Category: Batman

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Batman Archives volume 7

Bat Arc 7 bk
By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Win Mortimer, Jim Mooney, Charles Paris & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1493-7

Debuting a year after Superman, “The Bat-Man” (joined eventually by Robin, the Boy Wonder) cemented DC/National Comics as the market and conceptual leader of the burgeoning comicbook industry. Having established the parameters of the metahuman in their Man of Tomorrow, the physical mortal perfection and dashing derring-do of the strictly human-scaled adventures starring the Dynamic Duo rapidly became the swashbuckling benchmark by which all other four-colour crimebusters were judged.

By the time of the tales in this sublime seventh deluxe hardback compilation (collecting Batman’s cases from Detective Comics #136-154, cover-dates June 1948 – December 1949) the Gotham Gangbusters were one of the few superhero features to buck the declining trend that was slowly sounding the death knell for flamboyant costumed crusaders.

Just as “real life” headline-grabbers were overtaking sheer escapist fantasy, named creator Bob Kane was cutting back. Most of the work here is the fruit of unsung and uncredited super-stars Bill Finger and Dick Sprang – usually inked by the superb Charles Paris – and this period of more realist wonders saw the creation of one last great themed villain and the beginning of real life celebrity guest-stars as the re-emergence and dominance of tough, clever mobsters became the order of the day.

During these years the comics landscape would radically alter with masks and capes drowning under a tidal wave of business suits, Stetsons, space-ships, fighter-jets and tanks as genre tales of gangsters, cowboys, spacemen, ghosts and soldiers supplanted most mystery-men for nearly a decade – an entire comics-buying generation.

Some of these stories’ authors are still unknown to us, although most are correctly attributed to the transcendent Finger. My own humble guesses would be either Edmond Hamilton or Don Cameron – although Alvin Schwartz, David Vern Reed, Ed “France” Herron and Jack Schiff are also potential contributors at this time – but sadly, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever really know.

Following an effulgent and educational Foreword from industry insider and historian Jim Amash, the drama commences in ‘The Dead Man’s Chest!’ (from Detective #136, with Sprang inking his own pencils) as Gotham Museum trustee Bruce Wayne examined a 17th century pirate map and recognised his own handwriting disclosing the route to Henry Morgan‘s buried treasure! Soon the millionaire and his ward Dick Grayson were consulting time travel pioneer Professor Carter Nichols and whirling back to the age of buccaneers to solve an incredible mystery in stunning style…

The most popular villain of this period was still the Joker and in #137 the Harlequin of Hate again attempted to dumbfound the Dynamic Duo: this time with the perpetration of ‘The Rebus Crimes!’, and Charles Paris inking the scintillating Sprang on a tour de force of comics crime-busting.

The Mountebank of Mirth was back in the very next issue forcing scientist Walter Timmins to commit ‘The Invisible Crimes!’ and running Joker wild until Batman finally crushed his scheme, after which #139’s ‘The Crimes of Jade!’ found the Gotham Guardians infiltrating the city’s exotic Chinatown district in search of bandit/smugglers and an apparently oriental mastermind.

Detective Comics #140 introduced ‘The Riddler!’ (Finger, Sprang & Paris) as cheating carnival con-man Edward Nigma took his obsession with puzzles to a perilous extreme by becoming a costumed criminal and matching wits with the brilliant Batman in a contest that threatened to set the entire city ablaze.

It was back to basics in #141 as ‘Gallery of Public Heroes!’ (illustrated by Bob Kane’s protégé and ghost Lew Sayre Schwartz & the ever-appealing Paris) revealed how Public Enemy Blackie Nason tried to expose and eliminate all undercover cops through his gang of insidious investigators. His biggest target and eventual downfall was that undisputed master of disguise Batman…

Riddler returned in #142, fomenting chaos with ‘Crime’s Puzzle Contest!’ (Sprang & Paris) until the Team Supreme scuppered his hidden scheme to plunder a treasure of the ages, whilst in #143 the crazed crime spree of a tobacconist utterly obsessed with smoking paraphernalia and all forms of pipes blew up in the face of ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’ (art by Jim Mooney & Paris).

The late 1940’s saw the first slow rise of media-fuelled celebrity culture and fast fading fads and #144 featured a popular bandleader and radio/movie star in ‘Kay Kyser’s Mystery Broadcast!’ by Sprang &Paris. The popular entertainer (just Google Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge to learn more) was touring in Gotham when a ruthless killer forcibly insinuated himself into his band – forcing the musical sharpie to seek help from Batman and Robin by the most convoluted means imaginable…

‘Robin, the Boy Failure!’ in #145 saw the torrid teen suffer a work-related injury and temporary amnesia, and even after recovery the kid had no memory of his alter ego. Confidence shattered, his mentor took extraordinary steps to effect a full recovery to fighting fettle for the lad, just in time to find that ‘Three’s a Crime’ (another all-Sprang extravaganza) when small-time hood and inveterate gambler Carl C. Cave graduated to big-time crime after seemingly discovering his own unbeatable lucky number…

Undersea adventure and a close brush with death was the result of the Dynamic Duo intruding in the domain of costumed pirate ‘Tiger Shark!’ (Sprang & Paris) in #147, but the fishy felon’s alter ego held a shocking secret for socialite Bruce Wayne, after which bold science fiction thrills resulted from #148’s ‘The Experiment of Professor Zero’ (Finger, Sprang & Paris) as a peek into Batman’s crime casebook and trophy room revealed how a mad scientist almost reduced the Gotham Guardians to fatal insignificance with a shrinking gimmick…

The Joker crashed back into action in #149 undertaking another potty plot to plunder the city with ‘The Sound-Effect Crimes!’ (Finger & Sprang), whilst in #150 ‘The Ghost of Gotham City!’ (Paris inks) seemed to see judge and jury hunted by the spirit of a wrongly convicted man they had sent to the electric chair. The phantom’s short reign of terror only ended after the Dark Knight unravelled an incredible truth…

With eye-catching, flamboyant villains in decline, creators were compelled to concoct clever stories such as #151’s (all Sprang) delight wherein a string of close calls and rescues of businessmen revealed a character saving lives and collecting promises of future reciprocation in ‘I.O.U. My Life!’ The reasons behind Ben Kole‘s peculiar predilection were both chilling and spellbindingly complex…

An even more devious Detective tale featured in #152 as ‘The Goblin of Gotham City!’ (with art from Sayre Schwartz & Paris) temporarily halted his campaign of crime after photographer Vicki Vale took a photo which threatened to expose his secret. Unfortunately nobody, including Batman, knew exactly what they had, even after the villain began ruthlessly rubbing out anyone who had seen the snap…

Fantastic fantasy informed #153 as an incredible invention enabled the Caped Crusader to become ‘The Flying Batman!’ (Sprang & Paris), but the phenomenal exploits of the new Dark Knight had a pitifully prosaic explanation, after which this superb seventh deluxe hardback compilation concludes with the ‘The Underground Railroad of Crime!’ (#154 and drawn by Sayre Schwartz & Paris) wherein an impossible series of escapes from State Prison led an undercover Batman to an ingenious and perfidious program of extortion and plunder as well as the welcome redemption of a hopeless career criminal…

With glorious covers by Sprang, Bob Kane, Win Mortimer, Jim Mooney and Charles Paris, this is another superb package of timeless masterpieces from a crucial yet long-neglected period which saw a careful repositioning and reformatting of the heroes, as publishers cautiously toned down all things bombastic, macabre and outlandish in favour of a wide variety of mundane mobsters and petty criminals, clever mysteries and personally challenging situations – although there was always some room for the most irrepressibly popular favourites such as Penguin and The Joker.

Thrilling, dazzling and spectacularly swashbuckling, this action-packed compendium provides another perfect snapshot of the Batman’s amazing range from moody avenger to suave swashbuckler to sophisticated Devil-May-Care Detective, in tales which have never lost their edge or their power to enthral and enrapture. Moreover, these sublimely sturdy Archive Editions are without doubt the most luxuriously satisfying way to enjoy them over and over again.
© 1948, 1949, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Knight and Squire

Batman - Knight and Squire
By Paul Cornell & Jimmy Broxton with Staz Johnson (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3071-5

British Dynamic Duo Knight and Squire first appeared in the cheerfully anodyne, all-ages 1950s – specifically in a throwaway story from Batman #62 (December 1950/January 1951) – as ‘The Batman of England!’

Earl Percy Sheldrake and his son Cyril returned a few years later as part of seminal assemblage ‘The Batmen of All Nations!’ (Detective Comics #215 January 1955) – a tale retrieved from the ranks of funnybook limbo in recent times and included in Batman: Black Casebook – with sequel ‘The Club of Heroes’ appearing in World’s Finest Comics #89, July-August 1957. That one’s reprinted in Showcase Presents World’s Finest volume 1.

