Tom King’s and Rafael De LaTorre’s Penguin: The Prodigal Bird (2024) is not your father’s silly Danny DeVito cartoonish Penguin. I have not seen the CTom King’s and Rafael De LaTorre’s Penguin: The Prodigal Bird (2024) is not your father’s silly Danny DeVito cartoonish Penguin. I have not seen the Colin Farrell version, but that darker look seems more consistent with this volume. And King is not the only guy making these Gotham City villains truly villains, but I appreciate it. Or maybe, I appreciate most the artwork from De Latorres depicting the dark, increasingly grotesque and violent gangster Penguin becomes here. With his cute equally sociopathic wife Lisa!
The premise sorta kills this, in assuming the government hires/forces the Penguin to work undercover for them, eh. I didn’t love this but it is worth looking at visually, and while this is not close to his best work, this is still King reinventing, and that is usually a good thing. And this is the first volume, still mostly set-up for what could get much uglier, so yippie (says the guy finally reading Walking Dead). This is still a three-star comic, and could be the foundation for something better. ...more
So, Batman The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card (April 2024) is Tom King and Mitch Gerrad’s contribution to the Batman-Joker “origin” story, and wSo, Batman The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card (April 2024) is Tom King and Mitch Gerrad’s contribution to the Batman-Joker “origin” story, and while it is a well-told and scarily well-illustrated straight-up horror story, it doesn’t add much new to our understanding of these two beyond what we already know. Not that I’m complaining; what is here is still very good, if you think of itt as a stand-alone, an introduction to the beginning of their relationship.
What do we know already? Well, just to name a few things, just for some context, King and Gerrad's work here is in conversation with Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke’s excellent (and better) The Man Who Laughs; Frank Miller and David Mazzuccheli’s Batman: Year One; Miller’s Dark Knight; Scott Snyder’s The Batman Who Laughs, and Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke, of course.
But then you gotta go back to the guys that created The Joker, Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson. But they didn’t create that out of thin air. In their creepy creation, they drew on a short 1928 film featuring Conrad Veidt, The Man Who Laughs:
Just look at 5 minutes of it, at least, to get the chilling effects, and to see The origins of The Joker face, but not before you go to bed, or he will rob you of some sleep.
But even before that there was a 1909 film, no copies still existing, but even before that there was Victor Hugo’s novel The Man Who Laughs (1869), about a man with a disfigured slash across his mouth that looks like a macabre smile.
Cool, eh? Now, comics historians; write your books! Enough for a dissertation here, surely!
What do King and Gerard add to the mythos? Maybe this two-sides-of-the-same-coin-they’re-both- insane approach is a little darker than most: Real terror, real horror, real dark humor. Four central characters: Jim Gordon, Joker, Batman, and Alfred. The homage to the original silent film is that the Joker’s words are framed by cards in the manner of silent film “dialogue;” that’s very cool, right?
A nit about this and many of these PG-13 super hero series, especially given the changing nature of profanity in all social media, tv, film, comics, is the $%^& dialogue in this &$%^ thing. By that I mean there’s a lot of replacements for swear words in it, and it is completely getting very annoying. Can we just get beyond this? But it’s a nit, ultimately, a plea to the industry to stop appearing to keep swear words form the potentially virginal ears of potential teen readers. This ain't the fifties. The code ain't comin' back.
But even if you do know a lot about the Joker-Batman history, this volume is still good, I say. ...more
Gotham City: Year One (a volume of collected issues released in September 2023) by Tom King, illustrated by Phil Hester and colored by Jordie BellaireGotham City: Year One (a volume of collected issues released in September 2023) by Tom King, illustrated by Phil Hester and colored by Jordie Bellaire, is terrific. The story is a gritty noir throwback to Bruce Wayne family origins, and does not really feature Batman at all, except that 96-year-old Sam (Slam) Bradley, on his deathbed, tells the story to Batman. Hester’s artwork, more than bolstered by the colorist Jordie Bellaire, is distinctive. I see sixties funky expressionist notes in here echoing Frank Miller’s Sin City, Eduardo Risso’s 100 Bullets, and the stylized work of Darwyn Cooke in his adaptations of Richard Stark’s Parker novels. Stylized sixties and not pulpy fifties style.
