The Wake #10 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Sean Murphy (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)

The Story: It’s only near the end of the world that we learn the Scientologists were right all along.

The Review: As of last issue, we still had no idea what the hell was going on in this series. We didn’t know where the Mers came from or what they wanted, how Lee Archer managed to send a message to Leeward from the dead, and how she was planning to save the world. Snyder has left those ends wide open; needless to say, he has a lot
to explain in this issue, and it’s almost guaranteed there’ll still be points left unresolved at the end.

Much to his credit, however, Snyder manages to tie every vague vignette from every past issue together into a cohesive revelation that actually manages to be revelatory, astonishingly so. Of course, you’ll have to read between his metaphors (ladders and seeds feature heavily in this issue) to get the answers you seek, but at least they’re relatively straightforward and mostly satisfying. [Warning: major spoilers ahead! Read on at your own risk!]

American Vampire: Second Cycle #4 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dave McCaig (colors) and Steve Wands (letters)

The Story: The Gray Trader comes after Pearl.

The Review (with SPOILERS): This has been a very challenging review to write.  Anytime that happens it is a sure sign that the comic is one that I had high hopes for that has let me down in some way.

What’s weird about writing this type of review is that they easily veer heavily into what is wrong with this issue and the ways that it has disappointed me.  Then I proof-read the review and realize I have written 1000 words about the shortcomings of the issue, and then given it a “B” for a grade.  Which is weird…

So, just know that there is a longer analysis of the negatives of this issue as it relates to the prior run of American Vampire.  It was deleted, but this issue has slightly disappointed me for a couple of reasons.  One is that it really misses Henry.  Not only was the Henry/Pearl relationship fascinating, but Henry was interesting with everyone else too.  Great character.  He was also kinda the reader’s eyes into the world of vampires.  We could identify with him because he was a human and without him, there isn’t a similar anchor for our perspective.  And the Skinner/Pearl relationship isn’t anywhere near as interesting as Henry/Pearl.  In fact, Skinner just isn’t that interesting.  He’s just an anti-hero and while I think he was fine as a cool supporting character, he’s not quite strong enough to carry the series.

The other thing that hurt this story arc is that it felt less anchored to a point in American history.  It’s set in either the late 1950s or early 1960s, but there is no big theme to help me fix this story in time.  It sounds like that will change in the next story arc as our vampires get sucked into the space race.  THAT sounds very, very cool and not just because “Duh….vampires in effing SPACE!!!” but because the space race is an important part of American history.  I hope that we’ll also get some civil rights movement (possibly involving Cal) and some Vietnam War stuff in there too (again, Cal is a former soldier and could play a part).  But this story didn’t have that historical anchor and it suffered for that.

Superman Unchained #7 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Jim Lee (pencils), Scott Williams (inks), Alex Sinclair (colors)

The Story: Can a one-man army take down an actual army?

The Review: Happy Independence Day, everyone—yes, even you folks who have nothing to do with the good ol’ U.S. of A. So I think it’s appropriate that my first review of the day celebrating America goes to the comic starring that most quintessential all-American hero, the Man of Steel himself. It’s also important that here, we’re dealing with a Superman in his purest, most heroic form, as opposed to one struggling not to unleash certain death on all living things—we’ll deal with that hot mess later.

That said, Clark’s big heroic moment in this series has come and gone; what’s left is purely personal, with little opportunity for growth. He seems on the verge of it here, reflecting on Wraith’s challenges from #5: “The choices I make about when I fight, how I fight, how I live my life inside and outside of this…those choices mean that Superman, as I’ve created him, he can’t last forever.” But he never synthesizes these musings into a concrete conclusion as to what he should do. Instead, he dithers, pleading with Lois for understanding, which is preaching to the choir if you’ve ever seen it.

The Wake #9 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Sean Murphy (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)

The Story: Leeward discovers that Captain for a Day is as much a jip as the queen version.

