DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #857
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: ***
The final part of the opening story arc of Batwoman in Detective Comics is here. The creative team of Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III continue to do a fine job with Batwoman, but I’m starting to think that the end is near for me on this series until Batman becomes the main focus of the book again. I like Kate Kane aka Batwoman and I think Greg Rucka has done a good job so far with the character, but for me it’s not enough to keep me interested. I may stick around to see the next story arc which will be an origin story, but we’ll see.
Anyway, the last time we saw Batwoman, her father had been kidnapped by the Religion of Crime and their leader Alice. Kate’s hooked up with some former members of the ROC who are capable of turning into various creatures. Their leader is a man named Abbot. Kate leaves the party she was attending with Abbot to suit up and go after Alice.
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Chew #2 Delivers a Tasty Treat
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Reviews, Image Comics
With a prologue closely resembling any fast food customer’s and/or employee’s worst nightmare, I had a feeling that the Chew duo wouldn’t let us down in this second issue.
It’s resident cibopath Tony Chu’s first day on the job at the FDA, and his first order of business is to take a bite out of a decomposed finger. And you thought that your first day of work was bad?
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DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #854
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: ***
Batman: Reborn continues in the pages of Detective Comics this week. Big changes have been happening in the world of Batman and one of those changes is that Batman will not be appearing in the pages of Detective Comics. Instead we have the new Batwoman Kate Kane flying solo in Detective Comics with Greg Rucka as writer and J.H. Williams as the new artist for the book. Batwoman is not a character that really grabbed me when she first appeared in the pages of 52.
According to Wikipedia, Barbara Gordon was originally supposed to return as Batgirl a while back, but wanting to be more diverse and continue to have a handicapped character, DC decided to bring back Batwoman instead. It seemed more like DC wanting to do a bunch of different things here: 1) Bring back a Silver Age character. 2) Bring in a new female character in the male dominated world of super-hero comics and 3) make her a lesbian to show even more diversity. I have no problem with any of these reasons, I just think DC mishandled her introduction to the DC Universe and didn’t give me a reason to care about this character. However with this first issue of her in Detective Comics, they’ve taken a good first step in giving me a reason to read stories about Batwoman.
With the prices of comic books going up, and being the father of two children and a mortgage to pay, comic books can be an expensive hobby to continue. So I have the various titles I collect on a very short leash. If after an issue or two I don’t find myself interested in the story anymore, the comic gets dropped from my pull list. This first story has a good beginning and its given me a reason to stick around.
Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #854
Chew #1 Sells Out in Two Days
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Image Comics
After withholding some amazing news for over a week, Chew artist Rob Guillory was finally able to thank everyone on his Twitter page today. Turns out that the great news was that the first printing of Chew sold out in two days, despite what Image claimed was a “significant overprint.”
Writer John Layman retains his quirky humor when thanking his fans: “I’ve been insisting for years that the comic book industry has been clamoring for more books with double page spreads of non-costumed characters eating soup, and it’s gratifying to see there indeed is a robust market for such a book. Big thanks to everybody—retailers, readers and reviewers—who came out in such shocking numbers to check out something new and different, and more than a little bit weird.”
As reviewed last week, Chew is a very dark and humorous new take on the detective genre. John Layman and Rob Guillory tell us the tale of Detective Tony Chu, a man of the law who receives psychic impressions from eating (the term is “cibopathic”).
Due to the extinction of the first printing, Chew‘s second printing is scheduled for release on July 1st, the same day Chew #2 comes out.
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Image Serves Up a Promising Dish with Chew
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Reviews, Image Comics
Ever since last month’s issue of The Walking Dead gave me a taste of John Layman’s humorously grotesque story, Chew, I have been counting down the days more vehemently than I do for Whedon comics (that’s saying a lot). After all, Robert Kirkman doesn’t put a preview of just any comic behind his widely-worshiped zombie saga.
Within minutes of immersing myself into Layman’s fiction, I instantly found myself actively falling for the cynical, cibopathic (psychic abilities that come from eating) Tony Chu. Forced to stick to beet consumption (the only food from which he doesn’t receive psychic sensations) most of the time, Tony serves as a police officer in an alternate America where chicken is illegal. The poultry prohibition works in his favor until he and his partner begin to unearth an FDA secret that conflicts with their department’s objectives.
In seeking out one suspect, a bite of chicken and vegetable soup reveals that there is yet another murderer within their proximity. It is here that Tony commences his sprint down the rabbit hole.
Although I wait the thirty days for just about every comic I follow, Chew was genuinely worth the wait.
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Happy 70th Birthday Batman!
Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, DC Comics
According to the publication “Chase’s Calendar of Events”, “Detective Comics” # 27 hit newsstands on May 1, 1939. Wikipedia has it as May 2nd, but since I’m a librarian, I’m going to go with Chase as a more reliable resource. Instead of going through a history of Batman and talk about such things as the 60s TV show and the recent Chris Nolan Bat-films, I’ve decided to take a more personal approach. I mean lets face it, as a comic fan you know the history of Batman already. For you older fans you’ve experienced it first hand. Some of you are old enough to remember watching the 60s TV show when they first aired on ABC. So I will discuss my experiences with the character.
