in store for all the participants, although total neophytes won’t be left wondering) these eerily enthralling Noir thrillers by Loeb perfectly capture the spirit of the modern Batman, supremely graced with startlingly powerful images of Mood, Mystery and rampant Mayhem from the magic pencil and brush of much-missed Tim Sale, vividly augmented by the colours of Gregory Wright and lettering of Todd Klein.

Adding lustre to these moody proceedings are a gallery of prior covers culled from earlier collections as well as a Sale Batman sketch, making this one of the very best Batman books you could read.

So, do…
© 1993, 1994, 1995, 2014, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Batman Adventures volume 3


By Kelley Puckett, Paul Dini, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett, Michael Reaves, Bruce Timm, Matt Wagner, Klaus Janson, Dan DeCarlo, John Byrne & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5872-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

With Batman: Caped Crusader storming the air waves in this anniversary year and making old farts like me tremble all over again, let’s take a peek back at the bonanza of great comics that came out of the last animated noir fest courtesy of Bruce Timm & Co…

The brainchild of Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski & Paul Dini, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids the TV cartoon revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and inevitably fed back into print iterations, leading to some of the absolute best comic book tales in the hero’s many decades of existence. And it’s still true today…

Employing a timeless visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all eras of the character and, without diluting the power, tone or mood of the premise, re-honed the grim Bat and his team into a wholly accessible, thematically memorable form.

It entranced young fans whilst adding shades of exuberance and panache that only the most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to. A faithful comic book translation was prime material for collection in the newly-emergent trade paperback market but only the first year was ever released, plus miniseries such as Batman: Gotham Adventures and Batman Adventures: the Lost Years. Nowadays, however, we’re much more evolved and reprint collections have established a solid niche amongst cognoscenti and young readers.

This third inclusive compendium gathers issues #21-27 of The Batman Adventures, originally published between June to December 1994  plus that year’s Batman Adventures Annual: a scintillating, no-nonsense frenzy of family-friendly Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy from Kelly Puckett, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett and a few fellow-pros-turned-fans…

Puckett is a writer who truly grasps the visual nature of the medium and his stories are always fast-paced, action packed and stripped down to the barest of essential dialogue. This skill has never been better exploited than by Parobeck who was at that time a rising star, especially when graced by Burchett’s slick, clean inking.

Although his professional career was tragically short (1989 to 1996 when he died, aged 31, from complications of Type 1 Diabetes) Parobeck’s gracefully fluid, exuberantly kinetic, frenetically fun-fuelled, animation-inspired style revolutionised superhero action drawing and sparked a renaissance in kid-friendly material and merchandise at DC – and everywhere else in the comics publishing business.

The wall to wall wonderment begins with the compulsive contents of Batman Adventures Annual #1: a giant-sized gathering of industry stars illustrating Paul Dini’s episodic, interlinked saga ‘Going Straight’.

Illustrators Timm & Burchett set the ball rolling as jet-propelled bandit Roxy Rocket is released from prison, prompting Batman and faithful retainer Alfred to discuss whether any villains ever reform.

Apparently one who almost made it is Arnold Wesker, who played mute Ventriloquist to his malign dummy Scarface. Tragically in ‘Puppet Show’ (art by Parobeck & Matt Wagner) we see how even a good job and the best of intentions are no defence when Arnold’s new boss wants to exploit his criminal past…

Harley Quinn is insanely devoted to killer clown The Joker as Dan DeCarlo & Timm wordlessly expose her profound weakness for that bad boy as she’s released from Arkham Asylum, only to be seduced back into committing crazy crimes in just ’24 Hours’…

The Scarecrow’s return to terrorising the helpless resulted from his genuine desire to help a girl assaulted by her would-be boyfriend in the chilling, poignant ‘Study Hall’ (with art by Klaus Janson), after which ‘Going Straight’ concludes with Timm detailing how Roxy Rocket is framed by Catwoman, and Batman has to separate the warring female furies…

The melange of mayhem even came with its own enthralling encore with The Joker solo-starring in ‘Laughter After Midnight’ as the Mountebank of Mirth goes on a spree in Gotham, courtesy of artists John Byrne & Burchett…

The Batman Adventures #21 then saw Michael Reaves join Puckett to script tense thriller ‘House of Dorian’ for Parobeck & Burchett as deranged geneticist Emile Dorian escapes from Arkham and immediately turns Kirk Langstrom back into the marauding Man-Bat.