The characters had languished in virtual obscurity for decades before fully entering modern continuity as part of Grant Morrison’s build-up to the Death of Batman and Batman Incorporated retro-fittings of the ever-ongoing legend of the Dark Knight dynasty…

They floated around the brave New World for awhile with guest shots in places like Morrison’s JLA reboot and Battle For the Cowl before finally getting their own 6-issue miniseries (December 2010 – May 2011), courtesy of scripter Paul Cornell and artist Jimmy Broxton (with some layout assistance from Staz Johnson), who rather bit the hand that fed them by producing a far from serious, but captivating quirky and quintessentially English frolicsome fantasy masterpiece.

It all begins, as most things boldly British do, down the pub. However The Time in a Bottle is no ordinary boozer but in fact the favourite hostelry for the United Kingdom’s entire superhuman community: the worthy and the wicked…

Hero and villain alike can kick back here, taking a load off and enjoying a mellow moment’s peace thanks to a pre-agreed truce on utterly neutral ground, all mystically enforced by magics and wards dating back to the time of Merlin…

As the half-dozen chapters of ‘For Six’ open it’s the regular first Thursday of the month – and that’s an in-joke for Britain’s comics creator community – with the inn abuzz with costumed crusaders and crazies, all determined to have a good time.

Cyril Sheldrake, current Earl of Wordenshire and second hero to wear the helm and mantle of The Knight, sends his trusty sidekick Beryl Hutchinson – AKA The Squire – to head off a potential problem as established exotics Salt of the Earth, The Milkman, Coalface, The Professional Scotsman and the Black and White Minstrels all tease nervous newcomer The Shrike.

He’d do it himself but he’s chatting with Jarvis Poker, the British Joker…

The place is packed tonight in honour of visiting yank celebrity Wildcat, and a host of strange, outrageous and even deadly patrons all bustle about as Beryl chats to the formerly cocky kid who’s also getting a bit of grief because he hasn’t quite decided if he’s a hero or villain yet…

She’s giving him a potted history of the place when the customary bar fight breaks out but things take an unconventionally dark turn and an actual attempted murder occurs. It would appear that two of these new gritty modern heroes have conspired to circumvent Merlin’s pacifying protections…

Each original issue was supplemented with a hilarious text page which here act as chapter breaks, so after ‘What You Missed If You’re A Non-Brit’ (a glossary of national terms, traits, terminology and concepts adorned with delightful faux small ads), the tale continues as Beryl and Cyril spend a little down-time in rural Wordenshire where the local civilians tackle the insidious threat of The Organ Grinder and his Monkey so as not to bother the off-duty Defenders.

However the pair do rouse themselves to scotch the far more sinister schemes of inter-dimensional invader Major Morris and the deadly Morris Men…

That’s supplemented by the far-from-serious text feature ‘What Morris Men are Like’…

The saga then kicks into high gear with the third instalment as Britain’s Council for Organised Research announces its latest breakthrough.

C.O.R.’s obsessively romantic Yorkist Professor Merryweather had no idea that her DNA reclamation project would lead to a constitutional crisis after she reconstituted Richard III, but it seems history and Shakespeare hadn’t slandered the Plantagenet at all. The wicked monarch was soon fomenting rebellion, using his benefactor’s technology to resurrect equally troublesome tyrants Edward I, Charles I, William II and the ever-appalling King John and even giving them very modern superpowers…

Of course Knight, Squire and her now besotted not-boyfriend Shrike were at the vanguard of the British (heroic) Legion mustered to fight for Queen and Country and repel the concerted criminal uprising…

Following a history lesson on ‘Cabbages and Kings’, Beryl invited the Shrike back to the Castle for tea, teasing and some secret origins, but things went typically wrong when Cyril’s high tech armour rebelled, going rogue and attacking them all.

The text piece deals with ‘Butlers and Batmen’ before it all goes very dark when lovable celebrity rogue Jarvis Poker gets some very bad news from his doctor and a terrifying follow-up visit from the real Joker.

The CampCriminal was desperately concerned about his national legacy but GothamCity’s Harlequin of Hate is just keen on increasing his ghastly and frankly already astronomical body-count. First on the list is that annoying Shrike kid, but the American psycho-killer has big, bold, bizarre plans to make the UK a completely good guy-free zone…

Broken up with a two-part ‘The Knight and Squire Character List’, it all culminates and climaxes with a spectacular and breathtaking showdown after the malevolent Mountebank of Mirth goes on a horrendously imaginative hero-killing spree that decimates the Costumed Champions of Albion: a campaign so shocking that even Britain’s bad-guys end up helping to catch the crazed culprit…

Rewarding us all for putting up with decades of “Gor, blimey guv’nor” nonsense in American comics whilst simultaneously paying the Yanks back for all those badly researched foggy, cobbled-rooftops-of-London five minutes from Stonehenge stories which littered every aspect of our image in the USA, this witty, self-deprecating, action-packed and deucedly dashing outing perfectly encapsulates all the truly daft things we noble Scions of Empire Commonwealth love and cherish about ourselves.

Stuffed with surreal, outrageous humour, double entendres, quirky characters, catchphrases and the comedy accents beloved by us Brits – Oh, I say, Innit Blud? – and rife with astonishingly cheeky pokes at our frankly indefensible cultural quirks and foibles, this is the perfect book for anyone who loves grand adventure in the inimitable manner of Benny Hill, Monty Python and the Beano.

Also included are covers and variants from Yanick Paquette & Michel Lacombe and Billy Tucci & HiFi, plus a wealth of working art, character designs and sketches by Jimmy Broxton and an unpublished spoof cover in tribute to the immortal Jarvis Poker…

Buy this book. It’s really rather good. Oh, go on, do: you know you want to…
© 2011, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Life After Death


By Tony S. Daniel, Guillem March, Sandu Florea, Norm Rapmund & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85767-123-2

At the climax of a harrowing and sustained campaign of terror by insidious cabal The Black Hand, Batman was apparently killed (by evil New God Darkseid during the “Final Crisis”). Although the news was kept from the general public, the superhero community secretly mourned whilst a small dedicated army of assistants, protégés and allies trained over the years by the Dark Knight formed a “Network” of champions to police GothamCity in the catastrophic days and weeks which followed: marking time until a successor could be found…

Most of the Batman-trained task force refuse to believe their inspirational mentor is dead and thus, believing him only lost, have accepted Dick Grayson – first Robin and latterly Nightwing – as the stand-in Gotham Guardian until Bruce Wayne can find his way back to them.

The transition has been bloody and brutal. Grayson had to stop an outcast contender who sought to usurp the legacy of Batman and turn the role of Dark Knight into debased red-handed avenger rather than benign shadowy protector. For now former Robin and erstwhile Red Hood Jason Todd has been defeated, abandoning his quest to become the new Gotham Guardian even as a new iteration of deceased crimelord Black Mask runs rampant in the city.

Crushed and cast aside in the savage gang-war with the triumphant mobster’s mind-controlled False Face Society, mercurial maniac Two-Face has simply vanished, whilst third force The Penguin has been apparently conquered and cowed: remaining only as a meek and compliant vassal of the triumphant newcomer.

Whoever he is, the current Black Mask is as sadistic, psychotic, meticulously methodical and strategically brilliant as his predecessor. His first move had been to free many of Batman’s most maniacal menaces – temporarily stored at Blackgate Prison after the infamous Arkham Asylum was destroyed. Despite the Network’s utmost efforts and the completion of a new high-tech institution, many of the worst inmates remain at large…

This terse and occasionally histrionic volume collects the contents of Batman #692-699 (December 2009 – July 2010) revealing the identity of the mastermind behind the mask and recounting the final fate of the pretender as well as heralding the return of a much misunderstood and fearfully underestimated foe…

Written and primarily pencilled by Tony S. Daniel, the eponymous saga ‘Life After Death’ begins with ‘The Awakening’ (inked by Sandu Florea) as Grayson – grudgingly assisted by Bruce Wayne’s assassin-trained son Damian as the latest Boy Wonder – continues to hunt the escapees and their Machiavellian manipulator…

So great was the crisis that the National Guard had been deployed to enforce Martial Law, driving back the False Face legions and more or less cordoning them into the Devil’s Square area of the city.

With the successor Batman and Police Commissioner Jim Gordon forced to play a waiting game, Black Mask and his inner circle – malignant “Ministry of Science” boffins Fright, Professor Hugo Strange and Dr. Death – go on the offensive by resurrecting a deadly nemesis even as the new director of Arkham seeks a way of undoing the brainwashing techniques used on the False Faces. Hard pressed on all fronts, Grayson seeks the unique assistance of his mentor’s greatest, most secret asset Selina Kyle, and together they discover a new player in the drama. Marco Falcone has returned to Gotham…

Years ago the original Batman had destroyed the power of the Mafia in the city, driving the last of the “Made Men” into exile and breaking the all-pervasive organisation of Carmine “The Roman” Falcone. Now his last surviving son seems intent on using the current chaos to reclaim his inheritance and re-establish the family business…

However the gangster has his own setbacks to deal with: his safe has just been broken into and the contents swiped by Catwoman. As well as cash and jewels the vault contained the most valuable and potentially dangerous document in Gotham…

Luckily for all concerned, Mario doesn’t realise the role his beloved “niece” Kitrina – a very capable and dangerous teenaged cat-burglar in her own right – played in that theft…

The Ministry of Science now has a ferociously hands-on new member. Concentration Camp survivor Dr. Grant Gruener once haunted Gotham as the scythe-wielding vigilante The Reaper, until his apparent demise at the gauntleted hands of the Dark Knight. After years of genetic tampering and behaviour modification by Strange, the killer is back and ready to resume his crusade…

Moreover new information has revealed that the mesmerised False Faces aren’t just enslaved career criminals but also have members recruited from ordinary law-abiding citizens, all equally mind-controlled by the hideous masks they wear – and now someone is killing them, guilty and innocent alike…

The campaign of terror continues as the headstrong and potentially lethal latest Robin joins his barely tolerated commanding officer in winnowing the hordes of False Faces before the pair are distracted by different enemy in ‘Charades’.