So Slam gets hired to deliver a letter to Bruce Wayne’s grandfather, and he gets involved in a kidnapping/murder plot that would seem to echo the Charles Lindberg story. Both Wayne and Lindberg were racist, and both were rich. We find Wayne is adulterous and wants to build a chemical plant in Gotham at the expense of the health of the economically disadvantaged Gothamites. So you pine to MGGA (make Gotham Great Again)? Return to that glorious past? Well, it was corrupt and seedy back then, same as now.
In the process, Slam gets beat up a lot. We alsofind he is bi-racial, with a black Tarot-card reading mother who figures in the plot interestingly. We’ll see if there is a second volume, but I like all the grimy slimy backstory vs the romanticized versions we may have been led to believe about the Wayne heritage.
PS: Kudos to Rod Brown, comics sleuth and historian extraordinaire, whose review I read before mine goes to press, who reveals to us: "Bradley is a nifty choice to lead the series since he is already a forerunner of Batman, having debuted in Detective Comics #1 in 1937, a couple of years before Bruce first dons the cowl in #27." Cool! gGreat Batman origin comics that do not in the least romanticize his family history. ...more
I am cutting back on my comics reading, especially DC/Marvel stuff, but I try to read all the Lemire work I can, and try to minimally keep reading BatI am cutting back on my comics reading, especially DC/Marvel stuff, but I try to read all the Lemire work I can, and try to minimally keep reading Batman stuff. This is NOT titled Batman & Robin, as in the the sixties TV show song, but Robin & Batman, having as its focus Robin/Dick Grayson developing his relationship to Batman/Bruce Wayne. So this is what Lemire does, father-son stories, where the father needs to learn how to be a father.
But Bruce Wayne's parents were killed, and he doesn't really know how to be a father; what he knows is his work, and how to develop Dick into Robin, which is a somewhat different thing. Enter the guy that raised Bruce Wayne, Alfred, who plays a kind of mother to Wayne's father, angrily confronting him along the way.
There are sweet moments: A surprise birthday party featuring Superman and Wonder Woman, though what Alfred sees Dick needs is a more intimate gift, a closer relationship. There's a hug that happens later, with Bat telling Robin he's a good boy (not just good superhero-in-training).
So it's good, but as with most recent Lemire comics, the real strength of the volume is Dusting Nguyen's artwork, just wonderful (though Robin reminds me too much of Tim, the boy bot from Ascender/Descender. ...more
“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day”--Alan Moore, The“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day”--Alan Moore, The Killing Joke
So the Batman One Bad Day series is basically a response to this line from The Killing of Joke, having different writers/artists each take a Batman world villain and turn up The Evil a few notches. The Batman master of the moment is Tom King, and no surprise from this fanboy, it is terrific. And his partner in art here is terrific Mitch Gerrads. The point of this one is to try and figure out why it is the Riddler is the way he is, a psychological portrait, not a completely original approach, you say, but that is the point, in a way, of The Killing Joke, to show how Batman and The Joker operate in the world because of their similar traumatic losses.
So this is about Edward Nygma’s (E-nygma, enigma, for you new to The Riddler) becoming a mass murderer thanks to the sustained emotional abuse by his father and school. So the opening has him kill a random person to get Batman’s attention. Why talk to Batman? Because Batman suffered trauma, too, and might understand him.
This is the grimmest, most violent, and still in some way powerfully empathetic Riddler story that I have read, Ed Brubaker might do (or did he?) a version of Riddler like this. Most renditions are cartoonish, going for the riddles, of course.
The ending and everything working up to it is wonderful, just terrific.
This is of course in conversation with (and not just derivative of) The Killing Joke, an homage to Moore and Bolland, a great Batman story, and I am going to say this is a (it might even be THE) classic Riddler story, one for the ages, 5 stars, one of my fave of the year.
PS: Brian Bolland (The Killing Joke artist) provides a variant cover included on the back of the hardcover edition I read. Nice move.
PPS: I thought Edward Nygma looked quite a bit like Ethan Hawke, which distracted me, but then I thought: Wow, no,this is a perfect reference to Hawke’s Dead Poets Society role, where he plays a suicidally depressed student, emotionally abused by his father and school!