Moreover, although the Mad Doctor’s freedom is bad news for Gotham, Langstrom and Dorian’s previous beast-man Tygrus; for a desperate fugitive afflicted with lycanthropy, the insane physician is his last chance at a cure for his curse…

Dorian couldn’t care less. All he wants is revenge on Batman and Selina Kyle…

Like the show, most stories were crafted as a 3-act plays and the conceit resumes with #22 as Puckett, Parobeck & Burchett settle in for the long haul. ‘Good Face Bad Face’ sees Two-Face return; also busting out of Arkham in ‘Harvey Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ set to settle scores with Gotham’s top mobster Rupert Thorne. His first move is to free his gang in ‘Nor Iron Bars a Cage’, but this time Batman is waiting…

Poison Ivy is back in #23, spreading ‘Toxic Shock’ and teaming up with the Dark Knight in ‘Strange Bedfellows’ to save a famed botanist/ecologist dying from a mystery toxin. ‘Fighting Poison with Poison’, she and Batman hunt for a cure, forcing the mystery assassin into more prosaic methods in ‘How Deadly Was my Valley’…

‘Grave Obligations’ sees the Gotham Guardian’s past come back to haunt him when a ninja clan invade the city. They seem more concerned with fighting each other in ‘Brother’s Keeper’ but a little digging reveals how one has come ‘From Tokyo, With Death’ in mind for Batman, and it takes a much higher authority to halt the chaos in ‘Cancelled Debts’…

An inevitable team-up graces Batman Adventures #25 as Puckett, Parobeck & Burchett reintroduce legendary ‘Super Friends’. With Lex Luthor in town and bidding against Waynetech for a military contract, a mystery bombing campaign begins in ‘Tik, Tik, Tik…’

Even as unwelcome guest Superman horns in, Batman realises his old foe Maxie Zeus might be taking the credit but is certainly not to blame for the ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Zeus!’ A little deduction and a grudging alliance with the Caped Kryptonian results in the true scheme unravelling in ‘The Gods Must be Crazy’ with Batman rejoicing in having made a powerful friend and a remorseless and resourceful new enemy…

‘Tree of Knowledge’ focuses on college students Dick Grayson and Babs Gordon as they score top marks in a criminology course. ‘Pop Gun Quiz’ sees them singled out for special study by impressed Professor Morton and on hand in ‘Careful What You Wish For’ to experience an impossible crime in the University Library. Despite all their investigations, it’s only as Robin and Batgirl that a devilish plot is exposed and crucial ‘Lessons Learned’…

The last tale in this terrific tome revisits the tragedy of Batman’s origins as ‘Survivor Syndrome’ sees an impostor risking his life on Gotham’s streets in search of justice or possibly his own death.

‘Brother, Brother’ reveals how athlete Tom Dalton’s wife was murdered and how he surrenders to a ‘Call to Vengeance’. Everything changes once the real Dark Knight takes charge of Tom and trains him to regain ‘The Upper Hand’…

With a full complement of covers by Timm, Parobeck & Burchett, plus a ‘Pin-Up Gallery’ with stunning images by Alex Toth, Dave Gibbons, Kelley Jones, Kevin Nowlan, Mark Chiarello, Mike Mignola, Matt Wagner, Chuck Dixon & Burchett – all coloured by the astounding Rick Taylor – this is another stunning treat for superhero lovers of every age and vintage.
© 1994, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Silver Age Dailies and Sundays volume 1: 1966-1967


By Whitney Ellsworth, Joe Giella, Sheldon Moldoff, Carmine Infantino, Bob Powell, Werner Roth, Curt Swan & various (Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 987-1-61377-845-6 (HB)

Last century in America the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail all cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers aspired to and hungered for; syndicated across the country and the planet. Always a prime tool of circulation-building, strips won millions of readers and were regarded (in most places) as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic books.

They also paid better, and the Holiest of Holies was a full-colour Sunday page, so it was always something of a poisoned chalice if comic book characters became so popular that they swam against the tide and became a syndicated serial strip. After all, weren’t funnybooks invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?

Both Superman and Wonder Woman made the jump soon after their debuts and many features have done so since. Due to numerous war-time complications, the Batman and Robin newspaper strip was slow getting its shot, but when the Dynamic Duo finally hit the comics section of papers, the feature proved to be one of the best-regarded, highest quality examples of the trend, both in Daily and Sunday formats (and we’ll be covering what collections there are of those landmarks quite soon in this Dark Knight anniversary year).