The Review: For a very brief period of time in my college days, I was editor of a hopeful (soon to be hopeless) literary magazine. The work was thankless and the pay was pitiful—good practice for a future in comic book reviewing, honestly—but I enjoyed it, nonetheless. I learned that a good editor wields his power rarely, pushing the writing only when it doesn’t do what the writer wants it to do. Giving creators their freedom is great and all, but you have to step in if they’re not living up to their own standards.

Were I editor of The Wake, I probably would’ve stepped in somewhere around #6
or #7 and gently (but firmly) told Snyder and Murphy, “You’ve got to give this more than ten issues. You’ve gone through the painstaking trouble of crafting this brand new world—you drew a map, for heaven’s sake—and there’s absolutely no way you’re going to explore any of it, drive it to ruin, then save it in the issues you have left. Or, more accurately, there is a way, but it’s not going to be pretty.” If Snyder and Murphy are anything like the writers I worked with, they’ll nod politely and ignore me anyway, then give me resentfully chagrined looks if it turns out I was right: it wasn’t pretty, as it is here.

Batman #31 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Greg Capullo (pencils), Danny Miki (inks) and FCO Plascencia (colors)

The Story: Batman and gang get a little closer to solving the Riddler’s riddle.

Review (with SPOILERS): This doesn’t have to be the most complex review ever.  This is another wonderful issue of Batman’s Zero Year story.  It is well-written (as always) and beautifully illustrated (as always) and Zero Year will be another instant-classic when it finishes with issue #33.

There are a lot of wonderful moments in this issue and I loved seeing The Gang (Batman, Gordon and Lucius) planning how to take down The Riddler.  I love the Riddler and how he’s just smarter than everyone.  His power is being smart.  How cool is that for a group of people like comic fans….considering that comic fans usually consider themselves pretty damn smart?  And we get to see Post-Apocalypse Batman fighting a effing LION!  Where is the Post-Apocalypse Batman action figure?

All of that is excellent. But…(you knew there was a “but” coming)

American Vampire: Second Cycle #3 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dave McCaig (colors) and Steve Wands (letters)

The Story: More about the Gray Trade becomes clear and a familiar anti-hero returns.

Review (with SPOILERS): I really like the way the story is unfolding in the second cycle of American Vampire.  Here in only the third issue, we have The Gray Trader basically identified as “the devil”.  And he’s not some metaphysical construct either.  TGT is a corporeal being that lives in the bowels of the Earth and he takes the essence of your dead loved ones down there with him.  A single bite from TGT is enough to infect a being and turn them into his minion.  Then on the side of “good”, we have the American Vampires.  We’ve already seen them pitted against the old-fashioned “Carpathian” vampires in the first cycle of this story.  Now we’re learning that TGT basically created the Carpathians, and since the Carpathians created the AVs by mistake, the AVs are essentially TGT’s wayward grandchildren.

So, while the first cycle of this story was about the AV’s being an allegory for American history in the 20th century (new land, new vampires, growing into their place on the world stage).  The second cycle might be about something deeper with TGT being the inspiration for the Devil of various religions and the AVs being tasked with fighting The Devil.  There are still a lot of general ambiguities around the story.  For example, we don’t know if there is something special about the AVs – some American quality – that helps them resist the evil of TGT and want to fight him.  Why are the AVs basically the same people they were in life, whereas all of the other vampires descending from TGT have an essence of evil about them?  There is still a LOT for Scott Snyder to unpack in this story.

Batman Eternal #6 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, John Layman, Ray Fawkes, Tim Seely (story), Trevor McCarthy (art), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: Even bats can be scared of ghosts—or, more specifically, spirits of vengeance.

The Review: Having stuck by this series for some weeks now, it’s become painfully clear that a weekly series really takes a bite out of your budget. You are talking about a quadruple (at times quintuple) investment than your typical monthly comic, so even if you want to, you have to think twice about a long-term commitment to spending that kind of money. Next to the bigger-impact Futures End (and upcoming World’s End), my bucks just don’t stretch as far with Batman Eternal.