Bruce Wayne’s (if not Batman’s) ultimate adversary is Dr. Tommy Elliot, a beloved boyhood friend as warped by his own mother’s malign influence as Bruce was reshaped by the murder of his beloved parents.

Eminent surgeon Elliot became the twisted, sadistic and obsessive Hush to punish his only friend and childhood companion: one who had been perpetually held up to the troubled, never-good-enough kid as a perfect example of a son by Elliot’s deranged parent. Tommy even divined the billionaire’s greatest secret – the true identity of the Dark Knight…

After many deeply personal, psychotic attacks on Wayne’s legacy and Batman’s friends, Hush took the ultimate step in his psychological war against his oldest confidante by surgically transforming himself into Wayne’s mirror image and attempting to entirely usurp his life (see Batman – Streets of Gotham: Hush Money).

The Batman Family had never accepted that their mentor was dead, and all their actions were predicated upon the premise that he would eventually return to reclaim his mantle, so once Catwoman tracked down and emptied all Elliot’s hidden bank accounts Hush began trading on his stolen looks to rebuild his fortune and take another stab at revenge by bankrupting the Wayne financial empire, simultaneously removing the Bat-Network’s crucial operating capital at the same time…

Only recently reformed criminal-turned-High Society Private Eye Edward Nigma – still known as The Riddler – seemed to suspect the imposture, with Grayson and his comrades ironically compelled to publicly cover for the faux Bruce to keep their own secrets…

At a grand benefit to mark the re-opening of Arkham Asylum, Grayson and the undercover Huntress verbally spar with Elliot, Riddler and the Falcones, but when Kitrina perpetrates another robbery Nigma chases her and sustains a life-altering head injury…

Meanwhile in the bloody streets The Reaper is taking a brutal toll on Black Mask’s enemies and the general public too…

Batman begins his fight back by targeting the suspiciously quiescent Penguin in ‘Fractured Pieces’ even as the newly open Arkham begins to suffer mysterious attacks and its builders and administrators begin succumbing to tragic accidents. But even as the Dark Knight’s strategy prompts a murderous attack on the Bird Bandit by Black Mask forces, Mario has discovered Kitrina’s role in his misfortunes and takes steps to end her interference.

Tragically he has completely underestimated her abilities as he hunts for missing maps of Devil’s Square – and Black Mask’s secret sanctum – which she originally created and has now reclaimed…

Norm Rapmund joins Florea on inking with ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ as Kitrina begins her brutal retaliation against the Falcones and Batman discovers who she really is. As Mario flees the aftermath, the mob boss is ambushed by the Reaper and only the last minute intervention of Batman and Huntress save him from a grisly end.

On the deadly, near-deserted streets, Riddler’s confusion slowly abates as he begins making connections to a life he’d forgotten and re-experiences a compulsion long controlled…

The war takes an ugly turn in ‘Mind Games’ when the Penguin at last makes his move: enslaving Batman with Black Mask’s mind-binding gimmicks and dispatching the befuddled crimebuster to even the score – and perhaps even assassinate the murderous mastermind behind everyone’s woes…

By the time Robin has rescued his brainwashed senior partner, Kitrina has found an ally and mentor of her own – one with no love for the Falcones, Penguin or Black Mask and an agenda all her own – and the Boy Wonder’s unsavoury task is to reconstruct just what horrors Batman has committed since he fell under the spell of the mind-controlling mask.

Armed with inevitable conclusions, hard-won knowledge and unpalatable truths regarding presumed friends and foes, the new Dark Knight at last implacably ends the plague of unrest afflicting Gotham but, even after taking out the Ministry of Science, overcoming the rampaging Reaper and exposing Black Mask, the ‘Liberator’ and his Network allies are acutely aware that the job never ends and the battle is barely begun…

This collection then concludes with the 2-part ‘Riddle Me This’ (illustrated by Guillem March & colourist Tomeu Morey) as the Prince of Puzzlers encounters a murderous old associate in criminal conjuror Blackspell whose ‘Magic Tricks’ concealed a cunning, years-long revenge scheme.

However as the bloodshed and mystery escalated in ‘A Means to an End’ the increasingly overworked Batman was forced to accept that the obvious suspect might not be the guilty one… nor that all his allies were working with him…

Torturous, tumultuous, convoluted and challenging, this action-packed, high-octane Fights ‘n’ Tights drama will deliver all the thrills, spills and chill fans could hope for with impressive punch and panache aplenty. Moreover it’s all very, very pretty to look at and even the freshest neophyte is well aware that it’s all just a prelude to the return of the real Dark Knight…
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Battle for the Cowl


By Tony S. Daniel, Sandu Florea, Fabian Nicieza & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-4012-2417-2

I’m innately suspicious of and generally hostile to big, bombastic braided crossover events in comics.

Does any other popular art form use them yet, or are they too often simply an excuse to shear cash from hard-up fans?

(Coming Soon to Your Screen: CSIs Las Vegas, Miami, New York and Croydon must race both NCISs, all the various Law & Orders, The Bill and Inspector Montalbano to battle an international conspiracy and discover who ate all the pies on Man vs. Food, with sidebar stories on Holby City, Grey’s Anatomy and Body of Proof, whilst Cold Case investigates the connection to an unsolved Miss Marple poisoning before Dr. Who wraps it up in a time-spanning Christmas Special…)

Undoubtedly in terms of mainstream superhero stories, with some key characters spread out over many titles, epochal continuity events can and should be reflected in all the various comicbooks, but the whipping up of buyer’s frenzy until readers don’t dare miss any mention or moment of an event has always struck me as cruel and unusual punishment directed towards the people who love you most – and that’s just abuse, plain and simple…

That’s not to say that some pretty impressive yarns haven’t resulted from the practice and undoubtedly the modern wrinkle of producing discrete “Nested Storylines” within the broader framework has eased the previously daunting burden somewhat – although that might be more a necessary function of the increasingly important trade paperback/graphic novel market: after all who could even lift a book containing every episode and instalment of Civil War or Crisis on Infinite Earths?

Even so, I prefer not to get caught up in the hype and furore if at all possible, and even re-reread such blockbusters before passing my own awesome, implacable Final Judgement…

Thus with all the fervour and kerfuffle surrounding the epic death and inevitable resurrection of Batman finally finished and forgotten, now seems the moment to take another look at one the critical elements of the positively vast Batman R.I.P./Final Crisis/Last Rites/Batman Reborn/Return of Bruce Wayne affair to see how it stands bereft of hysteria…

Following a harrowing and sustained campaign of terror by insidious cabal The Black Hand, the mighty Batman was apparently killed by diabolical New God Darkseid during the “Final Crisis”. Although the news was kept from the general public, the superhero community secretly mourned and a dedicated army of assistants, protégés and allies assembled through the years by the Dark Knight formed a “Network” of champions to police Gotham City in the tumultuous days and weeks that followed…

This slim volume collects the contents of core miniseries Batman: Battle for the Cowl #1-3 plus themed anthology specials Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? #1 and Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? #1 (March-July 2009) recounting how with the city descended into chaos as the hard-pressed Network strive against a three-way power struggle whilst hoping to keep their patriarch’s legacy alive…

Most of the Batman-trained Network refuse to believe their inspirational mentor is dead and thus, believing him only lost, have urged Dick Grayson – first Robin , now Nightwing – to assume his teacher’s identity again (as he did post-KnightFall during the Batman: Prodigal storyline) until Bruce Wayne can find his way back to them. This, the bereaved junior hero has steadfastly refused to do…

Written and pencilled by Tony S. Daniel with inks from Sandu Florea, the epic opens during ‘A Hostile Takeover’ with third Robin Tim Drake and his British analogue The Squire valiantly battling a gang of killer clowns only to find their job finished for them by an unseen vigilante who deals out justice with extreme violence and leaves little love-notes declaring “I AM BATMAN”…

As an army of heroes – including The Knight, Wildcat, Birds of Prey, Outsiders and even a new Batwoman work with the police to maintain order, but as the Dark Knight hasn’t been seen for weeks Gotham’s criminal classes are beginning to suspect that something has happened to their greatest nemesis…

Already moving to consolidate power are The Penguin and Two-Face: each attempting to create an insurmountable powerbase and win complete control of the underworld by the time the Batman shows his face again, but unknown to each a third player has begun his own campaign.

