Category: Batman

 

By Paul Dini & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-575-3

DC comics are sitting on a goldmine of quality product to repackage as trade paperbacks and graphic novels, and the sooner they begin utilising it, the better it will be for the industry. They have been publishing child friendly versions of their key characters, most notably Batman, ever since the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm cartoon series first aired in the 1990s.

These adventures are consistently some of the best comics produced of the last two decades and why they aren’t permanently in print, if only as a way of attracting new young readers to the medium, has always baffled me.

One step towards correcting this problem is the subject under discussion here. Collecting the eponymous three issue miniseries, plus the one-shot Love on the Lam and a short story from much-missed Batman anthology comic Gotham Knights.

The fourteenth issue of the aforementioned anthology yielded up the brilliantly dark but amusing tale ‘The Bet’, written by Dini and illustrated by Ronnie Del Carmen. Incarcerated once more in Arkham Asylum, the Joker’s would-be paramour Harley Quinn and the irresistible, but toxic Poison Ivy indulge in a little wager to pass the time. Namely, who can kiss the most men whilst remaining in custody. This razor-sharp little tale manages to combine innocent sexiness with genuine sentiment, and still packs a killer punch-line.

Judd Winick and Joe Chiodo rather over-egg the pudding with their earnest but heavy-handed adventure ‘Love on the Lam’. Unsure of its audience, this caper sees The Joker dump Harley once again, so she teams with Ivy in an attempt to steal enough money to buy him back. Stuffed with guest-stars, and fully painted by Chiodo, this is an unwieldy piece of eye-candy, but it does serve to clear the palette for the final tale.

Dini reunites with artist Bruce Timm, ably assisted by Shane Glines, for a joyous romp as the ‘Bosom Buddies’ have a spat that wrecks half of Gotham before escaping to the Amazon jungle (or is that Rain Forest these days?) together, to take over a small country responsible for much of the region’s deforestation. Once Batman gets involved the story shifts to Hollywood and the very last word in creative commentary on Superheroes in the movie business. This is a frantic, laugh-packed hoot that manages to be daring and demure by turns. An absolute delight, and well worth the price of admission.

© 2001, 2004, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-738-5 (hardcover) 1-56389-868-3 (softcover)

Oddly disappointing, predictable but visually stunning sequel to the magnificent Batman: The Long Halloween (ISBN: 1-5389-469-6) which follows the survivors of that epic as they regroup and assess their futures.

Catwoman returns to Gotham City as the survivors of the decimated Falcone crime family assess the damage caused by the death of their patriarch Carmine “The Roman”, and the revelation that his son was the serial killer who murdered members of the mob and his own relatives on each public holiday.

A despondent Batman goes about his business heartsick that his old friend Harvey Dent has becoming one of the growing army of criminal super-freaks that increasingly haunt his city, and aware that he cannot keep dividing his attention between them and the insidious gangsters that infest every corner of Gotham. Jim Gordon also worries at the events that drove a wedge between himself and his fellow crime-busters. Nobody seems sure that the bad days are over, or that the right guys are have been punished.

Now another seasonal serial killer is loose. This one is throttling cops and stringing them up. With each corpse there is a child’s bloody puzzle, a semi-complete game of “Hangman”. Are these deaths connected to the Holiday Killer? And now, when a young circus performer sees his parents murdered before his eyes, Bruce Wayne is moved to take the child into his home, and under his wing…

By stringing together so many threads, author Loeb loses a little focus here. This is not a bad story, just uncomfortably cramped and a touch undisciplined. But, quite frankly, in comparison to its predecessor, it was always going to come up short.

Despite all I’ve said this is still an above-average Bat-thriller, and Tim Sale’s moody depictions, especially of the baroque and bizarre Rogues Gallery (mandatory characters in any modern adventure of the Dark Knight) not to mention his unique take on the fledgling Robin make this a book worth reading, and re-reading.

© 1999, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-5389-427-0 (hardcover) 1-5389-469-6 (softcover)

The creative team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have tackled many iconic characters in many landmark tales, but one of their earliest is still, to my mind, their best.

Set during the Batman: Year One scenario created by Frank Miller, and originally released as a 13 part miniseries (running from Halloween to Halloween) it details the early alliance of Police Captain Jim Gordon, District Attorney Harvey Dent and the mysterious vigilante The Batman to destroy the unassailable mob boss who runs Gotham City; Carmine Falcone – “The Roman”.

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 – this gripping Noir thriller effortlessly carries the reader along on a trail of tension as a mysterious serial killer stalks The Roman’s world, slaughtering close family and criminal employees, once a month, on every public holiday.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day and so on, each hit crushing more of The Roman’s perfect world, just as the three dedicated crime-busters had secretly sworn to. Is the Holiday Killer a rival mobster, a victim of criminality, one of the newly ubiquitous super-freaks such as the Joker, Scarecrow, or Mad Hatter, or has perhaps one of our heroes stepped over a line in their zeal for Justice? And what part does the sultry Catwoman play in all this?

Effortlessly blending the realms of the mobster with Batman’s more usual super-foes (most of whom make a memorable appearance) and graced with startlingly powerful images of Mood, Mystery and Mayhem from the magic pencil and brush of Tim Sale, this serial killer whodunit is an utter joy to read that should keep you guessing until the very end.

One of the very best Batman adventures.

© 1996,1997 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Dan Curtis Johnson, J.H. Williams III & Seth Fisher (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-481-1

This brief adventure of Batman’s early career (originally presented in Legends of the Dark Knight issues #192-196) tells of his first encounter with Mr. Freeze, as well as examining the gradual movement towards the current methodology and support network that the Dark Knight utilises.