The 1940s strips never achieved the circulation they deserved, but the Sundays were latterly given a new lease of life when DC began including selected episodes in the 1960s Batman 80-Page Giants and Annuals. Those exceedingly high-quality adventures were ideal short stories, adding an extra cachet of exoticism for youngsters captivated by simply seeing their heroes in tales that were positively ancient and redolent of History with a capital “H”.

Such was not the case as the decade proceeded when, for a relatively brief moment, humanity went bananas for superheroes in general but most especially went “Bat-Mad”…

Comic books’ Silver Age utterly revolutionised a creatively moribund medium cosily snoozing in unchallenging complacency, bringing a modicum of sophistication to the returning genre of masked mystery men. For quite some time the changes instigated by Julius Schwartz in Showcase #4 (October 1956) had rippled out to affect all National/DC Comics’ superhero characters but generally passed by Batman and Robin. Fans buying Detective Comics, Batman, World’s Finest Comics and latterly Justice League of America read exploits that – in look and tone – were largely unchanged from safely anodyne fantasies that had turned the Dark Knight into a mystery-solving, alien-fighting costumed Boy Scout after the 1940s turned into the 1950s.

By the end of 1963, however, Schwartz having – either personally or by example – revived and revitalised the majority of DC’s line (and, by extension and imitation, the entire industry) with his reinvention of the Superhero, was asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled nigh-moribund Caped Crusaders.

Shepherding his usual team of top-notch creators, the Editor stripped down the core-concept, downplaying the ETs, outlandish villains and daft transformations, bringing cool modernity to the capture of criminals and overseeing a streamlining rationalisation of the art style itself. The most apparent change to us kids was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol but, far more importantly, the stories similarly changed as a subtle aura of genuine menace had crept back in. At the same time Hollywood was in production of a television series based on Batman and, through the sheer karmic insanity that permeates the universe, the studio executives were basing their interpretation upon the addictively daft material DC was emphatically turning its editorial back on rather than the “New Look Batman” currently enthralling readers.

The Batman TV show premiered on January 12th 1966 and ran for three seasons of 120 episodes, airing twice weekly for the first two. It was a monumental, world-wide hit and sparked a wave of imitation. Resulting media hysteria and fan frenzy generated an insane degree of Bat-awareness, no end of spin-offs and merchandise – including a movie – and introduced us all to the phenomenon of overkill. No matter how much we might squeal and foam about it, even 60 years later, to a huge portion of this planet’s population Batman is always going to be that “Zap! Biff! Pow!” buffoonish Boy Scout in a mask…

“Batmania” exploded across the world and almost as quickly became toxic and vanished, but at its height sparked a fresh newspaper strip incarnation. The strip was a huge syndication success and even reached fuddy-duddy Britain, not in our papers and journals but as the cover feature of weekly comic Smash! (with the 20th issue onwards).

Overwhelmingly successful, Batman’s TV show ended in March 1968. As it foundered and faded away, the global fascination with “camp” superheroes – and no, the term had nothing to do with sexual orientation no matter what you and Mel Brooks might suspect about Men in Tights – burst as quickly as it had boomed and the Caped Crusader was left with a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who now wanted their hero back…

From the time when the Gotham Guardians could do no wrong comes this superb collection re-presenting the bright and breezy, intentionally zany cartoon classics, augmented by a wealth of background material, topped up with oodles of unseen scenes and detail to delight the most ardent Baby-boomer nostalgia-freaks.

It opens with an astonishingly informative and astoundingly picture-packed, candidly cool introduction from comics historian Joe Desris entitled ‘A History of the Batman and Robin Newspaper Strip’, stuffed with a wealth of newspaper promotional materials, premiums and giveaways, sketches, comic book covers and the lowdown on how the strip was coordinated to work in conjunction with the regular comic books. The Dailies and Sundays were all scripted by former DC writer/editor – and the company’s Hollywood liaison/producer – Whitney Ellsworth (Tillie the Toiler, Congo Bill) and initially illustrated by Bob Kane’s long-term secret art collaborator Sheldon Moldoff, before inker Joe Giella was tapped by the TV studio to provide a slick, streamlined modern look in the visuals – frequently as penciller but ALWAYS as embellisher.