Black Mask is a sadistic psychotic – but a methodical and strategically brilliant one. His first move is to free a busload of Batman’s most maniacal menaces being shipped back to Arkham Asylum and let them loose to add to the chaos and carnage…

Meanwhile Tim continually presses Nightwing to assume the mantle of the Bat, arguing that even a fake Caped Crusader will have a terrifying calming effect onGotham’s rampant rogues and robbers.

Moreover, it must be one of them, rather than allowing the increasingly out-of-control mystery impostor to steal the role and tarnish the legend…

Grayson again refuses before heading back to damage control leaving Tim to track the fake as he brutally demolishes and even murders malefactors throughout the city. With a chilling inkling as to the fraud’s identity, Drake himself puts on the cowl and costume to hunt the killer to his hidden lair beneath Gotham’s sewers, even as Bruce Wayne’s assassin-trained son Damian – continuing as the headstrong and potentially lethal latest iteration of Robin, the Boy Wonder – is attacked by liberated lunatics Poison Ivy and Killer Croc and a horde of lesser criminals.

Even after Nightwing swings in to assist, the odds seem hopeless …until the Fake Knight bursts in, all guns blazing…

‘Army of One’ finds Nightwing battling the killer charlatan to a standstill amidst the bodies of his dead and dying attackers and reaching the same conclusion Tim had. The blood-hungry facsimile is Jason Todd …

Another orphan taken in by Batman, Todd served valiantly as the second Boy Wonder but his psychological problems remained hidden and unresolved and the boy was murdered by the Joker. Subsequently resurrected by one of the frequent Cosmic Upheavals (Infinite Crisis if you’re interested, but it all happened off-camera and post hoc…) that plague the DC Universe, the boy took on the identity of the Red Hood and began cleaning up Gotham his way; using his Bat-training and the merciless tactics of the villains he remorselessly stalked. Now with the role of Dark Knight vacant he intends to become theBatmanGothamCity always deserved…

Unable to defeat each other, the impasse between Nightwing and the killer Caped Crusader is broken when Birds of Prey Huntress and Black Canary arrive. Todd simply shoots Damian in the chest and escapes whilst the heroes rush to tend the boy…

Black Mask, meanwhile, is deploying more of the freed Arkham inmates; using them to covertly amp up the death-struggle between Two-Face and the Penguin. Deep below Gotham Tim, still dressed as his teacher, searches Todd’s hideout and encounters a far from friendly Catwoman…

As Grayson and Alfred doctor the wounded Damian in the Batcave, Black Mask’s sinister subordinates blow up Police Headquarters, whilst Catwoman and Tim search Todd’s files for clues. Her hostility had stemmed from the lad wearing her ex-lover’s clothes, but she’s a lot angrier when the impostor returns and attacks…

Leaving them both for dead, Todd then moves to his lethal endgame intent on being the ‘Last Man Standing’…

As Nightwing gathers his Network to tackle the mounting chaos, Black Mask unobtrusively takes full control of the underworld and Grayson at last realises that only one man can be allowed to carry the burden of being Batman. All he has to do is beat Jason, who has brutally removed and almost murdered every other contender for the Cowl…

Book-ending the actual event, but safely tucked in at the back of this book, were a brace of anthology specials scripted by Fabian Nicieza and focussing on some of the supporting characters involved in the affair.

Thus Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? #1 introduces a new player in ‘The Veil’ – illustrated by Dustin Nguyen (who also provided covers for both comics) – an enigmatic figure hidden in shadows and cogently assessing the situation for both her and our benefit, after which disgraced reporter and ex-Wayne girlfriend ‘Vicki Vale’ begins to investigate her former beau in a tantalising teaser limned by Guillem March.

Temporary hero ‘Stephanie Brown’ (The Spoiler and, briefly, Robin Mark IV) returned to the city after being run out of town by Batman and soon stumbles back into her old ways after seeing her ex-boyfriend Tim Drake hunting the deliriously larcenous Nocturna (art from ChrisCross), whilst Bruce Wayne’s closest confidante and replacement mum ‘Leslie Thompkins’ also snuck back in, determined as ever to open a free clinic for the underprivileged.

Illustrated by Jamie McKelvie, the tale showed why Batman closed her down as she quickly began treating escaped lunatics like the Cavalier, regardless of how many innocents they had harmed…

The first collection closed with a glimpse at bad cop ‘Harvey Bullock’ (Alex Konat & Mark McKenna) given one more “last chance” by Commissioner Gordon and determined to find a killer who beheaded his victims…

Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? #1 resumed all of these opened affairs with all the same creators finishing what they started.

‘The Veil’ at last reached her conclusions and passed judgement on the new Batman whilst ‘Harvey Bullock’ identified his mystery killer and opened the doors for a new Azrael to haunt the city’s criminals and ‘Leslie Thompkins’ proved that her help could provide redemption for even the most lost and depraved souls…

‘Stephanie Brown’ then began her own road back by taking up her original costumed identity as ‘Vicki Vale’ began piecing together many threads to uncover absentee playboy Bruce’s darkest, most incredible secret…

This collection also offers the assorted covers and variants the comicbooks generated, dotted throughout the saga, and this tumultuous tome concludes with ‘Building the Network’  – a copious collection of pencilled cover art, story-pages and sketches by Daniel that will dazzle and delight those interested in the creative process.

So what’s the verdict? Actually, I’d go with a tentative “thumbs up”…

There’s not much plot to wrestle with, but the action and drama are kept to an angsty maximum and, even though not all the characters and backstory might be familiar to new or casual readers, the pace and delivery will carry fans of the genre along with suitable panache. Moreover it’s all very, very pretty to look at and even the freshest neophyte is well aware that it’s all just a prelude to the return of the real Dark Knight…

© 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Streets of Gotham volume 1 – Hush Money


By Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-853-8

With all the furore and hype surrounding the epic death and inevitable resurrection of Batman cunningly orchestrated by Grant Morrison, everybody seemed so concerned with what was going to happen next that they apparently ignored what was actually occurring in the monthly comicbooks in their hands. Now with the dust long settled let’s take a look at one of the better sidebar-series to come out of the braided Batman R.I.P./Final Crisis/Last Rites/Batman Reborn/Return of Bruce Wayne publishing events…

In the aftermath of the epochal loss of the Gotham Guardian, a sustained and epic Battle for the Cowl ensued amongst the fallen hero’s closest allies. Eventually Dick Grayson succeeded his lost mentor, carrying on the tradition of the Dark Knight with Bruce Wayne’s assassin-trained son Damian continuing as the headstrong and potentially lethal latest iteration of Robin, the Boy Wonder…

This volume collects the contents of Detective Comics #852, Batman #685 (both March 2009), before re-presenting the first four tension-drenched issues of Batman: Streets of Gotham spanning June to September of that portentous year, and deals with the strange fact that although most of the masked hero community knew the tragic truth, the general populace was blithely unaware that the true Batman had been replaced…

As if all that complex crossover-ry wasn’t enough, also working hard to ensure that no reader would dare miss a single issue was a project dubbed ‘Faces of Evil’ in which DC villains took centre stage in every comicbook that month. Thus, in the aforementioned Detective #852 and Batman #685, one of the hero’s most pernicious and obsessive foes reappeared to rebuild his empire of evil after the last crushing defeat at the gauntleted hands of Batman…

Sublimely illustrated by Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs, the saga was another triumph for award-winning animator and director Paul Dini who once again proved himself the very best of contemporary Batman writers with a chilling, suspenseful epic of revenge and obsession featuring Bruce Wayne’s ultimate adversary Dr. Tommy Elliot, a beloved boyhood friend as warped by his own mother’s malign influence as the boy Bruce was transformed by the murder of his beloved parents Thomas and Martha Wayne.

Eminent surgeon Elliot became the twisted, sadistic and obsessive Hush to obtain vengeance on his only friend and childhood companion: one who had been perpetually held up to him as a perfect example of a son by Elliot’s disabled and deranged mother. Tommy even divined the billionaire’s greatest secret – the true identity of the Dark Knight…

After many deeply personal and lethally psychotic attacks on Wayne’s legacy and Batman’s friends, Hush took the ultimate step in his psychological war against his oldest pal by surgically transforming himself into Bruce’s doppelganger – attempting to entirely usurp his life.

