DC Comics Review: Batman and Robin #6
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: ****
Another amazing issue that will have everyone’s jaw drop by the time people reach the end. Sometimes the conclusion to a comic book story does not live up to the way it started - that is not the case here. Grant Morrison hits a big home run with the conclusion to his Red Hood story arc. The only drawback for me once again is Philip Tan’s artwork. Some of the artwork in the panels seemed rushed and murky, but Morrison saves the day for me with this amazing story. I read the preview that was released and I couldn’t wait to read this issue. After reading this issue, I’m now salivating for more.
Eduardo Flamingo proves to be a very dangerous character. When we last left off in the story, Flamingo had taken a shot at the Red Hood. The shot doesn’t kill him, which causes Flamingo to try harder to finish the job by shooting the side of Jason’s face off. He also tries to pull the mask off of Scarlet’s face (if you’ve been reading the title you know her face is attached to the mask).
Batman and Robin escape from the trap that the Red Hood put them in and they try to assist Hood and Scarlet in taking down Flamingo. Morrison writes a great line for Robin when they confront Flamingo, “I was expecting scary, not gay.” Very funny. The character appears to die at the hands of the Red Hood, but this is the comic book world, and we know that he probably isn’t dead.
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DC Comics Review: Justice League of America #38
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: ***
has had its share of ups and downs over the years.
The Justice League has had its share of ups and downs over the years. Over the past ten years we’ve seen the resurrection of the JLA under the guidance of Grant Morrison with great success. That title went the way of the dodo a few years ago and was relaunched under the helm of writer Brad Meltzer. His year run on the title was okay, but not as good as I would hope it would have been. I haven’t collected the title since Meltzer left, but I decided to pick this issue up as I’ve been reading James Robinson’s Justice League: Cry for Justice. This series has also had its share of ups and downs, but I wanted to give Robinson a shot and see what he could do with the regular series. I’m glad I did.
The Justice League is falling apart. Batman, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter are dead. Superman is on New Krypton and Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Flash are off doing their own thing. The League consists now of mostly second-tier characters with Vixen at the helm. Our story begins with the character Blue Jay being chased by an unknown assailant. He’s looking to warn the Justice League of impending danger. Unfortunately he doesn’t make it and he’s killed.
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DC Comics Review: Batman and Robin #5
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: *** 1/2*
Another great issue in Grant Morrison’s run on Batman and Robin. The issue picks up right where we left off in the previous issue with Red Hood and Scarlet confronting the new Batman and Robin. Some very cool dialogue between the current Robin Damian Wayne and the second one The Red Hood Jason Todd. It’s funny. Even though I’m on the side of Batman and what he stands for, the Red Hood makes a good point when he says that after killing all of these criminals, they will think twice before setting foot in Gotham.
Damian is being his normal arrogant self here, and decides to try and take Jason out, but Jason proceeds to catch him and ram his face into the ground. Batman not being too happy about that, returns the favor. Scarlet grabs Damian in retaliation and holds him at knife point. Batman backs off of the Red Hood and allows them to escape as they need to turn the Penguin over to police.
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DC Comics Review: Batman and Robin #4
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: *** 1/2
A little bit of a letdown with this issue relative to the three previous ones, but it was still very good. I think the letdown for me came more with the artwork by Philip Tan. The previous issues with artist Frank Quitely were very good because he tells a good story visually with his artwork. Tan’s, however, doesn’t do much for me in the issue. Some parts of the story are too dark and I didn’t enjoy the panel-to-panel storytelling. Quitely’s artwork gave me a grand epic feeling. Tan’s work seems cramped and jumbled. However, the story of this opening arc is still very good.
We open with a villain by the name of Lightning Bug collecting some money from a club owner. Just as he’s about to pop this guy, the Batmobile swoops in and hovers right behind him. Lightning Bug makes a break for it and crashes through an apartment window. He makes his way out of the apartment into the hallway and meets up with who he thinks is Batman and Robin, but is instead the Red Hood and his new partner Scarlett. The Red Hood has decided to go a different route to fight crime and instead of handing this guy over to the police, the Red Hood cuts his throat and kills him. “Let the punishment fit the crime” is his new slogan for punishing criminals.