I want to make it clear, however, that my decision has little to do with the actual quality of this series, which has been fine, if not spectacular thus far. It’s true that issues can vary wildly from week to week, depending on who’s charged with scripting duties, but everyone on this writing team pretty much stands on even ground. In fact, considering the number of cooks in the kitchen, it’s remarkable how the finished dish comes out tasting kind of the same each week, which is part of Eternal‘s problem.

The Wake #8 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Sean Murphy (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)

The Story: There are worse things, it seems, than living in the gullet of a giant mutant fish.

The Review: Only two issues left after this, which leaves Snyder only a short time to wrap up this beautiful, desolate world that he and Murphy have crafted. I understand all the practical reasons why an ongoing Wake series wouldn’t have worked for them, but I still feel we’re all missing out on what might have been one of the great comic book stories of the decade. What we ultimately get is worthwhile and memorable, but without the epic quality it truly deserves.

And that’s all a product of not having enough time to let certain moments land, to explore certain settings, to give certain developments to make their impact. Ever since we started the second half of The Wake, the pacing has been like a tour guide on a cheap package, rushing you to one sight and whisking you away to another right after you’ve taken a picture but before you’ve really absorbed the experience. Events that should take place over a span of many issues get compacted into a few pages, making Leeward’s world-changing quest feel like a one-hour adventure.

Batman Eternal #5 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, John Layman, Ray Fawkes, Tim Seely (story), Andy Clarke (art), Blond (colors)

The Story: Red Robin and Batman briefly consider getting the band back together again.

The Review: Let’s review some Batman basics,* shall we? Great as the Dark Knight is, he’s still only one man struggling against a vicious city, which is why the Bat-family exists. But calling them a family gives an impression of a cohesive working unit when they’re actually more like a handful of government agencies. Their objectives and methods are different; they’re supposed to work in different spheres; and when they take jurisdiction over the same area, there tends to be more tension than collaboration.

Such is the way when you have obviously derivative characters trying to prove that they can stand on their own. Red Robin voices that conflict from the first page of this issue, rebelliously establishing his own data networks (his “Robin’s Nests“) in the city separate from Batman’s, declaring, “I don’t like people looking over my shoulder while I work.” Aside from that basic barrier to working with Batman, Tim reminds us of personal obstacles between them post-Death of the Family, Damian Wayne, and Dick Grayson. Gotham needs its heroes to stand together, but between Batgirl’s angry departure last week and Tim’s prickliness here, that’s going to be a very tall order.

C2E2 Report: DC Comics – Batman

Saturday was a big day for this year’s C2E2, with a lot of DC and Marvel’s biggest panels taking place. Besides entry in the morning, the longest line I saw all weekend was for this panel. Hundreds of fans filed through the doors of the convention’s largest panel space, and with good reason.

As things got started, John Cunningham, DC’s Marketing VP, introduced us to our panelists: James Tynion IV, former writer of Red Hood and the Outlaws and Talon and an architect of Batman: Eternal; Scott Snyder, writer for Batman, lead writer for Batman: Eternal, and all-around Batman superfan; Jason Fabok and Dustin Nguyen, the two artists for Batman: Eternal; Patrick Gleason and Peter Tomasi, the artist and writer, respectively, on Batman and _____; and Jim Chadwick, an editor with DC’s digital division who works on Batman ‘66, among others.

Cunningham started by reminding us that this year is the 75^th anniversary of Batman and promised a slew of celebration, most clearly embodied in a “Batman Day” sometime this July. He also mentioned the two animated shorts commissioned for the anniversary and, as a thank you, revealed that we’d be screening them before the panel began.

Unfortunately there was some technical trouble, kicking off a friendly rivalry between Cunningham and the people running the projector.

Unable to resolve the problem immediately, we turned to the comics.

The first book mentioned was Grayson, which received a warm reception, but just as quickly as it was brought up, Cunningham informed us that he couldn’t talk about it yet. Instead Scott Snyder took the opportunity to enlist the audience in a campaign to make sure that DC used the slogan that he and the other writers had come to love, “You think you know Nightwing, but you don’t know Dick.” It seemed to take off with the fans. DC had actually published the line in the Grayson #1 solicit a few days earlier, but after this panel I’m sure they were pleased that they went ahead with it.