After nearly killing Selina Kyle by literally stealing her heart, the faux-Bruce was only narrowly defeated and the captive Catwoman restored to some semblance of her former self (see Batman: Heart of Hush)…

Now in ‘Reconstruction’ a broken Elliot wanders the snowy shady docks ofGotham before tumbling into the freezing river. Everything is over: his best efforts to destroy the Wayne myth have all failed and, in revenge for his attack on her, Catwoman has tracked down all his hidden bank accounts and stolen every penny he had – $200 million dollars – giving it all away to bleeding-heart charities…

Expecting to die, Elliot awakes on a boat, saved by hard-working stiffs who believe they’ve rescued wild-partying playboy Wayne from a drunken accident. Inspired, Elliot doesn’t disabuse them and begins to trade on his stolen looks to rebuild his fortune and take another stab at revenge…

Luck is with him: for some reason no one has seen either Bruce Wayne or Batman for weeks. Using the playboy’s reputation, Hush makes his way to the Caribbean, leaving a well-concealed trail of bodies and empty wallets behind him. By the time he reaches Australia he’s feeling pretty cocky but after being spotted by shapeshifting local hero Tasmanian Devil, Elliot heads for Vietnam, eager to put more miles and far less friendly borders between him and his inevitable pursuers. It’s a near-fatal mistake…

The tale concludes in ‘Catspaw’ as “Bruce Wayne” is kidnapped by bandits from an animal poaching ring and finds himself face-to-stolen-face with Catwoman who has taken over the pet traders to actually save endangered species. Always willing to bear a grudge, she is delighted with the opportunity to put her former tormentor at the top of that list…

However the cat burglar has gotten in too deep and her greedily impatient gang are fed up with their animal-loving leader. Sensing a coup, Selina agrees to a truce with Elliot until they can escape the jungles and the bandits. To that end, she despatches her two most faithful henchmen to bring Hush to safety, but unfortunately nobody could leave a trail like Elliot’s and not be noticed by the well-schooled heirs of the World’s Greatest Detective…

Streets of Gotham debuted scant months later with Elliot an utterly isolated prisoner of the new Batman and Robin…

In ‘Ignition!’ a fresh era began with a reformed Harley Quinn making a nuisance of herself and distracting the Dark Dynamic Duo’s attention from a real threat. In the power vacuum following all the concatenating crises, many of Arkham Asylum’s inmates had absconded and were loose in the city, and flamboyant gangster Black Mask was celebrating his victory over rivals Two-Face and the Penguin – and subsequent elevation to supreme boss of the underworld – by recruiting the more biddable escaped maniacs to his team…

With a mysterious new vigilante called Abuse adding to the general atmosphere of tension, one of Black Mask’s wildest employees finally slipped into total psychosis. Third-rate arsonist Garfield Lynns suddenly stopped torching buildings as Firefly and began turning random civilians into spontaneously combusting human torches…

Taking full advantage of the situation in ‘City on Fire’, Hush then broke out of his velvet-lined cage whilst Batman and Robin tackled the utterly demented arsonist and again used his perfect imposture of Bruce Wayne to outmanoeuvre his foes.

Before Grayson, Damian and former Robin Tim Drake could react, Elliot made a very public appearance on TV and offered to bankrupt “himself” to rebuild Gotham’s shattered infrastructure and decimated industries…

The Batman Family had never accepted that their mentor was dead and all their actions were predicated upon the premise that he would eventually return to reclaim his mantle. Thus as ‘Hush Money’ opened, they were all forced to publicly accept and even join the returned “Bruce Wayne” as he effectively dismantled the lost hero’s life’s work to popular adulation…

Simultaneously in the city’s darkest nooks and crannies Black Mask’s disciples began to chafe under his increasingly oppressive and unpredictable yoke. The mobster’s most radical action was to give free rein to knife-wielding serial killer Victor Zsasz, offering to bankroll the butcher’s scheme to industrialise and mass-produce his particular brand of bloodletting…

As the new Batman finally finds a way to neutralise Hush’s bold imposture, this initial volume concludes with a dark and nasty tale following Zsasz’s escalation of terror and slaughter by focussing on the tightrope-thin line career criminals must walk in Gotham. ‘Business’ invades the personal space of illicit fixer the Broker as the premier “go-to guy” in the city at last discovers to his surprise that there some things he won’t – can’t – do, no matter how big the pay-off might be…

With astounding covers by Andrew Robinson, Alex Ross, J. G. Jones & Dustin Nguyen, this visceral, imaginative and deliciously off-balance frantic psycho-thriller sets the scene for even darker strides down the darkest avenues in all of comics…

© 2009, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Robin Archives volume 1


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Win Mortimer, Jim Mooney & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0415-0

Robin the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940), created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger & Jerry Robinson and introduced a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss. The story of how Batman took the orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still regularly undergoes tweaking to this day.

In the comics continuity Grayson fought beside Batman until 1970 when, as an indicator of those turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder college student and eventually leader of a team of fellow sidekicks and young justice seeker – the Teen Titans.

He graduated to his own featured solo spot in the back of Detective Comics from the end of the 1960s, which he alternated and shared with Batgirl, and held a similar spot throughout the 1970s in Batman and won a starring feature in the anthology comic Batman Family and the run of Giant Detective Comics Dollar Comics. During the 1980s he led the New Teen Titans, first in his original costumed identity but eventually in the reinvented guise of Nightwing, re-establishing a turbulent working relationship with his mentor Batman.

His creation as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with has inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed kid crusaders, and Grayson continues in similar innovative vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership ofAmerica’s increasingly rebellious contemporary youth culture… but his star potential was first realised much earlier in his halcyon career…

From 1947 to 1952, (issues #65-130) Robin the Boy Wonder had his own solo series and regular cover spot in Star Spangled Comics at a time when the first superhero boom was fading to be replaced by more traditional genres such as crime, westerns and boys’ adventure stories. The stories blended in-continuity action capers with more youth-oriented fare with adults Batman and Alfred reduced to minor roles or entirely absent, allowing the kid crusader to display not just his physical skills but also his brains, ingenuity and guts.

This stellar deluxe hardback Archive compilation gathers together the first 21 tales from Star Spangled #65-85 covering February 1947 to October 1948, recapturing the bold, verve and universal appeal of one of fantasy literature’s greatest youth icons, opening with a fascinating Foreword by Roy Thomas, who discusses the origins and merits of boy heroes and the history of the venerable anthology title before offering some insightful guesses as to the identity of the generally un-named writers of the Robin strip.

Although almost universally unrecorded, most historians consider Batman co-creator Bill Finger to be the author of most if not all of the stories in this volume and I’m going to happily concur here with that assessment until informed otherwise…

Star Spangled Comics #65 started the ball rolling with ‘The Teen-Age Terrors’ illustrated by regular artist Win Mortimer (with the inking misattributed to Charles Paris) in which the Caped Crusaders’ faithful butler happens across an unknown trophy and is regaled with Dick’s tale of the time he infiltrated a Reform School to discover who inside was releasing the incarcerated kids to commit crimes on the outside…

That tale segues seamlessly into ‘The No-Face Crimes’ wherein the Boy Wonder acted as stand-in to a timid young movie star targeted by a ruthless killer, whilst #67 revealed ‘The Case of the Boy Wonders’ which saw our hero as part of a trio of boy geniuses kidnapped for the craziest of reasons…

An outrageously flamboyant killing in #68 resulted in the pre-teen titan shipping out on a schooner as a cabin and spending ‘Four Days Before the Mast’ to catch the murderer, after which modern terror took hold when Robin was the only one capable of tracking down ‘The Stolen Atom Bomb’ in a bombastically explosive contemporary spy thriller.

Star Spangled Comics #70 introduced an arch-villain all his own as ‘Clocks of Doom’ saw the debut of an anonymous criminal time-and-motion expert forced into the limelight once his face was caught on film. The Clock‘s desperate attempts to sabotage the movie Robin was consulting on inevitably led to hard time in this delightful romp (this one might possibly be scripted by Don Cameron)…

Chronal explorer Professor Carter Nichols succumbed to persistent pressure and sent Dick Grayson back to the dawn of history in #71’s ‘Perils of the Stone Age’ – a deliciously anachronistic cavemen and dinosaurs epic which saw Robin kick-start freedom and democracy, after which the Boy Wonder crashed the Batplane on a desert island and encountered a boatload of escaped Nazi submariners in ‘Robin Crusoe’ in a full-on thriller illustrated by Curt Swan & John Fischetti.

In #73 the so-very tractable Professor Nichols dispatched Dick to revolutionary France where Robin battled Count Cagliostro, ‘The Black Magician’, in a stirring saga drawn by Jack Burnley & Jim Mooney, after which the Timepiece Terror busted out of jail determined to have his revenge in ‘The Clock Strikes’, illustrated in full by Mooney who would soon become the series’ sole artist.

However Bob Kane & Charles Paris stepped in for the tense courtroom drama in #75 as ‘Dick Grayson for the Defense’ found the millionaire’s ward fighting for the rights of a schoolboy unjustly accused of theft, after which cunning career criminal The Fence came a cropper when he tried to steal 25 free bikes given as prizes to Gotham’s city’s best students in ‘A Bicycle Built for Loot’ (Finger & Mooney).