But then Alexander Peterhans nails the fact that the adult Riddler looks like Michael Stipe, which seems to be true. I amnot sure what the point of that might be, or is it someone else? ...more
Batman: Detective Comics Vol. 1: The Neighborhood collects issues 1034-1039 of the DC Comics series written by Mariko Tamaki, with art by Dan Mora andBatman: Detective Comics Vol. 1: The Neighborhood collects issues 1034-1039 of the DC Comics series written by Mariko Tamaki, with art by Dan Mora and Viktor Bogdanovic. My first review of a DC superhero comics series in a long time, and mainly because I am very much a Mariko Tamaki fan, though I much prefer her indie work (Skim, This One Summer, Laura DEan Keeps Breakig Up with Me) to the flurry of superhero work she has been doing in recent years.
Still, it is important to consider the contribution a queer woman of color to the largely conservative corporate straight male comics enterprise. She has put her stamp on a remarkable number of superhero stories such as Wonderwoman, She-Hulk, and Supergirl, but also Lara Croft, Loki, and so many others. My estimation of this corporate work is that it is not quite as good as the indie stuff, but I am glad to see even the slightest queering she does of all these narratives. And her feminist perspective is welcome, even as I imagine the DC guys upstairs holding their noses as they write her checks.
The world of superheroes and Big House Comics is still very much the province of straight white males, but if I take a look at even the reviews here, I see that women like her work more than men. Maybe that should come as no surprise, and maybe that's her primary goal--to just help women and girls and the lgbtq community see themselves more in these stories, to help them see more of the perspectives of girls and women and gbltq folks in their beloved superhero books.
What Tamaki accomplishes in her Batman turn is to largely ignore Batman, leave him as is, but to have us consider someone other than Catwoman as a crime-fighting partner, and she poses Huntress in that role. I’m going to skip telling you the mostly silly plot threads, you can read other reviews for that, but her main work here is to focus on the place/role of women in this world. Lady Clayface, Sarah Worth, Mary Knox, Gotham Gazette reporter Deb Donovan. When in the many runs of Batman have men had threads about domestic violence, except to say women-in-peril, men to the rescue? Okay, I know Tamaki is not alone i this work, we have Joelle Jones doing Catwoman, and much more out there. But Batman is a huge challenge, how to queer that world, and I applaud her for taking on the challenge, even if she not so successful here as I'd wish.
I mean, who cares if Bat is once again the suspect in a murder?! We already know how that will turn out, right? The Huntress’ role in solving the mystery of who killed Sarah Worth is not as great or memorable as I wanted it to be, but if we also consider the contribution of reporter Deb Donovan, you know, adding these women has some potential in future volumes. At this point I think it is a relatively modest intervention of a feminist perspective on this world, but I am happy to see what Huntress might contribute to the saga.
The DC ad copy above doesn’t even mention Huntress! And most reviewers don’t seem to say much about her either, which is maybe (in part) to say that she is not yet all that that captivating a character (yet?). I go back to my original contention, that Tamaki’s indie work is way better than her supe stuff, but I am still glad to see her work here. And I like her sense of humor. Tamaki, a queer stand-up comedy star, brings something of that fun to her comics writing.
I agree, still, that some of the very best aspects of this volume are the artwork of Dan Mora and Viktor Bogdanovic. REally good stuff, better than most of Tamaki's supe collaborations. But go, Tamaki! I dunno, 3.5 stars?...more
Yet another volume out of Jeff Lemire's increasingly impressive Black Hammer/Spiral City world, and this is his take on the superhero-teen sidekick trYet another volume out of Jeff Lemire's increasingly impressive Black Hammer/Spiral City world, and this is his take on the superhero-teen sidekick trope, specifically the Batman story.
“Spiral’s always been a sucker for a cape.”
Jeff Lemire and Tonci Zonjic's spinn on the Batman origin story. It took me awhile to get in sync with the art style, which was lighter than most of the recent Batman stories, it feels abstract, original, but I came to like it. And then there are some interesting twists in it, some clever ideas.
"Who ever heard of the Crimson Fist?" (Not me. .. ) But he's a bad guy.