Next on the docket was Batman and Scott Snyder’s “Zero Year” storyline, which has just entered its final phase, “Savage City”. Snyder, ever eager to share with the fans had thrown in a couple of extra slides into the presentation as a thank you. “You guys are our bosses,” he said, quoting a sentiment that drives he and Greg Capullo’s work on the title.

Batman Eternal #4 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, John Layman, Ray Fawkes, Tim Seely (story), Dustin Nguyen (pencils), Derek Fridolfs (inks), John Kalisz (colors)

The Story: Never get between a girl and her dad.

The Review: The downside to a weekly comic is the same as its upside: getting four (or five, depending on the month) comics a month. You’re talking about a quad-/quintuple investment than your ordinary monthly comic. So it had better be good! I don’t mind if one issue is slower or less substantial than another, but I won’t be able to abide a weekly series if it’s badly or even just blandly written. Contrary to the impression I give on this site, I am not made of money.

That’s why I’m a little iffy about the multiple-writer situation on Batman Eternal. While I have the utmost confidence in Snyder’s plotting, I have less when it comes to his co-writers’ abilities to execute it. Having read the superhero works of Tynion (Talon), Layman (Detective Comics), Fawkes (Constantine), and having unceremoniously Dropped them after relatively brief periods of time, I’m naturally wary about the idea of reading them week after week. Unfortunately, this Layman-scripted issue does little to alleviate that concern.

Batman Eternal #3 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Ray Fawkes, John Layman, Tim Seely (story), Jason Fabok (art), Brad Anderson (colors)

The Story: When your dad spoils your fun, it’s only proper to spoil his back.

The Review: And now the moment of Batman Eternal I’ve been waiting for: the return of Stephanie Brown, a.k.a. the last pre-relaunch Batgirl. Of course, part of the charm that made her so popular (and thus her exclusion from the DCnU so reviled) was Bryan Q. Miller’s specific take on her, which was taking Buffy Summers, removing the angst, and tweaking up the playfulness. In a comic book world of increasing grimness, Stephanie was unbeatably upbeat—which made her special, damn it.

Excited as I am, I’m also a little apprehensive as to how she will fare under another writer’s pen. Right now, it’s difficult to say. What we see in this issue is not the confident, put-together Stephanie who wore the Batgirl mantle, but a Stephanie predating her more annoying Spoiler days. As such, much of her sparkling wit is replaced by your commonplace teenage sarcasm, both withering and not a little mean-spirited. Blowing off her mom’s concern about dropping in unexpectedly on her dad: “Oh, no! I’m going to spoil his puzzle night with his loser friends!”

Batman #30 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Greg Capullo (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), FCO Plascencia (colors) and Steve Wands (letters)

The Story: Riddler pulls his final move as Gotham descends into chaos.

The Review (with minor SPOILERS): I could almost copy and past the preamble to these Batman reviews at this point: This is another very, very good issue of Batman from Snyder, Capullo & Co.

We’ve now entered the final chapter of this very long Zero Year story and it’s all come down to Batman versus Riddler in a post-apocalypse version of Gotham.  Even though we have a young Batman and a young(er) Gordon, by now we have characters that long-time Bat-readers will recognize with Gordon and Batman working together as a team.  All they have to do is figure out a way to solve the riddle of the Riddler.

What makes this issue special is how smartly Snyder was able to include a post-apocalypse theme into a cannonical Bat-story.  I think we’ve seen Batman in a destroyed Gotham before, but it’s usually some old Batman in an elseworlds-type story.  I guess there was No Man’s Land, but that felt very different – the snow, perhaps?  Still, it was very clever to see this Gotham that was destroyed by Pamela Isley’s botanical research.  The way Greg Capullo depicts Gotham, it looks like something out of The Last of Us or countless other post-apocalypse stories.  I love stories of the apocalypse because they smash enough rules of society that we can see new constructs arise…

Enter the Riddler.  I really enjoy the bigger picture question that he is putting to Batman and Gotham in this story.  He’s basically tackling the problems of the modern world (pollution, climate change, wealth inequality, food production, overpopulation, etc.) by turning Gotham into a microcosm of everything wrong in the world and challenging someone to solve the riddle.  My goodness, don’t you wish we could chuck some real life politicians into this fictional Gotham and tell them that they cannot come out until they have fixed everything?