Prodigy and richest kid on Earth, Bert Beem was sheer hell to buy gifts for, but since the lad dreamed of being a detective, the offer of a large charitable donation secured the Boy Wonder’s cooperation in a little harmless role play. However when real bandits replaced the actors and Santa, ‘The Boy Who Wanted Robin for Christmas’ enjoyed the impromptu adventure of a lifetime…

Another rich kid was equally inspired in #78 and became the Boy Wonder of India, but soon needed the aid of the original when a Thuggee murder-cult tried to destroy ‘Rajah Robin’, whilst in ‘Zero Hour’ (illustrated by Mooney & John Giunta) The Clock struck one more with a spate of regularly-scheduled time crimes before Star Spangled #80 saw Dick Grayson become ‘The Boy Disc Jockey’, only to discover that the station was broadcasting clever instructions to commit robberies in its cryptically cunning commercials…

Robin was temporarily blinded in #81 whilst investigating the bizarre theft of guide dogs, but quickly adapted to his own canine companion and solved the mystery of ‘The Seeing-Eye Dog Crimes’, but had a far tougher time as a camp counsellor for ghetto kids after meeting ‘The Boy Who Hated Robin’. It took grit, determination and a couple of escaped convicts before the kids learned to adapt and accept…

A radio contest led to danger and death before one smart lad earned the prize for discovering who ‘Who is Mr. Mystery?’ in #83, after which Robin tried to discover the causes of juvenile delinquency by going undercover as a notorious new recruit to ‘The Third Street Gang’, and this initial outing ends on a spectacular high as the Boy Wonder sacrifices himself to save Batman and ends up marooned in the Arctic. Even whilst the distraught Caped Crusader is searching for his partner’s body, Robin has responded to the Call of the Wild, joined an Inuit tribe and captured a fugitive from American justice in #85’s ‘Peril at the Pole’…

Beautifully illustrated, wittily scripted and captivatingly addictive, these stirring all-ages traditional superhero hi-jinks are a perfect antidote to teen-angst and the strident, overblown, self-absorbed whining of contemporary comicbook kids. Fast, furious and ferociously fun, these are superb tales no Fights ‘n’ Tights fan will want to miss…
© 1947, 1948, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman Archives volume 6


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Don Cameron, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Win Mortimer, Jack & Ray Burnley, Jim Mooney, Charles Paris & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0409-0

Debuting a year after Superman, “The Bat-Man” (joined eventually by Robin, the Boy Wonder) cemented National Comics as the market and genre leader of the burgeoning comicbook industry, and the dashing derring-do and strictly human-scaled adventures of the Dynamic Duo rapidly became the swashbuckling benchmark by which all other four-colour crimebusters were judged.

By the time of this the tales in this superb sixth deluxe hardback compilation (collecting the Batman adventures from Detective Comics #120-135, spanning cover-dates February 1947-May 1948) the Dynamic Duo were inescapably a co-operative effort with a large and ever-changing creative team crafting increasingly varied and captivating escapades for the heroes. One further note: many of the tales in this tome carry no writer’s credit but are most likely the work of pulp writer Edmond Hamilton, so apologies for the less than usually clear attributions throughout…

As discussed in the Foreword by celebrated critic and historian Bill Schelly, the post-war years saw a careful repositioning and reformatting of the heroes, as the publishers cautiously proceeded to tone down outlandish violence and nightmarishly macabre villains in favour of a wide variety of more mundane mobsters, gangsters and petty criminals, plus a few of the most irrepressibly popular favourites such as Penguin and The Joker.

Even so the former felon even gets cover billing in the opening costumed drama, reproduced in full from Detective #120; another riotous romp co-starring the rakish, rotund rogue indulging in ‘Fowl Play!’

Illustrated by Win Mortimer, this yarn describes how the pompous Penguin responds after an ornithologist is cited as America’s Greatest Bird Expert, leading to a campaign of fresh feather-themed crimes before the Dynamic Duo once again caged the crafty crook.

In #121 Hamilton & Howard Sherman take a rare look at corruption when Gotham’s top cop is forced from office by blackmailers exerting pressure on the Mayor. However, even whilst ‘Commissioner Gordon Walks a Beat’ Batman and Robin are tracking down the true cause of all the city’s woes…

Bob Kane & Charles Paris limned the uncredited (but probably Hamilton) case of ‘The Black Cat Crimes’ in the next issue as the sinisterly sultry Catwoman busted out of jail and ruthlessly, spectacularly exploited superstitions to plunder the city, whilst with Ray Burnley on inking in #123 ‘The Dawn Patrol Crimes’ saw a trio of aged pioneer pilots fall prey to the insidious schemes of a criminal mastermind in their fevered desperation to fly again. Happily the sinister Shiner had not reckoned on the Batman’s keen detective ability or the indomitable true grit of the patsy pilots…

The Joker returned in #124 as ‘The Crime Parade’ (Hamilton, Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz & George Roussos) found the Mountebank of Mirth turn a radio chart show into his own private wishing well of inspired brazen banditry, after which ‘The Citadel of Crime’ (scripted by Bill Finger in #125) saw the Caped Crimebuster infiltrate a fortress where reformed crooks were imprisoned by a deranged maniac dubbed the Thinker and forced to build deadly weapons for a criminal army. Although credited here to Dick Sprang, this is actually one of the last art strips by the superb Jack Burnley, ably inked by his brother Ray and Charles Paris.

Detective Comics #126’s ‘Case of the Silent Songbirds’, by Hamilton(?) & Jim Mooney, again found The Penguin purveying his particular brand of peril and perfidy by stealing the voices of nightclub singers as part of the world’s most incredible protection racket until Batman stepped in, whilst #127’s ‘Pigmies in Giantland’ – featuring a rare pencil and ink outing for Charles Paris – saw the outrageous Dr. Agar shrink his wealthy victims to the size of dolls until the Dynamic Duo unravelled the impossible truth…

Only The Joker could conceive of ‘Crime in Reverse’ (Hamilton, Kane & Ray Burnley) as he proceeded to once again attempt to bamboozle Batman and Boy Wonder, whilst in

Detective #129 Finger, Jack Burnley & Paris took our heroes to ‘The Isle of Yesterday’ where a rich eccentric had turned back time to the carefree 1890s for all the bemused but unstressed inhabitants. Such a pity then that a mob of modern crooks were using the idyllic spot as a hideout… but not for long…

In #130 Finger, Kane & Paris described the horrific fate of a string of greedy crooks who tried to open ‘The Box’ but it took Batman’s razor-keen intellect to finally solve the decades-long mystery behind the trail of bodies left in its wake, after which Don Cameron, Kane, Sayre Swartz & Paris examined the tragic lives of two brothers doomed by dire destiny: one a callous racketeer and the other a good man forced by family ties to become ‘The Underworld Surgeon’…

In #132 esteemed escapologist Paul Bodin retired to raise his daughter, but within months ‘The Human Key’ began robbing vaults using all the master’s tricks. Only Batman could see through the open-and-shut case to discern the truth in a powerful human interest tale illustrated by Mooney & Paris, whilst ‘The Man Who Could See the Future’ (Hamilton, Kane, Sayre Schwartz & Paris) offered a moody counterpoint as the Gotham Gangbusters exposed an unscrupulous charlatan clairvoyant whose uncanny predictions always led to shocking disasters and missing valuables.

The Penguin opened ‘The Umbrellas of Crime’ in Detective #134 (Finger, Mooney & Paris) but his innovative inventions couldn’t stop Batman closing down his latest crime spree, and this blockbusting barrage of vintage Bat-tales comes to a blistering climax with #135’s ‘The True Story of Frankenstein’ (Hamilton, Sayre Swartz & Paris) as the Caped Crusaders were drawn back in time by Professor Carter Nichols to save a rural village from an incredible monster and the brute he manipulated into acts of evil…

With stunning covers by Jack Burnley, Paris, Mortimer, Kane & Sayre Schwartz, Mooney and Dick Sprang, and full creator biographies included, this supremely thrilling, bombastic action-packed compilation provides another perfect snapshot of the Batman’s amazing range from bleak moody avenger to suave swashbuckler, from remorseless Agent of Justice and best pal to sophisticated Devil-May-Care Detective, in timeless tales which have never lost their edge or their power to enthral and enrapture. Moreover, these sublimely sturdy Archive Editions are without doubt the most luxuriously satisfying way to enjoy them over and over again.
© 1947-1948, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: the Brave and the Bold volume 1


By Matt Wayne, J. Torres, Andy Suriano, Phil Moy, Carlo Barberi, Dan Davis & Terry Beatty (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2878-1

The Brave and the Bold began in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales about a variety of period heroes: a format which mirrored that era’s filmic fascination with historical dramas. Devised and written by Bob Kanigher, issue #1 led with Roman epic Golden Gladiator, medieval mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. Soon the Gladiator was increasingly alternated with Robin Hood, but the adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like Showcase.

Used to premiere concepts and characters such as Task Force X: the Suicide Squad, Cave Carson, Hawkman and Strange Sports Stories and the epochal Justice League of America, the comic soldiered on until issue #50 when it provided another innovative new direction which once again truly caught the public’s imagination.

That issue paired two superheroes – Green Arrow & Martian Manhunter – in a one-off team-up, as did succeeding ones: Aquaman and Hawkman in #51, WWII Battle Stars Sgt Rock, Captain Cloud, Mme. Marie & the Haunted Tank in #52 and Atom & Flash in #53. The next team-up, Robin, Aqualad & Kid Flash, evolved into the Teen Titans and after Metal Men/the Atom and Flash/Martian Manhunter appeared a new hero; Metamorpho, the Element Man debuted in #57-58.