The Skulldigger is active in protecting Spiral City, but violently so. He just wants to kill bad guys. But be witnesses the killing of a twelve-year-old boy’s parents and then decides to intervene on his behalf and take him under his wing as a mentee. He's Skeleton Boy, in a matching costume. But Spiral City wants to stop Skulldigger (that name, so you guess he's not a completely nice guy, eh?) which is to (ironically) say, kill him and rescue the boy, who has his own anger/revenge issues, having seen his parents killed. I got Punisher vibes from this dude.
Grimjim is Lemire’s psycho Joker: "Is Spiral City falling into darkness? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
As with every Lemire story, we tap into father-son--and this time also grandfather--elements, and that is entertaining, though it is not warm and fuzzy and nostalgic. But over all it is well done, interesting. I like it.
Finally got around to reading this, a little late to the party, which I see was a bit of a dud for most readers, at a glance, seeing the low numbers. Finally got around to reading this, a little late to the party, which I see was a bit of a dud for most readers, at a glance, seeing the low numbers. I read it because I am a Lemire fan (though much prefer his indie work to his Big House stuff), saw that Andrea Sorrentino, his partner on Gideon Falls, was doing the artwork, and was not disappointed in the least, beautifully and creepily done. The story of the psychologist driven crazy by the Joker is not new, by any means, but it was well done because of the artwork and in part because of the Mr. Smiles creepy children's book that The Joker somehow puts in the hands of the psychologist's kid's hands even though he is in maximum security Arkham). The Batman issue in this volume is supposed to be Batman also being driven mad, but is not as well done, and of course not original with this team, either. Who really believes it?! Disappointing finish.
If you collect beautiful works of art that also happen to be comics books, though, this hardcover production is really well done, and makes an impressive artistic product pair with Harleen by Stjepan Šejić, which I thought was much better done in most areas. But Sorrentino and Šejić are both A-list illustrators in comics right now. Worth at the very least taking a look at both of them, for sure....more
Brooding Bat gets his battle with Bane, as expected. And Bat gets Cat!! Nothing all that surprising in this final volume (exceptions noted, below), buBrooding Bat gets his battle with Bane, as expected. And Bat gets Cat!! Nothing all that surprising in this final volume (exceptions noted, below), but it’s still a crowd-pleaser, and you have to acknowledge, nitpicking aside, that this is one of the greatest Batman runs in the history of Batman. Tom King is an amazing writer and knowing this, DC gives him some of the best Batman world artists, with folks like Mikel Janin taking the lead.
Notable moments (but spoilers!!):
*The Bane-Bat showdown is predictable, fine, but after the 12 volumes of build-up, well, okay, it's what you expect, a battle, fine. I like it that Bat takes off his mask, in the fight with Bane. (Hopefully not a pandemic political statement!) :) Overall, I think Bane is kinda boring, not awe-inspiring as a villain. No personality, all testosterone. Eh, give me Joker anytime for a psycho-villain.
*A mis-step I think is the alternate reality Thomas Wayne alignment with Bane. I never found this thread quite credible or particularly compelling. Confusing, sort of. A move to redesign the origin story, that Thomas was the original Bat, and joins forces with Bane??! Nah. Too weird.
*The death of Alfred is very affecting. The letter he writes to Bruce about Bruce’s essentially “happy” nature is the kind of insight only a loving parent might make, since we mainly know Bruce as miserable.
“I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon In the round-tower of my heart. And there will I keep you forever, Yes, forever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away!”-Longfellow, from “The Children's Hour,” quoted by Alfred to Bruce Wayne.
*The other person who truly knows Bruce is of course Selina Kyle. I know the will they/won’t they parade goes on too long, but I like it that they choose life, choose family, choose happiness, together. Yes, as we have been saying all along, They Can Have Both! I love this pairing and love that they join forces in battle, as equals.
All comics opera, all the time, played on magnificent comics sets, but the best part of the series is the King depiction of the human and anguished and broken Bruce healed by love and a renewed commitment to justice....more
"Your mother just could not quit. She had faith, this eternal faith in you. That you could see the horrors. And still dream of a better world."
Volume "Your mother just could not quit. She had faith, this eternal faith in you. That you could see the horrors. And still dream of a better world."