Since the feature was a 7-day-a-week job, Giella often called in few comicbook buddies to help lay-out and draw the strip; luminaries such as Carmine Infantino, Bob Powell, Werner Roth, Curt Swan and more…

Back then, black-&-white Dailies and full-colour Sundays were usually offered as separate packages with continuity strips often generating different storylines for each. With Batman the strip started out that way, but switched to unified 7-day continuities in December 1966.

For convenience, this collection begins with the Sunday-only yarns. As on TV, the first villain du jour was a certain top-hatted raucous raptor…

‘Penguin Perpetrated a Prank’ (May 29th – July 10th 1966) saw the Fowl Felon and masked moll Beulah go on a rather uninspired crime spree, after which ‘The Nasty Napoleon’ (July 17th – October 16th) introduced a pint-sized plunderer with larcenous intent and delusions of military grandeur. Moldoff was replaced by Giella &Infantino at the end of August, if you were wondering…

Contemporarily “Swinging England” was almost as big a craze as Batman so it was no surprise the Dynamic Duo would hop across The Pond to meet well-meaning but bumbling imitators ‘Batchap and Bobbin’, fighting crime in the sleepy hamlet of Lemon Regis (October 23rd – December 18th) after which the Sundays were incorporated into the working week storylines.

Monochrome Dailies launched on May 30th: Ellsworth & Moldoff kicking off with a healthy dose of sex & violence as ‘Catwoman is a Wily Wench’ (running to July 9th 1966) saw the sultry bandit easily captured only to break out of jail and go on a vengeance-fuelled spree intended to end Batman’s career and life. Next came ‘Two Jokers and a Laughing Girl’ (July 11th – September 24th) wherein the Clown Prince of Crime is paroled into the custody of Bruce Wayne, whilst covertly robbing Gotham blind by employing a body-double. As Giella took over the art chores, it took a guest shot from Superman to iron out that macabre miscreant’s merry muddle.

Claiming to have been robbed of his rightfully stolen loot, the Wily Bird brigand became ‘Penguin the Complainant’ (September 26th – October 8th), demanding his greatest enemies and the Gotham police catch a modern-day pirate plaguing him. That led in turn to a flotilla of fists and foolishness as Batman & Robin began ‘Flying the Jolly Roger’ (October 10th – December 9th), after which Daily and Sunday segments unified as our courteous but severely outmatched Chivalrous Crusaders faced their greatest challenge from a trio of college girls: The Ivy League Dropouts. The co-ed crooks and their floral field commander seen in ‘The Sizzling Saga of Poison Ivy’ (December 10th 1966 – March 17th 1967) were unrelated to the psychotic poisoner created by Robert Kanigher in Batman #181 (June 1966) in all but name…

Like its TV counterpart, the strip began increasingly featuring real-world guest stars and the bad girls’ scheme to plunder hospitality magnate Conrad Hilton‘s latest enterprise – The Batman Hilton – led to comedic cross-dressing hijinks, a doomed affair for Bruce and plenty of publicity for all concerned…

The guest policy was expanded in ‘Jack Benny’s Stolen Stradivarius’ (March 18th – April 30th) as the infamously penny-pinching comedian promised Gotham’s Gangbusters a $1000-an-hour stipend (for charity, of course) to recover his fiddle and insisted on accompanying them everywhere to ensure they worked at top speed…

A major character debuted in ‘Batgirl Ain’t your Sister’ (May 1st – July 9th) with a masked mystery woman prowling the night streets. She was beating up plenty of baddies but their loot never seemed to be recovered…

With no clues and nothing to go on, all Batman & Robin could do was masquerade as crooks and rob places in hopes of being caught by the “Dominoed Daredoll”, but by the time they found each other The Riddler had involved himself, planning to kill everybody and keep all that accumulated loot for himself…

Riding a wave and feeling ambitious, Ellsworth & Giella began their longest saga yet as ‘Shivering Blue Max, “Pretty Boy” Floy and Flo’ (July 10th 1967 – March 18th 1968 and ending in the next book) saw a perpetually hypothermic criminal pilot accidentally down the Batcopter and erroneously claim the underworld’s million dollar bounty on Batman & Robin. The heroes were not dead, but the crash had caused the Caped Crusader to lose his memory. As Robin and faithful manservant Alfred sought to remedy his affliction, Max collected his prize and jetted off for sunnier climes. With Batman missing, neophyte crimebuster Batgirl tracked down the heroes – incidentally learning their secret identities – and was instrumental in restoring him to action… if not quite his full functioning faculties.