Batman Eternal #2 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Ray Fawkes, John Layman, Tim Seely (story), Jason Fabok (art), Brad Anderson (colors)

The Story: Who knew it would only take a scarred mafia man to freak out Batman?

The Review: I’ve never reviewed a weekly series before, but I must say, I’m really liking the pace of it. My biggest gripe about monthlies is how insubstantial they seem when spread against a month (or more) of waiting until the next installment. In the cost-benefit calculation, monthly comics are kind of a raw deal, falling short of the satisfaction you get from a TV show or movie. With a weekly comic, even if a single issue doesn’t have much to it, you know you have more coming in just six days.

This allows Snyder-Tynion time to play out an event in much greater depth than they normally would be able to. Had Batman Eternal been a typical monthly, the first five pages of this issue would probably have been reduced to a single page of reactions from all the relevant Gothamites. You might not have lost the point of the sequence, but the impact of what happened to Gordon would’ve been diminished. Seeing in detail how each character takes in the event—Vicki Vale’s reluctance to publish the story and “destroy a good man’s life”; the Bat-family’s varying degrees of shock (it even elicits a “Damn…” from Jason Todd); Mayor Hady’s bewilderment of the situation, despite his corruption—gives you a better sense of Gordon’s position as one of Gotham’s most important pillars.

American Vampire: Second Cycle #2 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dave McCaig (colors), Steve Wands (letters)

The Story: The Grey Trader is revealed.

Review (with SPOILERS): Bravo for pacing and layered storytelling!  Excellent comics like American Vampire really make me appreciate what is lacking in other, less imaginative stories.

Of course, I’m talking about the fact that we didn’t have to wait until issue #5-6 to have The Grey Trader revealed to us.  I’m would have been very easy to have an entire first cycle about the lead-up to the revelation of what TGT even looks like, much less who/what he is.  You know….the end of each issue would end with this very creepy looking man standing there in the distance with his top hat and cane?  Each final page he would be a little closer to the viewers perspective, so it seemed like he was coming closer and closer?  Until they showed his face at the end of issue #5?  I’m sure that Snyder and Albuquerque could have even made that a pretty hot story, and to be honest, that is the pacing I was expecting.

Then… bam! We get to see the true face of TGT in the middle of this issue.  I love that.  It wasn’t expected and I’m reading the issue and thinking, “OMG! I think they’re going to show what this dude looks like on the next page!”  Don’t you love those sorts of page-turns in comics?  We don’t get enough of them, in my opinion.

But, just to show what a sophisticated story AV is, the mystery doesn’t end with this reveal.  It’s really just beginning.  We still don’t really know what TGT is up to, what motivates him, what manner of creature he is, etc.?  Why does he attack other vampires?  Does TGT view all vampires the same way that the Carpathian vampires view the American Vampires (i.e. as a threat to be attacked)?  How does TGT connect with Dracula and the Lord of Nightmares storyline?  They call him “the Devil” at the end of the issue, but is TGT really the metaphorical embodiment of human evil (in the Biblical sense) or is TGT meant to be a some sort of inspiration for the Biblical “devil”?  I love a comic that begs such questions, especially when you trust the storytellers as much as I trust Snyder and Albuquerque.  They’ve got answers for all this stuff.  I guarantee you that there isn’t a question in this paragraph that hasn’t already been addressed in a story outline.  Readers just need to strap in and enjoy the rest of the story in confidence.

Batman Eternal #1 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Ray Fawkes, John Layman, Tim Seely (story), Jason Fabok (art), Brad Anderson (colors)

The Story: As if the Gotham underground doesn’t experience enough delays.