Volume 11 of Tom King’s remarkable Batman run is a transition volume, a set-up for the finale, the City of Bane, (which may take two volumes?). Not much actually happens here beyond a recap and a clarification thst Bane has been behind everything bad that has happened in King’s whole run, ending in the (almost) complete physical and psychological decimation of the very human being Bruce Wayne. The volume opens with The Riddler. I had heard that Batman writers hate to write Riddler stories because they have to then write riddles, but this is not a problem for King, who uses the idea of the riddle to reflect on the nature of story and meaning itself as enigma, puzzle, riddle. Know thyself! What are you made of?!
So the opening pages here on The Riddler feature a poem—a kind of riddle—and ends the volume with a kind of extended Batman nightmare—another kind of riddle. The Bane of Bat’s existence briefly throws a series of villains at him such as Freeze, Scarecrow, Two-Face, and then throws him into the desert; why? To continue to break him down in preparation for the Final Showdown.
And then we are in the desert, with Bruce Wayne’s dead father, Thomas Wayne, a.k.a. the Flashpoint Batman, and we spend some time reflecting on, once again, what kind of life Bruce has lived after watching the murder of his own parents. We revisit a story from a Russian horror book his father had given him, featuring a story, “The Animals and the Pit.” It’s a bloody horror story where no one seems to come out of the pit alive. This experience in the desert would seem to be King’s version of Batman as Jesus in the desert, trying to figure out who he is, fighting his inner demons. Bat’s The Dark Night of the Soul. There’s a sense that things could still get worse before they get better.
So it’s obviously not an action volume, but a psyche volume, which is largely what the whole run has been about. King’s writing is as usual very good, very assured, assuring us he has known where every piece of this epic puzzle/riddle fits. And the artwork of Mikel Janin and Jorge Fornes befits one of the great Batman runs of all time. I think King may be wearing out his welcome, though, here, so it is time to finish....more
At a glance at the overall rating for this volume, Knightmares, I can see I am going to be occupying a bit of a minority position. I'll admit I was woAt a glance at the overall rating for this volume, Knightmares, I can see I am going to be occupying a bit of a minority position. I'll admit I was worried when I saw that it was going to be--in the Big House way--illustrated by committee. The more artists' names on the cover, the more I guess it is a fill-in, random volume. And this is what it at a glance is, a series of issues on a related topic. But it is a topic that Tom King has become known for: The dark inner workings of Bruce Wayne's mind.
So this is the most experimental volume in the series, which I known is a risk with the action-oriented Bat community. But I say the team pulls it off, in bringing us back to the madness of Bruce that King explores in Volume Two, I Am Suicide. A few stories in this volume help us recall the love and occasional happiness and joined commitments Bat sometimes achieves with Cat, but in the end, can being with anyone or doing anything ever make him truly happy?
So the Knightmares are actually drug-induced nightmares, as Batman is being held by Scarecrow. These nightmares, one after one, contain his worst fears. And because of the dreamscape nature of the approach, this gives all the artists freedom to be differently surreal in the separate volumes, but maybe especially the visual artists. So we get horror. Gorgeous night terrors. No, I don't think this is going to be anyone's favorite volume of the series, and it's not mine, either, but I love the wedding of alt-comix with superhero comics, when it works. It reveals the depth of King's mind in understanding the depths of darkness in Bruce. You may not agree that the darkness is as deep in Batman as King claims, but I am persuaded (as I have been by others as well)....more
In a way, Scott Snyder was seen as rescuing Batman from the horror-based Dark Knight that the eighties Frank Miller and Alan Moore created. Righting tIn a way, Scott Snyder was seen as rescuing Batman from the horror-based Dark Knight that the eighties Frank Miller and Alan Moore created. Righting the ship, in a way.But Snyder himself had done horror in American Vampire and Wytches and his own version of Dark Knight Batman in Metal, and this is a continuation of that horror-fest, focusing on a character from Dark Knights: Metal, a demonic Batman-Joker villain. And that title from Ed Brubaker about Joker: Batman: The Man Who Laughs. And this comic unites Snyder and Jock, who were the Black Mirror team, so it's in conversation with all of the above. I think it's solid, 3-ish stars, with great insane depictions of the villain from Jock. ...more
I'm not dipping too deeply into this series. Mash-ups like this remind me of the gimmicky Pride and Prejudice and Zombies book series. I'm just readinI'm not dipping too deeply into this series. Mash-ups like this remind me of the gimmicky Pride and Prejudice and Zombies book series. I'm just reading this volume because 1) I had been reading other silly comics mashups, such as the Mutant Ninja Turtles and Batman, you know, just for yuks, and 2) I had read the first in the Batman '66 series. So Parker's tapping into some goofy vein that does not require him going down the Dark Tunnel he seems to think comics have gone off track on. He just wants to have fun, and he does. So it's perfect in a way that he begins his travels down Route 66 (versus Route 666, which is the one you travel if you are, say, Alan Moore or Christopher Nolan) by reinventing Adam West's campy version of Batman in Batman '66. He does other mash-ups, too: Green Lantern, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Parker loves him some sixties pop culture, and so did I. As Parker sees comics, they are escapist, they are fun, stop trying to create Crime and Punishment in your comics!