I will be 35 years old this July. So I have been alive for half of the 70 years that Batman has been in existence. My first experience with the character did not come with a comic book. It came with a TV show. I was introduced to Batman with the old Hanna-Barbera Super Friends cartoons. In these cartoons, Batman was far from the cool character that we would eventually see in later years. In fact, the Super Friends Batman was pretty lame. The character was portrayed as being just about helpless if he didn’t have his utility belt. Still, I liked him and Robin and I liked super hero cartoons in general. Looking back at these old cartoons with my oldest son who is four, I do not enjoy them because they are quality stories and adventures. I enjoy them more for nostalgia purposes and laugh to myself at how lame some of the things are on those old shows. But had it not been for the Super Friends, I never would have been introduced to the character.
At the same time these cartoons were on Channel 11 here in NYC, they also would air re-runs of the 1960s Batman TV show. Again, Batman was not the cool character that he is today. Adam West’s interpretation of the character was of course very campy. A young man who works in my library as a page looks at old clips of the show on YouTube and wonders how this show was successful and I said that this is all we had; this was all we knew about Batman.
I was not aware of what was going on with the comics at the time I was watching these shows. I did not begin reading comics until about 1984 and then I was only reading Marvel Comics. I picked up an issue of Batman sometime after I started collecting and the book didn’t really interest me. I don’t really remember why, but it wasn’t until 1989 and the first Tim Burton Batman film that coaxed me into giving Batman comics a second look. I vividly remember leaving the Valentine theater in the South Bronx on Fordham Road. My friend Elliot’s grandmother worked there as an usher and we were able to get in and see free movies. I enjoyed the movie and wanted to continue the Bat-experience so I decided to go to my comic book store that was located just down the block.
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What’s next for Batman after Final Crisis?
Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, DC Comics
Batman is dead. In this week’s issue of “Final Crisis”, Batman died at the hands of Darkseid. I always felt that if DC were to ever write this story, (I’m not including the death of Earth 2 Batman or any Elseworlds stories) Batman’s death would come at the hands of one of his rogues. It would be an epic tale where the Joker or Ra’s would finally succeed in getting one over on Bruce in a moment of weakness.
So now that he’s dead, where do we go from here? Well we know DC will be putting “Detective Comics” and “Batman” on hiatus and in it’s place will be a three part miniseries entitled “Battle for the Cowl”. We can assume from the title that there will be a fight of some sort to see who will take over as Batman. The players are: Nightwing, Robin, Jason Todd, and Hush.
This is much different that what we saw during the “Knightfall” trilogy where the mantle was simply given to Jean Paul Valley aka Azrael. Bruce’s relationship with Dick Grayson was estranged at the time and Tim Drake was too young, so for some reason it was deemed fitting that the character of Bruce Wayne would rationally relinquish the most important thing in his life to this guy he barely knew - but that’s ancient history now.
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DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #852
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
“Detective Comics” #852 is part one of a two part “Faces of Evil” storyline. Paul Dini returns as the writer for “Detective Comics” with this issue and he will continue with part two in “Batman” #685. Throughout the month of January DC is focusing on the villains of the DC Universe in “Faces of Evil”. The villians will take center stage in the monthly comics of their adversaries as well as some individual special issues. This issue of “Detective Comics” focuses on Hush and takes place right after the “Heart of Hush” storyline. As we know from this storyline, Thomas Elliot aka Hush has surgically altered his face to look like Bruce Wayne. He was attempting to take over Bruce’s life when Batman thwarted his plans.
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DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #851
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
This month’s issue of “Detective Comics” continues the post-Batman: RIP storyline; a “Last Rites” tie-in entitled “Last Days of Gotham”. It’s part one of a two part story which features the return of Batman veteran writer/editor: Denny O’Neil.
It’s funny in my blog on “Batman” #682, I hoped that the return of Denny O’Neil would mean the return of a Batman story that was much more easy to follow than Grant Morrison’s stuff, but O’Neil’s story is a little bit confusing as well.
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DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #850
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
I’ve enjoyed Paul Dini‘s run on “Detective Comics” so far. I’ve also enjoyed this story arc of his: Heart of Hush which ends with this issue #850. Hush has returned to exact revenge on Bruce Wayne. Thomas Elliot aka Hush hates Bruce Wayne because his abusive mother thought more highly of Bruce than her own son Tommy. Hush decides to attack Bruce by attacking the woman he loves most in the world: Catwoman. He attacks at Bruce’s heart figuratively and attacks Catwoman literally by taking out her heart.
This was a good issue. A good ending to this story. Batman retrieves Catwoman’s heart and has it put back in her body thanks to the surgical skills of Dr. Mid-nite and Mister Terrific of the Justice Society. The issue had a lot of action, good drama, and some fine moments that will give fan boys something to squeal about like Alfred kicking Hush’s butt.
Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #850
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