When underworld paymaster BG (Big) Trubble heard the heroes had returned he quite understandably instituted procedures to get his money back, forcing Max to return to Gotham where he stupidly fell foul of Pretty Boy before that hip young gunsel and his sister Flo kicked off a murderous scheme to fleece a horoscope-addicted millionaire…

To Be Continued and concluded, Bat-Fans…

Supplementing the parade of guilty pleasures is a copious, comprehensive and fabulously educational section on ‘Notes on Stories in this Volume’ – also generously illustrated with covers, photos and show-&-strip arcana – as well as a fascinating behind-the-scenes display highlighting editorial corrections and alterations to the strips required by those ever-so-fussy TV studio people. Everything then ends for now with a schematic key to ‘The Batman Cast’ as depicted on the back cover.

The stories in this compendium reflect gentler times and an editorial policy focusing as much on broad humour as Batman’s reputation as a manhunter, so the colourful, psychotic costumed super-villains are in a minority here, but if you’re of a certain age or open to fun-over-thrills this a collection well worth your attention.

Batman: Silver Age Dailies and Sundays 1966-1967 was the first of huge (305 x 236 mm) lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Gotham Gangbusters, and another crucial addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, Bringing Up Father, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many other cartoon icons. Hopefully one day they will all be available digitally too…

If you love the era, or simply the medium of serial graphic narratives, these stories are great comics reading, and this is a book you must have.
© 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Batman and all related characters and elements ™ & © DC Comics.

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Showcase Presents Batman volume 4


By Gardner F. Fox, Frank Robbins, Bob Kanigher, Mike Friedrich, John Broome, E. Nelson Bridwell, Chic Stone, Frank Springer, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, Gil Kane, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Sid Greene, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84856-357-5 (TPB)

After three seasons (perhaps two and a half would be closer) the overwhelmingly successful Batman TV show ended in March, 1968. It had clocked up 120 episodes since the US premiere on January 12, 1966. As the show foundered and crashed, global fascination with “camp” superheroes – and no, the term had nothing to do with sexual proclivities no matter what you and Mel Brooks might think about Men in Tights – burst as quickly as it had boomed and the Caped Crusader was left with a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who now wanted their hero back.

For the editor who had tried to keep the most ludicrous excesses of the show out whilst still cashing in on his global popularity, the reasoning seemed simple: get him back to solving baffling mysteries and facing genuine perils as soon and as thrillingly as possible.

No problem. This fourth monochrome compendium gathers Batman & Robin yarns from the eponymous star title #202-215 and the front halves of Detective Comics #376-390. The back-up slot was delightfully filled until #383 by whimsically stretchable sleuth The Elongated Man, before his unceremonious ejection to make room for Batgirl’s solo sallies.

The 27 stories here (some Batman issues were giant reprint editions, so only their covers are reproduced within these pages) were crafted by an ever-evolving team of creators as editor Julie Schwartz lost some of his elite stable to age, attrition and corporate pressure, but the “new blood” was only fresh to the Gotham Guardian not the industry, and their sterling efforts deftly moulded the 30 year veteran star into a hero capable of actually working within the new “big thing” in comics: suspense, horror and the supernatural…

The book leads off with ‘Gateway to Death!’  from Batman #202, cover-dated June 1968, as delivered by Gardner Fox, and un-attributed artist (it’s Chic Stone inked by Sid Greene). The tale is a spooky graveyard chiller finding the Dynamic Duo chasing a psychic plunderer towards their own prognosticated doom, after which Detective #376 (by the same creative team) ask ‘Hunted or …Haunted?’ as a time-traveller inadvertently puts the fear of death and worse into the Gotham Gangbuster.

Batman #203 was an 80-Page Giant with a Neal Adams cover, before an old foe returns in Detective #377. ‘The Riddler’s Prison-Puzzle Problem!’ by Fox, Frank Springer & Greene precedes Frank Robbins (creator of newspaper strip icon Johnny Hazard) joining the writing team for ‘Operation: Blindfold!’ as limned by Irv Novick & Joe Giella – a 2-part criminal conspiracy saga wherein a legion of thugs and sightless beggars almost take over Gotham.