So, for Parker's purposes it is perfect (yes, that's alliteration, kids, POW!) to have him and his team meet and greet Adam West's campy Batman with Archie of the sixties on Route 66, more superficial fun. How does this come about? Well, they don't seem to have an adequate police force in Riverdale, YIKES, so Batman comes to save the day, POW! Nothing happens here, I have already forgotten it, but Parker recreates the look and feel of Archie comics (I read them religiously as they came out in those days) and I kinda liked going down that route with him, but I am going to take out my deadly Dark Knight for a few minutes, here. Fun fluff, Archie Meets Batman '66; it does what it set out to do. Fun enough....more
Yep, that's what it looked like. Campy, silly, goofy, not realistic, pure childish escapism, and I knew already then that the Batman I was viewing on the screen was different from the Batman single issues that I was also reading, which were darker, deadly serious. Any serious Batman fan at the time cringed at the tv show, which decidedly did not take him or his angst seriously. It was pretty fun for me to watch: BIFF! BAM! HOLY TOASTER! And all I recall doing in those years was watch tv, read comics, play baseball, and collect baseball cards (and peer over the top of the issue I was reading at Laura, the cute librarian's assistant), so I was not prepared to write critical letters to complain about the show. I wasn't critical of anything at the time, as I recall. The show was just fine!
But I'm afraid I'm solidly on the side of The Dark Knight, Year One, The Killing Joke, Scott Snyder, Tom King in their views of Batman as one of the great myths of our time. While I had gottenParker's version initially out of the library, I decided at the time that I wasn't really interested in investing the effort into Parker's particular brand of nostalgia. But I have just read Parker's well-done James Bond: Origin, took a look at the epically fun battle between two of the best comics reviewers on Goodreads, Sam Quixote and Anne (which I recommend whether you read the volume or not), and thought I'd finally give it a go.
My view is more closely aligned to Anne's view than Sam's. I didn't see it as "brilliant," as Sam did; I think he sort of captures the feel of the show, without the show's humor. It might have been brilliant had it any irony, but Parker isn't into irony and all that pomo stuff; he's not into "commentary" on the tv show, he really likes it! So this is just like going back to 1966 and reading the comics, as printed and colored in those days. The stories are similarly goofy, not worth mentioning. Parker I bet hates all the dark, brooding versions of Batman, just as he hates the brooding, anti-colonialist critique of Bond by Ales Kot.
Parker really likes the escapist goofy stories of "battling" Penguin, Riddler, Joker, none of who seem like real threats to anyone. Nothing in the world is really at stake. Parker just wants to have fun, and he and his team of illustrators do have fun with their nostalgic trip back to the sixties. And the project is well-executed, I have to give them credit for that. But I have already largely forgotten the stories, just wisps of cotton candy, gone as they touched me. ...more
Thanks to Sud666 for recommending this to me, and not primarily because it was a Christmas story, but because I was reading a few genre mash-ups, and Thanks to Sud666 for recommending this to me, and not primarily because it was a Christmas story, but because I was reading a few genre mash-ups, and this is one of those, the classic Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol mapped on to the Batman universe, with both atmospheric and glossy artwork (reminding me of the equally dramatic work of Alex Ross) that thematically connects the two dark worlds. It’s interesting how well Bermejo makes the two fit together, making the equally grumpy Bat and Scrooge come to some empathetic realization, so it’s a surprising and pretty good adaptation, a hopeful holiday story about the possibility of coming out of the darkness into the light.