From then it was back to the extremely popular superhero pairings with #59, and although no one realised it at the time, this particular conjunction, Batman with Green Lantern, would be particularly significant….

After a return engagement for the Teen Titans, two issues spotlighting Earth-2 champions Starman & Black Canary and Wonder Woman with Supergirl, an indication of things to come came when Batman duelled hero/villain Eclipso in #64: an acknowledgement of the brewing TV-induced mania mere months away.

Within two issues, following Flash/Doom Patrol and Metamorpho/Metal Men, Brave and the Bold #67 saw the Caped Crusader take de facto control of the title and the lion’s share of the team-ups. With the exception of #72-73 (Spectre/the Flash and Aquaman/Atom) the comic was henceforth a place where Batman invited the rest of company’s heroic pantheon to come and play…

Decades later the Batman Animated TV series masterminded by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini in the 1990s revolutionised the Dark Knight and subsequently led to some of the absolute best comicbook adventures in his seventy-year publishing history with the creation of the spin-off print title.

With constant funnybook iterations and tie-ins to a succession of TV cartoon series, Batman has remained popular and a sublime introducer of kids to the magical world of the printed page.

The most recent incarnation was Batman: the Brave and the Bold, which gloriously teamed up the all-ages small-screen Dark Knight with a torrent and profusion of DC’s other heroic creations, and once again the show was supplemented by a cool kid’s comicbook full of fun, verve and swashbuckling dash, cunningly crafted to appeal as much to the parents and grandparents as those fresh-faced neophyte kids…

This stellar premier collection re-presents the first 6 issues in a hip and trendy, immensely entertaining package suitable for newcomers, fans and aficionados of all ages and, although not necessary to the reader’s enjoyment, a passing familiarity with the TV episodes will enhance the overall experience (and they’re pretty good too)…

Following the format of the TV show, each tale opens with a brief vignette adventure before telling a longer tale. Issue #1 has the Caped Crimebuster and Aquaman putting paid to robotic rogue Carapax. This fed into main feature ‘The Panic of the Composite Creature’ (by Matt Wayne, Andy Suriano & Dan Davis) wherein Batman and the pulchritudinous Power Girl saved London from Lex Luthor‘s latest monster-making mechanism.

Phil Moy then illustrates Superman and the Gotham Guardian mopping up the terrible Toyman before ‘The Attack of the Virtual Villains’ finds the Bat and Blue Beetle in El Paso battling evil Artificial Intellect The Thinker in a compelling computer-game world…

After an introductory battle between Wonder Woman, Dark Knight and telepathic tyrant Dr. Psycho‘s zombie villains, ‘President Batman!’ (Wayne, Suriano & Davis) sees the Great Detective substitute for the Commander-in-Chief with Green Arrow as bodyguard when body-swapping mastermind Ultra-Humanite attempts to seize control of the nation. Then, in the full-length ‘Menace of the Time Thief!’ Aquaman and his bat-eared chum prevent well-intentioned Dr. Cyber from catastrophically rewriting history, following a magical and too brief prologue wherein sorcerer Felix Faust is foiled by a baby Batman and the glorious pushy terrible toddlers Sugar and Spike…

J. Torres, Carlo Barberi & Terry Beatty stepped in for both the chilling vignette wherein the nefarious Key was caught by Batman and a Haunted Tank whilst ‘The Case of the Fractured Fairy Tale’ began when the awesome Queen of Fables started stealing children for her Enchanted Forest and the Caped Crusader needed the help of both Billy Batson and his adult alter ego Captain Marvel…

This first compilation concludes with a preliminary clash between Hourman and Batman against the crafty Calculator, after which ‘Charge of the Army Eternal!’ (Torres, Suriano & Davis) finds the villainous General Immortus at the mercy of his own army of time-lost warriors and bandits and desperately seeking the help of the Gotham Gangbuster and ghostly Guardian Kid Eternity.

Although greatly outnumbered, the Kid’s ability to summon past heroes such as The Vigilante, Shining Knight, Viking Prince and G.I. Robot proves invaluable, especially once the General inevitably betrays his rescuers…

This fabulously fun rollercoaster ride also includes informative ‘Secret Bat Files’ on Luthor, Power Girl, Thinker, Blue Beetle, Ultra-Humanite, Green Arrow, Dr. Cyber, Aquaman, Queen of Fables, Captain Marvel, General Immortus and Kid Eternity, and the package is topped off with a spiffy cover gallery courtesy of James Tucker, Scott Jeralds & Hi-Fi.

DC’s Cartoon Network imprint is arguably the last bastion of all-ages children’s comics in Americaand has produced some truly magical homespun material (such as Tiny Titans or Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!) as well as stunning interpretations of such television landmarks as Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Ben 10, Dexter’s Laboratory and others.

The links between kids’ animated features and comicbooks are long established and, I suspect, for young consumers, indistinguishable. After all, it’s just adventure entertainment in the end…

Despite being ostensibly aimed at TV viewing kids, these mini-sagas are also wonderful, traditional comics thrillers no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, entertaining, well-rendered yarns for the broadest range of excitement-seeking readers, making this terrific tome a perfect, old fashioned delight. What more do you need to know?
© 2009 DC Comics. Compilation © 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman Archives volume 5


By Bob Kane, Alvin Schwartz, Don Cameron, Bill Finger, Dick Sprang, Win Mortimer & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-725-3

Debuting a year after Superman, “The Bat-Man” (and later Robin, the Boy Wonder) cemented National Comics as the market and genre leader of the burgeoning comicbook industry, and the dashing derring-do and strictly human-scaled adventures of the Dynamic Duo rapidly became the swashbuckling benchmark by which all other four-colour crimebusters were judged.

This fifth fantastic deluxe hardback compilation collects the Batman yarns from Detective Comics #103-119 (spanning cover-dates September 1945-December 1947) and safely saw the indefatigable icons delete Nazi spies and saboteurs from their daily itineraries. From this point onward, the stalwarts would again concentrate on home-grown mobsters, monsters, menaces and their ever-active and growing rogues’ gallery of vile villains as the vicissitudes of war were replaced by the never-ending travails of black-hearted crooks and domestic killers…

After a spirited discussion of the days after peace broke out from celebrated bat-scribe Dennis O’Neil in the Foreword, the costumed dramas begin to unfold in #103’s ‘Trouble Incorporated!’ written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Jack Burnley & Charles Paris. Herein a well-meaning retired college Professor set up a free advice service and inadvertently gave the thugs next door a hotline to illicit gain until Batman and Robin offered their own bombastic expertise: also gratis and extremely educational for the eavesdropping creeps…

In Detective #104 Schwartz & Dick Sprang’s ‘The Battle of the Billboards!’ proved a breathtaking and imaginative yarn with blackmail racketeers using prominent signs to publicise the secret crimes and peccadilloes of Gotham’s elite – unless the victims paid off by hiring the signage space themselves.

With no laws broken, the Dynamic Duo were forced to take bold action to end the unique protection scam…

When Bruce Wayne‘s accountant and treasurer embezzled all the company funds in #105 the fallout had appalling consequences for Gotham. ‘The Batman Goes Broke!’ by Don Cameron & the marvellous J. Winslow “Win” Mortimer, saw the heroes reduced to penury and forced to sell their crime-busting possessions and even obtain menial jobs so that they could complete their last case…

Happily the financial absconders were caught – by regular cops – and the Wayne fortunes restored. ‘The Phantom of the Library!’ eerily stalked retired law officials who foolishly visited the city’s repository of knowledge: in search of vengeance on those who had long ago sentenced him to death for murder. Cameron’s run of ingenious crime dramas continued after this spooky mystery by Bob Kane & Ray Burnley, after which a crafty charlatan who preyed on greedy, superstitious businessmen debuted in Detective Comics #107. The wicked Scorpio believed himself above the law and beyond all harm until Batman and Robin invaded his sinister citadel on ‘The Mountain of the Moon!’ – illustrated by Mortimer who had the lion’s share of drawing at this time.

Police officer Ed Gregory was framed by crooks and became ‘The Goat of Gotham City!’ in a moving thriller by limned by Sprang, but as always the Gotham Gangbusters were able to deduce the truth before taking down the villains in a spectacular airplane duel.

A perennial Prince of Plunder returned in #109 as the manic Joker went on a crime spree that lured Dark Knight and Boy Wonder to a deadly purpose-built trap inside ‘The House that Jokes Built!’.

Faithful butler Alfred had a starring role in #110 as ‘Batman and Robin in Scotland Yard!’ found the Masked Manhunters in London to help capture an incredible modern-day Moriarty, after which a trip to ‘Coaltown, U.S.A.’ saw the Caped Crusaders convince a miserly mine owner to listen to his striking workers and modernise the death trap he operated…

Detective #112 riffed delightfully on the classic film The Shop Around the Corner as a small family business was torn apart by the theft of $99. Embroiled in the melodrama was customer Bruce Wayne whose covert investigations uncovered four culprits all eager to confess in Schwartz & Mortimer’s heart-warming tale of ‘The Case Without a Crime!’