With veteran penciller Bob Brown on Detective and Novick on Batman, artistic quality was high and consistent, but sadly strictly chronological reprinting works against the reader as the concluding episode is postponed and derailed here by Detective #378 – first half of Robbins, Brown & Giella’s generation gap murder-mystery ‘Batman! Drop Dead… Twice!’ which itself climaxes after ‘Blind as a… Bat?’ from Batman #204, with a rollicking rollercoaster ride of spills & chills in ‘Two Killings For the Price of One!’ in Detective #379…

Issue #380 follows, introducing new love-interest Ginny Jenkins, Robbins, Brown & Giella’s ‘Marital-Bliss Miss!’ who only pretends to be the new Mrs. Bruce Wayne for the very best of motives – saving his life – before Batman #206 sees Novick & Giella illustrate canny thriller ‘Batman Walks the Last Mile!’, pitting Caped Crusader against a conman claiming to be the brains behind the Dynamic Duo’s success.

In an era when teen angst and the counter-culture played an ever more evident and strident part, Robin’s role as spokesperson for a generation was becoming increasingly important, with disputes and splits from his senior partner constantly recurring. Detective #381 featured one of the best as Batman literally dumped the Boy Wonder in ‘One Drown… One More to Go!’ – another clever crime conundrum by Robbins, Brown & Giella. Batman #207 carried a classy countdown-to-catastrophe drama as all Gotham hunted the atomic nightmare of ‘The Doomsday Ball!’ whilst DC #382 continued a theme of youth in revolt with ‘Riddle of the Robbin’ Robin!’ The disagreements were never serious or genuine, although that would soon change.

Batman #208 was another reprint Giant highlighting the women in his life. However, even though Schwartz varied the usual format by having Gil Kane draw interlocking framing sequences, turning the issue into one big single story, all that has all omitted here so you just get the rather nifty Nicky Cardy cover. Detective #383 was a straightforward (and painfully dated!) thriller set in Gotham’s Chinatown – ‘The Fortune-Cookie Caper!’ before outlandish mind-bending mystery became the order of the day in Batman #209’s ‘Jungle Jeopardy!’ whilst DC #384 asked ‘Whatever Will Happen to Heiress Heloise?’: a crafty final tale of cross and double-cross from Fox, illustrated by Brown & Giella.

Catwoman returned mob-handed – or is that murder-mittened? – in Batman #210 with eight other “cat chicks” in tow, leaving the Caped Crimebuster hard-pressed to solve ‘The Case of the Purr-Loined Pearl!’ after which Bob Kanigher wrote one of the best tales of his long and illustrious career for Detective #385 as a nameless nonentity became the most important man Batman never met in the deeply moving ‘Die Small… Die Big!’

Issue #386 found Wayne a ‘Stand-In for Murder’ (Robbins, Brown & Giella) and the heroes had secret identity woes in ‘Batman’s Big Blow-Off!’ (#211, (Robbins, Novick & Giella) whilst Young Turk Mike Friedrich scripted a reworking of Batman’s very first appearance for the 30th Anniversary issue of Detective Comics. ‘The Cry of Night is… Sudden Death!’ was a contemporary reworking of #27’s ‘The Case of the Chemical Syndicate’ that launched the Dark Knight on the road to immortality (for the original check out any of many “Best of” or “Golden Age” collections to feature the landmark tale). However here the relationship between Batman and Boy Wonder came under probing scrutiny…

‘Baffling Deaths of the Crime-Czar!’ (Batman #212, Robbins, Novick & Giella) pitted a trio of exuberant hitmen against our heroes, after which John Broome returned to make one last scripting contribution, sagely moving The Joker away from campy Clown crimes and back towards the insane killer MO we all cherish. That all came about in Detective #388’s ‘Public Luna-tic Number One!’: a classy sci-fi thriller totally reinventing the Lethal Laughing Loon, in no small part thanks to the artistic efforts of Brown & Giella.

Batman #213 is another reprint Giant, celebrating other landmarks of the 30th Anniversary and leading with a new retelling of ‘The Origin of Robin’, courtesy of E. Nelson Bridwell, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, which is included here after the spiffy cover from Bill Draut & Vince Colletta. The rocky road to a scary superhero continued into Detective #389 and Robbins’ ‘Batman’s Evil Eye’ wherein The Scarecrow afflicts Gotham’s Guardian with the involuntary power to terrify at a glance – and obviously somebody saw the long-term story potential in that stunt…

There was still potential to be daft too though, as seen in ‘Batman’s Marriage Trap!’ (#214, Robbins, Novick & Giella) wherein a wicked Femme Fatale sets the unhappy spinsters of America on the trail of Gotham’s Most Eligible Bat-chelor (See what I did there? Wishing I hadn’t?) Not even a guest-shot by positive role-model Batgirl could redeem this peculiar throwback – although the art just might…

The last Detective tale is from #390 and pits the Dynamic Duo against lacklustre costumed assassin The Masquerader in ‘If the Coffin Fits… Wear It!’ before the end of an era is presaged in Batman #215 and ‘Call Me Master!’ by Robbins, Novick and soon to become legendary inker Dick Giordano. Although a clever tale of mind-control skullduggery, this tale trailled the loss of Wayne Manor and an all-out split between Darknight Detective and Boy Wonder: events which would come to pass within months, ushering in a bold new direction for the Bat-Universe.