“Cuz for this story to make sense. . . for it to mean anything. . . you have to believe in something. Something very important. You have to believe people can change”--Bermejo
Bob Cratchit here works for Joker, and Batman is Scrooge. Catwoman and Superman also make their appearances. The modified Victorian style in which the tale is told by Tiny Tim is fine, accomplished, remakable, and the central aspect of the story is impressive in the way Bermejo illustrates how Batman has changed over the many years, from crazy pop art sixties tv Batty to the brooding Dark Knight. As you can guess, Bermejo wants to reform the Old Scrooge (as Ebenezer in fact did) and make him find his lost? broken? heart.
I think the art work is at a 5 level, and you have to give him credit for the literary adaptation and basically making it work, so a 4 for coming up with the clever idea. He’s an artist, not a writer, so some of the actual writing is a bit flat, at a 2.5 level, so I’ll say overall 3.5 or so, rounded up for the artwork, and because Christmas is coming....more
Batman: The Tyrant Wing is volume 9 in Tom King’s Batman series, two volumes after The Wedding, and Bruce is still moving in the direction of regaininBatman: The Tyrant Wing is volume 9 in Tom King’s Batman series, two volumes after The Wedding, and Bruce is still moving in the direction of regaining his feet, it looks like. This one features a Penguin that King takes seriously, making him into a real character with complexity instead of his goofy, cartoony past renditions. And as Bat faces Bane, Penguin even becomes for a time an unlikely ally. It’s a Batman-lite volume in that it only has three King (and Mikel Janin) issues that don’t make up a complete arc.
That doesn’t make it bad, as a volume, it’s still King, and that is worth four stars for what we have, but the volume also collects Batman Annual #3 and Batman: Secret Files, all of which is pretty forgettable, nothing special.
Though, okay, I’ll admit Tommy Taylor’s Fathers Day annual is pretty good, a bit touching, not bad, and can be linked to what King does in his three issues where Bane has targeted Alfred. ...more
This a collector's item for Batman-Catwoman fans, and as I had just completed the King wedding volume, I thought I would see what a deluxe hardcover "This a collector's item for Batman-Catwoman fans, and as I had just completed the King wedding volume, I thought I would see what a deluxe hardcover "wedding album" would look like. And if you have followed the Tom King run of Batman, you have read all of this. But if you really don't want to read all these comics and you just want to check in and see what all the fuss is about, get this out of your library and you will get everything that is in the King run about this story.
And it's beautiful, with the lush, romantic art of David Finch, Mikel Janin and Joelle Jones, the best art in the history of Catwoman, without question. And then there are all those one page wedding shots by guest artists, all lovely. You get the proposal (sob), the killer dress, all the talk and sweet moments in each other's arms.
Then there are the stained ominous vestiges of Joker, who wanted an invitation to the wedding reception, who wanted to be Bat's Best Man, the graffiti-ed "HA HA HA HA HA CONGRATS" written in blood on the album. You know, I am forever hopeful though about the Bruce-Selina future. They have been on again/off again since the beginning. Yes, there will be struggles, but I am just that romantic to believe they will always be together one way or the other. ...more
Before I answer that question, a joke for you, all tired from reading all these Goodreads reviews:
Catwoman, presCan Batman really ever be truly happy?
Before I answer that question, a joke for you, all tired from reading all these Goodreads reviews:
Catwoman, pressing her artery so she won’t bleed out, talking to The Joker, who is pressing his artery so he won’t bleed out:
C: So you want to hear the joke? J: I do. C: This older brother. . . J: What’s his name? C: Chuck. J: I like it. C: Chuck tells his younger brother. . . Chris. . . J: How old is Chris? C: Two. J: Chuck tells his two-year old brother. . . C: Chris. If you name two letters of the alphabet, I’ll give you 20 bucks, okay? J: And Chris says. . . C: And Chris says. . . J: Okay. C: O.K. J: Hahahahaha.
It’s a comic book, what do you want? But Tom King likes it when he brings The Joker into his Batman run, so he can make jokes. Especially in the middle of a (potential) killing scene such as a fight to the (possible) death between Cat and Joker. I just thought I’d lead with a small piece of one of the best written and most memorable scenes King has yet done.