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DC Comics Review: Batman and Robin #3
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: *** 1/2*
Grant Morrison continues his run on Batman and Robin with issue three of the Circus of Strange storyline. In our last issue, Damian had quit being Robin and went off alone to stop the Circus of Strange. His arrogance resulted only in him getting captured by the Circus’ leader, a man by the name of Pyg.
When DC Comics decided to go in this direction of having a new Batman and Robin with Dick Grayson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin, they wanted to have a role reversal. Batman was always the dark character and Robin the lighter character. With Dick and Damian as the Dynamic Duo, the roles are reversed: Dick is the “light” and Damian is the “dark”. I was interested in seeing if they could make this a success, but my feeling was that if Dick’s Batman is portrayed as this happy go lucky crime fighter, the image of Batman would not work and readers would reject the idea of Dick as Batman and demand the return of Bruce Wayne to the role.
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DC Comics Review: Batman and Robin #2
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: ****
Wow. I just can’t believe how much I’m enjoying Batman and Robin. I know I’ve said this in my review for issue one, but after reading Batman: RIP and Final Crisis, I thought there is no way I would enjoy anything from Grant Morrison from here on out. Batman and Robin #2 is a big home run for DC Comics. I don’t know what it is, but Grant is just rocking and rolling right now.
In the last issue we saw the Circus of Strange hit Gotham City with their own weird secret agenda and here in this issue the new Batman and Robin face off against them in Gotham Police Headquarters. The new dynamic duo also come face to face with Commissioner Gordon and he notices that this is not the old Batman and Robin that he’s known over the past few years. He gives them a pass, but I’m not sure if he’s going to do that again as Damian takes things a little too far.
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DC Comics Review: Batman #687
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: *** 1/2*
When DC announced the new direction they would be going with in the Batman books, I wasn’t happy. With this new direction would come a new monthly book called “Batman and Robin” which would be written by Grant Morrison. I wasn’t happy. Then came the news that Judd Winick would take over the “Batman” monthly title. Still not happy. I thought to myself, that I probably may end up not reading any of the Batman books that DC would be publishing for the foreseeable future or until Bruce Wayne returned as Batman. Well, if you read my review from last week, you know I was very surprised and absolutely enjoyed “Batman and Robin”. So what about Judd’s first issue of “Batman,” well, DC is two-for-two in my book as I absolutely loved this week’s issue of “Batman”.
The story is an epilogue to “Batman: Battle for the Cowl” and it shows some of the events that lead up to where Grant Morrison’s story begins in “Batman and Robin”. The issue shows various moments where members of the Batman family and the super hero community deal with the news of Bruce’s death. Some very moving scenes were done here, particularly the one in the cave with Alfred. I’m not a huge fan of Ed Benes’s art work, but he does a good job here with some moving visual images that set the tone of everyone’s feelings concerning Bruce.
As I said, there are some powerful moments in this book as we see Dick Grayson breakdown and cry over the death of Bruce Wayne, but the most moving scene come from Alfred. Superman and Wonder Woman return Bruce’s cape and cowl to give to Dick and Tim in the Batcave. As they discuss Bruce’s death, Alfred enters the cave with some refreshments for everyone. Superman asks him if he’s alright and Alfred’s response is, “Am I all right? No, sir. I am not. My son has just died.” I’m not sure if this sentiment was ever expressed by Alfred in any other comic, but for Alfred to say that about Bruce was dead on. Thank you, Mr. Winick. Bruce Wayne was orphaned, but he gained a father in Alfred from a very early age and Alfred has watched his “son” grow up to be a great man. I was happy to see that moment expressed here.
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DC Comics Review: Batman and Robin #1
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Rating: *** 1/2*
The new era of the Batman begins today in Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely “Batman and Robin”. As any reader of Comix 411 knows, I have not been kind to Mr Morrison and his work on the “Batman” title and the miniseries “Final Crisis” over the past year. Where many readers and other comic book reviewers have given him praise, I have been one of the few who have disliked the stories that Mr Morrison has laid out before us. I made a promise to myself that if I didn’t like the first issue of “Batman and Robin,” I would drop it immediately and not even give it a second chance. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t expecting to like it, but for whatever the reason, I will be collecting this title because this first issue was great!