This volume brings three decades of Batman to a solid satisfactory conclusion. All too soon safe boy-scout Caped Crusader would become a terrifying creature of passion, intellect and shadowy suspense.

Stay tuned: This book is wonderfully good but even better is still to come…
© 1968, 1969, 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Harley Quinn: A Rogue’s Gallery – The Deluxe Cover Art Collection


By Bruce Timm, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Amanda Connor & Paul Mounts, Tim Sale, Jim Lee, Frank Cho, Alex Ross and many & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7423-8 (HB/Digital edition)

Comic books aren’t just stories. So often the cover is as important and thrilling as the contents – if not more so. Let’s face it; we’ve all gone for something for its appearance only to be disappointed by its interior. So it’s a relief and a delight to thoroughly recommend a comic cover-art compilation where the visuals are as extraordinary as the material they were promoting.

Harley Quinn was never supposed to be a star – or even actual comics character. As soon became apparent, however, the manic minx always has her own astoundingly askew and off-kilter ideas on the matter – and any other topic you could name: ethics, friendship, ordnance, coffee, cuddle bunnies…

Created by Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids, the breakthrough television cartoon revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and immediately began feeding back into the print iteration, consequently leading to some of the absolute best comic book tales in the Dark Knight’s many decades of existence.

Employing a timeless visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all iterations of the character and, without diluting the power, tone or mood of the premise, reshaped the grim avenger and his extended team into a universally accessible, thematically memorable form even the youngest of readers could enjoy, whilst adding exuberance and panache that only the most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to…

Harley was initially the Clown Prince of Crime’s self-destructive, slavishly adoring, extreme abuse-enduring assistant, as seen in “Joker’s Favor” (airing September 11th 1992). She instantly captured the hearts and minds of millions of viewers and began popping up in the incredibly successful licensed comic book. Always stealing the show, Harley soon graduated into mainstream DC continuity. Along the circuitous way, Quinn – AKA Dr. Harleen Quinzel – developed a support network of sorts in living bioweapon Poison Ivy and a bizarre love/hate relationship with some of Gotham’s other female felons…

After a brief period bopping around the DCU, she was re-imagined as part of the company’s vast post-Flashpoint major makeover: subsequently appearing all over comics as cornerstone of a new iteration of the Suicide Squad, in those aforementioned movies and her own adult-oriented animation series. At heart, however, she’s always been a comic glamour-puss, with big, bold, primal emotions and only the merest acknowledgement of how reality works…

Harley Quinn: A Rogue’s Gallery – The Deluxe Cover Art Collection is a giant collection of some of the best comic covers from her first quarter century of existence spanning her first print appearance in Batman Adventures #12 (1993) to 2017: charting her progress from frolicsome cartoon felon to comic book big draw, movie magnate and all around gay icon.

Of course, you could just take my word for it and accept there are gathered here 170 fabulous eye-grabbing images (plus a few bonus sketches and such) by 92 stellar artists – mostly stripped of verbal clutter and text livery – but I suspect many will also study the huge shopping lists of names and numbers assembled below.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ THEM – they are for obsessive completists like me, okay?