In Volume 7: The Wedding, what we have been waiting for, building up to, there are three parts: first, three issues with Booster Gold wanting to get Batman a wedding present. I was not into it, there; the second section features a great battle between Catwoman and The Joker, who first lives down to his reputation by killing a lot of people in a church. He wants an invitation to the wedding, he wants to be Bat’s Best Man, and when he does not get what he wants, he goes Ballistic; Cat steps in to Battle him and Best him and the scene is Beautifully done.
The third part focuses on the wedding itself. I can’t say much about that, but the wedding section itself is really an undying love section, which is ultimately appropriate, but it features several guest artists doing romantic pages, it involves pages of Holly and Selina ruminations, it involves hard to read text reflections where you have to turn the pages around and squint to actually read them about the process of their love-which-never-did-run-smooth. The effect is kind of diffuse and scattered, overall. But overall there’s a lot to be happy about, Bat fans, there really is, King is a good writer, and the art is overall great, it’s still memorable, but I can’t really talk about it, sorry. Too many spoilers.
Can Batman ever really truly be happy? The answer is yes, but it’s complicated.
I rate this 3.5 overall, but I round up because I know that in spite of the emotional complications, this is a good volume, a moment in the history of Batman-Catwoman comics. ...more
Mama told me there’d be days like this: Cold Days, indeed. This was for me a veritable event in not just Batman"God is above us. And he wears a cape."
Mama told me there’d be days like this: Cold Days, indeed. This was for me a veritable event in not just Batman comics, but comics, I mean it. Maybe in part because I had just read Twelve Angry Men, and maybe partly because I had not really expected much to happen in the post-wedding, let-down volume, but the first arc, where Bruce Wayne in a Twelve Angry Men story, analyzes—and especially because he is deeply reflective, post-wedding—Batman for his fellow jurors, well, this is special. The case is one of Mr. Freeze, who is accused of murdering three women by freezing them. We have evidence of the freezing, pointing to Freeze, we have Freeze’s own confession, and we the jury know that Batman was instrumental in this detective process, but to what extent is the jury’s sense of Batman’s infallibility/vulnerability at issue in the trial? This arc is one of the best things you will read read in comics, I mean it. And the artwork of Lee Weeks with the amazing coloring of Elizabeth Breitweiser just beautifully complement King’s reflective writing that touches on so many things: The ethics of detective work, the fallibility of superheroes, the loss of loved ones. King even brings in The Book of Job.
"He's not God. He's not. He tries. . . He does. . . I know. And he fails, and he tries again. . . . But he can’t. . . . He can’t provide solace from pain. . . He cannot comfort you for the love you lost.”
The second arc focuses on Bruce and Dick Grayson in the aftermath of the wedding. A father-son story, as Dick comforts Bruce in grief, as Bruce has comforted Dick, and the character of Dick is really well-written, a son trying to lighten up a sad father. I'm not a huge Nightwing fan, so for me, this was maybe not quite to the level of the Freeze story, but still top-notch, and affecting.
The third arc focuses on a confrontation with KGBeast, hired to shoot Nightwing. And the ending is brutal; it’s action that takes this villain seriously, and it’s cold, as in the volume title, taking place in much-below-freezing Russia, and the way Bat leaves KGB, well, it’s not, shall we say, humane police work. We circle back to the Freeze arc here: Bat is fallible, he’s not perfect, he can be brutal vigilante.
One thing I liked in the last arc was King’s use of an actual brutal Russian fairy tale by Alexander Afanasyev as counterpoint to the main story. I liked his smart literary move there, a grimmer than Grimm story Bruce might have read growing up and was going to mention it, I had just thought it was made up by King, but Artemy said it was real and I looked it up to confirm this. So cool?! This is also a very strong arc, and shows the great range King has, and also features great writing. All of the writing of different tones and registers, with art styles appropriate to the different arcs, this is comics gold.
Maybe the last two arcs are 4ish stars for me, but the first is so good that my 4.5 average gets rounded up to 5 stars, and the whole package is just excellent. I loved the humanizing of Bruce Wayne and Batman in this volume, after a couple of his devastating losses. I know, this is another volume with a focus on talk and reflection and less on action, so for Batman Pow! Smash! fans, this may seem like a digression, but for those of us who have seen Batman as brooding but not quite human, this is an important contribution to the Batstory. He’s hurting, dudes! And yep, human. Great stuff. ...more
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