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really liked the story that Grant Morrison has set up here. It’s different. It’s certainly not the Batman we have known over the years and not simply because of the new people in the roles of Batman and Robin. The one negative thing about this book is Mr Quitely artwork. I’m not a huge fan of Frank Quitely. Although there are certain times that I’ve seen him draw some cool images, overall his work on a full 22 page comic usually leaves me wanting a much more traditional artist’s interpretation of comic characters - someone like Andy Kubert. I know Mr. Quitely will not be penciling every issue of “Batman and Robin” because he’s slow and can’t keep up the monthly pace of a comic book so I hope DC will give Andy a shot to fill in. I do like the splash page where Mr Quitley has the new Batman and Robin jumping out of the flying Batmobile. Yup, the new Batman and Robin have a flying Batmobile. There’s that and more.
Lets begin….
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My Future with the Batman titles
Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, DC Comics
According to IGN.com there are some big changes in store for the Batman titles post-Battle for the Cowl. In June we will see some new series premiere and the traditional Bat-titles get new creative teams. Here is the list: “Detective Comics,” “Batman,” “Batman and Robin,” “Red Robin,” “Gotham City Sirens,” “Batman: Streets of Gotham,” and the “Outsiders.” I also saw on a message board over at CBR that Batgirl will be getting her own series again. The CBR message board also posts who are the creative teams behind each book.
The good news for me is that Grant Morrison is off “Batman”. The bad news is that he’s being replaced by Judd Winick. I’ve enjoyed stuff that Judd has written in the past. His work on “Exiles” and “The Outsiders” was good - particularly the “Exiles” that book rocked and hasn’t been good since he left. However, I was not all impressed with his previous work on Batman. Why DC didn’t just give the “Batman” title completely to Tony Daniel as he’s staying as artist I don’t know. Maybe it would be too much to handle? I love what Daniel is doing on “Battle for the Cowl”. “Detective Comics” will be written by Greg Rucka and will feature Batwoman - I’ll check out the first issue, but I’m not a big fan of Greg Rucka so I may end up dropping it. I also could care less about Batwoman.
Although Grant Morrison will be leaving the “Batman” title, he will be staying in the Bat-universe and will be launching a new monthly series entitled “Batman and Robin” along with his usual artist collaborator Frank Quitley. According to IGN, this title will be the “flagship” of the Batman titles. I’m not happy with that statement as I feel the original title of any group of comic books should be the flagship title. The flagship title for Batman should be and always be “Detective Comics”.
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The Joel Take - Final Crisis 7
Posted by Joel Rosenberg Categories: Reviews, DC Comics
Normally, I never re-read comics, mainly because owning a store means I have access to too many of them. But, I made an exception in the case of Final Crisis. The following was my original evil plan.
When the comics arrived I unpacked them and immediately read Final Crisis. I figured I could review it before any of my fellow bloggers (Thanks, Dave for beating me to the punch!). Well, I would have if I could have figured out what the hell happened here.
So it took me a little digesting and a re-read to understand this book. My DC rep said someone in the office figured it was going to take him a year and a complete re-read to fully understand everything that went on. I always tell people that at my age I can’t wait a year for anything. That all being said, I finally figured out exactly why I hated Final Crisis 7 and the entire series.
Anyone who follows wrestling realizes that the problem with the WWE is that all their writers are writing for an audience of one, Vince McMahon. Here, Grant Morison is writing for someone who’s identity we will never know. He tried to pack so much into the series that it has confused and upset the vast majority of readers. Comics are supposed to be popular culture, like, say, this site. Producing high art that is well above the comprehension of the common man may be emotionally satisfying to Mr. Morrison and a few of his contemporaries, but it does nothing for either my sales figures nor the emotional well-being of my customers. My wife is someone who saw the first five parts of Star Wars (chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 6) but refused to see the sixth (chapter 3). How, I asked her, could you see the first five and not the sixth? Easy she replied. I liked the first three (4, 5, 6), but didn’t like the next two (1, 2) so why should I waste my time and money on the sixth? I have a feeling DC is going to promote the compilations with the idea that the only way to “fully enjoy” the story is all at once. I don’t think so.
Stay tuned for Random Thoughts.
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