As Victor Fries nears the completion of his work on extreme sub-zero temperatures he makes two shocking discoveries. His beloved wife Maria is hospitalised and dying whilst his research has been subverted by the US military. Batman, meanwhile is nearing a physical and emotional collapse. He finally comes to see his obsession and realises he can’t do it all alone. Yet the authorities have limits he won’t allow himself to be hampered by.

For both men the solution is drastic and in their own hands, and both will suffer consequences tragic and life changing because of their decisions. For Batman it’s the formation of a private unit of specialists to research and supply support for his war on crime. For Fries it’s the forcible reclamation of his wife and work.

The two stories dovetail as Fries suffers an accident that transforms him into a monstrous being unable to live at room temperature. He embarks on a vendetta of insanity and icy vengeance, bringing him into conflict with the Caped Crusader and his tragically under-prepared team.

This reworking of the origin of Mr. Freeze is compelling and imaginative in the modern manner and the art is beautiful if sometimes over-rendered – almost to the point of being passionless. In fact, despite my admiration for Seth Fisher’s ability I do wonder at his selection for such an emotive and gritty tale. His seeming inability to draw anything grimy or unpretty actually detracts from the narrative, I fear.

Since I obviously can’t decide, perhaps you should make your own minds up. It’s still got to be better than a night in front of the TV, right?

© 2005, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-84576-122-7

Spoiler Ahead! Have you reviewed the other volumes of this storyline?

Rather than put you to the trouble of looking up the review of the previous volumes, please allow me to quote and paraphrase: Batman has training scenarios in place for every eventuality. One of them, in which he posits a takeover of all criminals in Gotham by his own undercover agent, has been activated by his current assistant Spoiler/Robin the Girl Wonder, leading to a gang war and general bloodbath. As the chaos ensues, sadistic mastermind Black Mask hijacks both the plan and Spoiler, whom he tortures near to death. He also kills Batman’s agent Orpheus and takes his place. All of Gotham is under fire and when the Dark Knight tries to take control of the police force. No longer an “Urban Myth”, Batman is now the focus of both police anger and public attention…

This volume of War Games serves to clear up and set the scene for another restart of the Batman Family, and I’m not going to reveal too much in case you want to read it yourself, but I will say that any new audiences that this kind of event garners – at least in Graphic Novel terms – must be supremely indifferent to many of the big thematic revisions touted in the periodical origins of the eight related series that make up this book. So nobody believed in the Bat and his buddies before this? The criminals certainly did. So he works outside the law now? Didn’t he always, at least, since the last time he didn’t? So some of his cast don’t survive? Nobody major – and who stays dead in comics?

I so wanted to be upbeat here. Individually many chapters from the forty or so assorted comics professionals working here are very good. It’s the marketing policy that falls down. The shouting of “milestones” and “turning points” and “major changes” never amount to anything and the illusion of change is just that, when looked at with the perspective of a little time and distance.

Wouldn’t it be better to get all these wonderfully talented creators to concentrate on simply producing good stories as they do in the course of their regular assignments and quit this relentless chasing of the cross-over cash cow? There could still be compilations and collections, but they’d have entertainment as their main concern, not traffic and continuity management. Don’t all these great characters and jaded readers deserve that at least?

© 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-84576-070-0

The middle Act of the 2004 Batman braided crossover, Tides focuses much more heavily on the personal costs that each hero must pay whilst attempting to stem the rivers of blood generated as the dwindling criminal factions consolidate into new power-bases. Gotham City is bathed in blood as a mysterious master-planner has engineered a scheme to tackle the crime situation by having the various factions destroy each other. Obviously the collateral damage is not a consideration for this ruthless mastermind- whoever he or she is. The volume ends with losses to the ranks of heroes – these things always do – in a set-up for the final book which will concentrate on the kicking of butts and taking of names.

I’m wanting desperately to be fair here. Individually many chapters from the forty or so assorted comics professionals working here are very good. It’s just as a product of a flawed and outmoded marketing policy that this story, like so many others that this tactic has spawned, falls down. The niggles that merely jar in the blur of weekly comic delivery stand out tall, proud and glaring when collected together in great big books.

Perhaps the final volume will pull it all together and produce sense out of nonsense…

© 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-84576-044-1

One major difficulty with the periodic comic book insanity of multi-part crossovers is the sheer difficulty of repackaging them as graphic novels. DC attempted to defuse this with their 2004 Bat-epic by designing the event as three distinct Acts, each containing one month’s progression of participating titles (Batman, Detective Comics, Nightwing, Robin, Gotham Knights, Batgirl, and Catwoman), and each working as a dramatic platform for the succeeding volume.

Thematically, it’s business as usual for poor, beleaguered Gotham City. Death, destruction, lots of explosions, blood in the streets, and another perennial winnowing of extraneous cast members is well underway. Content-wise the catastrophe is human in nature, as the various criminal factions of the city are finagled into an all-out gang war, leading to martial law being declared and at one point Batman’s attempt to take over Gotham.

Just as a self-indulgent aside, could someone please explain to me why the decent, law-abiding folk who so often end up littering those mean streets don’t just get the hell out of Dodge? After two plagues, an earthquake and the total anarchy of No Man’s Land, all in addition to the everyday mass-murdering psychopaths who make the place their home what on Earth could induce anyone to live or work there?

For a fuller experience, non-regulars would be best advised to read War Drums, a prelude to the carnage unleashed in Outbreak. Without divulging too much of the story, Outbreak sets the ball rolling and positions all the major Bat players for damage control as the bloodshed escalates and the various criminals who survive the initial slaughter start picking each other off. As the violence spirals Batman and team must not only save lives but also deduce which mastermind is responsible for the devious plan that threatens to wipe out crime in the city, as well as all the citizens.

© 2004 DC Comics. All rights reserved.