The Review: In a comic book world that already seems overpopulated with people following the bat standard, did we really need another ongoing Bat-series, and a weekly one at that? I’ve made this complaint before (and again before that), but surely there’s got to be a limit to how many titles one franchise can creatively support at one time before they all start blurring together. Batman Eternal can’t get by on just being a decent title; it has to set itself apart from a family of eerily similar siblings.

This issue alone doesn’t do it, even if Snyder-Tynion* start things off by coming at the story from an appreciably different angle. It’s not exactly common for people to talk about Gotham and emphasize its light and brightness, after all. As a metaphor, this talk about light suggests that hope springs eternal in the darkest corner of the DCU, but that idea runs counter to the apocalyptic Gotham that greets us on the issue’s opening page. Gotham’s light may be a more sinister thing in this world, an electric lamp that lures good people like GCPD cop Jason Bard to perish in the city’s dispassionate maw.

The Wake #7 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Sean Murphy (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)

The Story: Leeward gets firsthand of the anachronistic practice of walking the plank.

The Review: Call me a bona fide English nerd (and proud of it!), but the reason why I love novels—pure prose, in general—is for their exposition. If people are attracted to fiction for the new and different worlds they present, there’s no better way to revel in all that than in the endless exposition books can provide. Time and space are precious commodities in comics, even more so in a limited series, so sadly, world-building often takes a backseat to plot in any given issue.

If I had my way, Leeward would road trip this altered America, exploring all the changes to the land, population, and society, down to the way people wash their clothes now that water can’t be spared. Snyder certainly does his best, but with only four (I guess three, depending on how you look at it) issues remaining, he has to deliver exposition on a need-to-know basis. In place of the wealth of sci-fi fantasy we got last issue, Snyder makes huge strides in the plot, sending Leeward leagues away from where she started this story.

Superman Unchained #6 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Jim Lee (pencils), Scott Williams (inks), Dustin Nguyen (art), Alex Sinclair & John Kalisz (colors)

The Story: Superman faces the nuclear winter of Ascension’s discontent.

The Review: While I personally think Action Comics is the quintessential Superman title on the market, there’s no denying that Unchained remains the Superman “It Girl.”  What’s interesting is that the current storylines in each series have a common conflict: Clark’s universal concern for humanity versus purely American interests.  The way Greg Pak and Snyder have handled this conflict reveals the essential differences in their respective styles and books.

In a way, Pak doesn’t really challenge Clark’s values as directly as Snyder does.  In Action Comics, Ghost Soldier is a formidable opponent for Clark, but he’s no match for Clark’s capabilities.  Under those conditions, Clark can take a broader worldview than Soldier simply because he has the power to.  But Wraith is not only Clark’s match, but his superior both in power and experience.  If there’s a scenario Wraith can’t handle, it calls into question whether Clark can, either.

American Vampire: Second Cycle #1 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dave McCaig (colors) and Steve Wands (letters) 

The Story: After a hiatus, we get reacquainted with Pearl and Skinner.

Review: It’s lovely to have this comic back.  Even though creators Snyder and Albuquerque were always adamant that the hiatus was temporary, given Snyder’s new status of Master of the DC Universe and Albuquerque getting regular work on DC titles, there was always a fear that we might never see American Vampire again.  It’s such a relief to have it back because we don’t get comics as good as American Vampire that often.

This first issue back is part review of what came before and part set-up of what is to come.  The review is modest, but it’s just enough to give a new reader an introduction to who Pearl Jones and Skinner Sweet are.  It you want the whole story, you need to go read the back issues or collections, but if this is your first issue of AV, I’m sure you’ll be fine without the back material.  Scott Snyder is too inclusive of a writer to punish new customers with inside jokes that make new people feel unwelcome.