If you’re still here and not off shopping now, what’s here are the covers from Batman Adventures: Mad Love #1, Batman Adventures #12; Gotham Adventures #12;  Batman: Harley Quinn #1;  Harley and Ivy: Love on the Lam #1; Harley Quinn #1, 3, 4, 9, 11, 13, 19, 38; Batman Adventures #3, 16; Gotham Girls #3; Harley and Ivy#1-3; Detective Comics #831, 837; Batman #613; Joker’s Asylum II: Harley Quinn #1; Gotham City Sirens #1, 5, 15, 20; Gotham City Sirens Book II; Suicide Squad #1, 6, 7, 14, 15, 21; Detective Comics volume 2 #23.2, 39; Harley Quinn volume 2 #0-3, 6-9, 11-13, 15-19, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30; Harley Quinn Invades Comic-Con International: San Diego #1; Harley Quinn Holiday Special #1; Harley Quinn Valentine’s Day Special #1; Secret Six #5; Action Comics volume 2 #39; Aquaman volume 2 #39; Batgirl volume 4 #39; Batman volume 2 #39; Batman and Robin volume 2 #39; Batman/Superman #19; Catwoman volume 4 #39; The Flash volume 4 #39, 47; Grayson #7; Green Lantern volume 5 #39, 47; Green Lantern Corps volume 3 #39; Justice League volume 2 #39, 47; Justice League Dark volume 1 #39; Justice League United #9; Sinestro #10; Supergirl volume 6 #39; Superman volume 3 #39, 47, Superman/Wonder Woman #19; Teen Titans volume 4 #7; Wonder Woman volume 4 #39, 47; New Suicide Squad #4, 22; Green Arrow volume 5 #47; Justice League of America volume 3 #6; Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad: April Fool’s Special #1; Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad: April Fool’s Special #1; Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys #1; DC Comics Bombshells #27, 32; Harley Quinn volume 4 #1, 4, 6, 10, 11, 13, 17-19, 21, 22; Harley’s Greatest Hits; Harley Quinn Volume 1: Die Laughing; Justice League Vs Suicide Squad #1, 3; Suicide Squad: Rebirth #1 and Suicide Squad volume 7 #1-2, 4, 8, 13, 16, 20.

These are chronologically delivered, fully listed and accredited on the contents pages, so I’m also going to list the creators in case someone’s a particular favourite. Represented here by single images or many bites of the cheery cherry are Bruce Timm, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett, Alex Ross, Shane Glines, Joe Chiodo, Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson, Tim Sale, Scott Morse, Kelsey Shannon, Simone Biachi, Jim Lee & Scott Williams, Claudio Castellini, Guillem March, Ryan Benjamin, Paul Renaud, Ivan Reis, Eber Ferreira & Rod Reis, Greg Capullo & FCO Plascencia, Ken Lashley & Matt Yackley, Jason Pearson, Chris Burnham & Nathan Fairbairn, Amanda Connor & Paul Mounts, Dave Johnson, Alex Sinclair, Stephane Roux, Adam Hughes, Clay Mann, Tommy Lee Edwards, Mike Allred & Laura Allred, Ant Lucia, Darwin Cooke, Dan Panosian, Eduardo Risso, Ben Caldwell, Emanuela Lupacchino & Tomeu Morey, Chad Hardin, Neal Adams, Ryan Sook, Jeromy Cox, John Timms, Nicola Scott, Danny Miki, Cliff Chiang, Jill Thompson, J.G. Jones, Jim Balent, Mike McKone & Dave McCaig, Marco D’Alfonso, Dustin Nguyen, Joe Quinones, Mikel Janin, Ian Bertram, Matt Hollingsworth, Joe Benitez, Peter Steigerwald, Francis Manapul, Sean Galloway, Phil Jimenez & Hi-Fi, Jeremy Roberts, Juan Ferreyra, Brennan Wagner, Joe Madureira, Nei Ruffino, Lee Bermejo, Frank Cho, Mirka Andolfo, Joseph Michael Linsner, Minjue Helen Chen, Tony S. Daniel, Jason Fabok, Babs Tarr, Rafael Albuquerque, Yanick Paquette, Paul Pope & Lovern Kindzierski, Tyler Kirkham, Jae Lee & June Chung, Ed Benes & Dinei Ribeiro, Aaron Lopresti, Tom Raney & Gina Going, Khary Randoph & Emilio Lopez, Michael Turner, Carlos D’Anda, Laura Martin, Sabine Rich, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Witter, Dawn McTeigue, Jonboy Myers, Sunny Gho, Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion, Paul Pelletier & Sandra Hope, Joshua Middleton. Liam Sharp, Billy Tucci, John Romita Jr & Dean White, and Otto Schmidt.

This collection is exciting, lovely to look upon, deliriously daft, happily hilarious and will provide hours of delighted deliberation as we all dip in, reminisce and ultimately disagree on what should and shouldn’t be included. Enjoy, Art-lovers, Bat-Fans and proud Harley-queens!

If you are utterly absorbed and crave still more, you might want to also see companion volume The Art of Harley Quinn by Andrew Farago.
© 1993, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.