Plundering pirates and sinister smugglers were the bad-guys in ‘Crime on the Half-Shell!’ by Bill Finger, Sprang & Gene McDonald, but the story really centred on the tragedy of a blind oyster boat captain and the feisty daughter who took over his “man’s work”, whilst #114 saw the Joker again test Batman’s wits and patience in a sharp puzzler that turned Gotham into the ‘Acrostic of Crime!’ (by Cameron & Mortimer).

‘The Man Who Lived in a Glass House!’ by the same creative team found the Dynamic Duo aiding an inventor against an unscrupulous rival determined to sabotage his life’s work, after which Bruce’s old friend Professor Carter Nichols used his time travelling hypnosis trick to send Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson to Feudal England. Oddly however it was Batman and Robin who came to ‘The Rescue of Robin Hood!’ in a properly swashbuckling romp by Cameron & Mortimer in #116, whilst that writer’s contemporary research made ‘Steeplejack’s Showdown!’ (Kane & Ray Burnley) and the heroes’ campaign against a ring of sky-high bandits a grippingly authentic thriller worthy of Hitchcock…

Issue #118, by Schwartz & Howard Sherman, offered one last hurrah for the Harlequin of Hate as the Joker again attempted to trump the Dark-Knight Detective with The Royal Flush Crimes!’ only to go bust in the wilds of the cowboy West, before this classic collection of seldom-seen tales concludes with Finger, Sprang & McDonald’s gloriously madcap excursion ‘The Case of the Famous Foes!’ wherein a cunning crook recruited George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln to mastermind his crime campaign – straight out of Gotham Sanitarium and into blazing battle against the mystified manhunters…

These evocative, bombastic and action-stuffed yarns provide a perfect snapshot of the Batman’s amazing range from bleak moody avenger to suave swashbuckler, from remorseless Agent of Justice and best pal to sophisticated Devil-May-Care Detective, in timeless tales which have never lost their edge or their power to enthral and enrapture. Moreover, this supremely sturdy Archive Edition is indubitably the most luxurious and satisfying way to enjoy them over and over again.
© 1945-1947, 2001 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Universe Online Legends volume 1


By Marv Wolfman, Tony Bedard, Howard Porter, Adriana Melo, Mike S. Miller & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3218-4

No matter how much nostalgic old geezers like me might wish it otherwise, most of the classic American Superhero characters have far outgrown their static 2-Dimensional origins and are far more creatures of the screen now: Movie, TV or Computer – and often all three.

As such it’s no longer odd to see such veteran pen-and-ink superstars return to funnybook pages as their own spun-off avatars, in adventures where they are transformed, sometimes bastardised versions of (to me at least) their “true” selves.

One of the better examples in recent years of this chimerical commercial alchemy was a phenomenal Armageddon Epic based on a computer game starring the Justice League of America which actually surpassed much of the company’s contemporary output vis á vis thrills, chills and old fashioned comicbook class…

DC Universe Online Legends first appeared as a 27-issue series running from March 2011 to May 2012, based on a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (or MMORPG for those computerati already in the know). It featured the final triumph of paramount Superman villains Lex Luthor and Brainiac as the starting point for a blistering “Twilight of the Gods” scenario and this first compilation volume gathers #1-7 of the fortnightly series and also includes the “issue #0” which came free with the game itself.

‘Prelude’ by Tony Bedard and artists Oliver Nome, Michael Lopez & Livio Ramondelli, starts the ball of doom rolling as cosmic marauder and collector of civilisations Brainiac launches a harrowing assault on Metropolis, and the JLA – Aquaman, the Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman and Batman – mobilise to stop him. Unbelievably they fail…

Marv Wolfman, Bedard, Howard Porter, John Livesay, Adriana Melo & Norman Lee then kick things into high gear with ‘Legendary’ as in the near-future Luthor, now more machine than man, finally slays his life-long nemesis in the ruins of a ravaged Earth and leaves the Kryptonian to rot amidst the corpses of his fellow fallen heroes.

The obsessive villain had long ago entered into a devil’s bargain with Brainiac and now intends to rule the remains of Earth, but soon discovers that the Scourge from Space (an implacable, unstoppable planetary plunderer who has destroyed most of the civilised universe and even crushed the immortal Green Lantern Corps) has played him for a fool and now acts to assimilate the planet’s remaining valuable resources – which includes Luthor’s mind – and eradicate the gutted shell…

Realising too late the horrific mistake he’s made, Lex swiftly formulates a plan to undo the damage he’s caused and repay Brainiac for his treachery. The first step is to gather all the surviving metahumans – heroes and villains all oblivious to the fact that Luthor has already slain their greatest champions – into an attack force whilst the infuriated evil genius prepares to unmake recent history…

Meanwhile, several years earlier, a fully human and hero-hating Lex Luthor is contacted by a drone from deep space and enters into a sinister alliance with the alien reiver whose mutual dream is to destroy Superman forever…

Scripted by Bedard, ‘Control’ finds Luthor directing his rag-tag team of deeply suspicious resistance fighters (Dr. Fate, Mr. Freeze, August General in Iron, Solomon Grundy, Power Girl, Cheetah, Blue Beetle, Black Canary and the Atom) in forays against the extraterrestrial Exobyte nanomachines and robot drones disassembling the world, unaware that they were secretly produced in the malign magnate’s factories years before…

In those long-ago days, Brainiac’s probing attack has captured the Daily Planet building in Metropolis. The alien inquisitor apparently needs test samples of base-line humanity to examine before he can calibrate his ghastly devices and begin harvesting Earth’s metahuman resources…

In the furious future the schemer’s pawns continue their missions utterly unaware that, to ultimately save humanity, Luthor plans to sacrifice them all…

Wolfman, Mike S. Miller, Melo & Norman Lee disclose the master manipulator’s ‘Betrayal’ of his team after Power Girl discovers the corpse of her cousin Superman and the resistors demand vengeance. After first setting a horde of bloodthirsty villains upon them, Lex then murderously saves his squad of heroic stooges, pleading repentance and offering to surrender to justice once earth has been saved.

Of course, he’s still lying…

In the present, whilst Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White explore their options as captives of Brainiac, an increasingly unstable and impatient Superman chafes at the JLA’s caution, unaware that the cosmic conqueror is planning an imminent and devastating sneak-attack of the League’s satellite citadel…

Bedard & Porter take the creative lead for the all-action episode ‘Strike Force’ as, in the world of today, the Justice League battle valiantly but futilely against swarms of Exobytes which readily bypass all their defences and begin stealing the powers of the embattled defenders. In the Foredoomed Tomorrow, Luthor leads his duped disciples in a fool’s errand onto Brainiac’s ship, tasked with recovering a city-full of yellow power rings, originally used by the minions of renegade Green Lantern Sinestro, whilst the master manipulator himself plans to confront the invader face-to-face…

Wolfman & Miller produced the shocking ‘Three Minutes’ in which the JLA lose their holding action and have to abandon their orbital Watchtower to the Exobytes – but not every hero escapes – whilst in the future the raid has gone equally badly and one of Luthor’s key pawns is maimed, leading to time-split ‘Downfall’ (Bedard, Porter, Livesay & Pop Mhan) for both teams of champions.

In our time, after warning Luthor to get out of the city, Brainiac casts the Watchtower out of orbit and aims it at what’s left of Metropolis, with the Man of Steel desperately attempting to rescue his stranded comrades and simultaneously save his hometown, whilst in days to come Luthor, Atom and Black Canary split up…

The heroes now carry a canister of retrieved Exobytes holding all the planet’s harvested super-powers – enough to turn all Earth’s survivors into metahuman warriors – but the disgraced Machiavelli who guides them is determined to personally destroy the alien who played him for a fool…

In the past, Superman narrowly saves Metropolis, but fallout and debris from his last-ditch attempt falls on the fleeing Luthor, crushing his body whilst in the future the cyborg genius at last battles Brainiac but is easily and resoundingly beaten…

This first explosive chronicle concludes with the revelation that Luthor has a secret ally as, in the untitled seventh chapter (by Wolfman, Porter & Livesay), a Batman also more mechanoid than mortal manhunter acts with a band of freshly created superheroes to use the Exobytes in a bold and radical manner.

Rather than boost the dying earth’s meagre surviving population with the stolen super-powers, what if the nanobots were taken back in time and used to turn an entire overpopulated earth into a planet of “metas” before Brainiac’s invasion beachhead was established?

Of course even here in Earth’s final hour, Luthor cannot resist betraying his comrades but has again underestimated the sheer dogged determination of the demi-digital Dark Knight…

This high-octane Fights ‘n’ Tights shocker also includes a selection of covers and variants by Carlos D’Anda, Jonny Wrench, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair, Ryan Sook, Ed Benes, Randy Mayor, Jorge Gonzalez, Tony Aviña & Carrie Strachan as well as pages of behind-the-scenes character, tech and scenario designs and sketches from the game iteration.

Fast, furious, spectacular and devilishly devious, this is a sharp, no-nonsense graphic Götterdämmerung saga that will delight traditional comicbook action fans as well as all those young plug-in babies of the digital age.
© 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.