What we find in this issue is both Pearl and Skinner in a sort of Vampire Middle Age.  Pearl tried to basically live her early years as a vampire as if she was just a super-powered human.  She had human friends, a human husband and what-not, but they all got old and died while she is living forever.  So, now she is entering her hermit phase where she lives in an old farmhouse and appears to take in runaway vampire children.  It’s a neat concept and I like that Snyder is still playing with the idea that there are all these different races of vampires kinda like breeds of dog.  They look at her newest rescue project the way you’d look at a mutt at the dog park: “Hmmm…. He must have some chow because he has a partially black tongue and her snout is very terrier…”  We learn at the very end of the tale that one of these kids has had a run-in with The Gray Trader… Hmm…  I really like the idea of Pearl mothering to these kids who have been turned into a vampire.  I’d imagine that being a vampire is a difficult transition for a fully formed adult, but it would probably be really challenging for a child who hasn’t had time to develop the emotional strength to handle the transition.

Batman #29 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Greg Capullo (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), FCO Plascencia (colors) and Steve Wands (letters)

The Story: Batman tries to disrupt Riddlers plans for Gotham.

The Review (with SPOILERS): This story is really hitting all the high notes right now.  What strikes me the most is that it is great in spite of a few structural things that bug me.

• Overall length of the story/Passage of time: If you read many Marvel titles or The Walking Dead right now, a comic like Batman that comes out every 4 weeks (like clockwork) seems a little slow.  But Zero Year has been cleverly broken into subcomponents so that no parts of the story seem elderly.  There is an art to a Scott Snyder story where you are rewarded if you remember details, but never punished if things slip from your brain.  It’s hard to put my finger on how he does it and I suspect that it isn’t easy or obvious even to other writers – or else everyone would do it.
• Interruptions in the story: Those stand alone issues that have allowed Greg Capullo to maintain this incredible pace of storytelling have been perfectly placed.  They’ve broken the story into chapters and still been relevant enough to the overall tale to not feel like filler.  Last issue was one of those issues and here we are coming back without missing a beat.
• Lots of words: I usually like my comics to have fewer words to an allow the artist to do their thing.  But Scott Snyder has this easy and flowing way of writing that makes wordiness work.  It amazes me.  I mean, I write a lot for this blog (and others) and I tend to write in a more conversational manner, and I’m an acceptable writer.  But when I proof-read my work, I find all of these clumsy sentences, weird phrases, run-on thoughts…  Snyder just flows.  It’s one of those things where I look at his writing and remind myself to keep my day job.  I’m not saying that Snyder doesn’t work his butt off to get the story right, but I think he also has an innate talent for words that few other people can approach.

The art is glorious.  So much good stuff from the Capullo/Miki/FCO team.  Earnest faces, glorious colors, a monstrous villain.  It’s wonderful.  There isn’t a better looking comic on the stands and they do it all without sacrificing the storytelling.

The Wake #6 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Sean Murphy (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)

The Story: As it turns out, both the global warming deniers and paranoids were wrong.

The Review: So here we are, a long four months after the last issue of The Wake.  If it makes you feel any better, time has been even less kind to the title itself, as a whopping two hundred years have passed since we saw Lee Archer and her doomed crew sinking to the bottom of the sea while tidal Armageddon was happening overhead.  Needless to say, things look pretty grim for humanity at present, though the existence of Leeward shows that not all is lost.

While the world hasn’t completely gone under, it has definitely shrunken, and grows smaller all the time at a rate of about five or ten miles a year.  Though the U.S., at least, manages to keep its head above water, it’s had to make serious social and political adjustments.  The fifty states are no more (indeed, some coastal states have vanished altogether), replaced by thirteen territories, a conceptual blend of America’s original thirteen colonies and its unsettled, territorial days.  Though some semblance of governance exists, it’s much like the walls and reefs along the new coastline: a ruthless but fragile barrier against the despair about to overwhelm the country.

Batman #28 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & James Tynion, IV (writers), Dustin Nguyen (pencils), Derek Fridolfs (inks), John Kalisz (colors) and Sal Cipriano (letters)

The Story: What’s Batman without a young assistant?

The Review (with SPOILERS): This is another of those interstitial issues of Batman where we get a guest artist to allow Greg Capullo to keep up the regular monthly schedule.  What I’ve enjoyed about these issues is how they’ve told us a coherent story of a young girl named Harper Row, how she’s come to know Batman and – in this issue – how she became the new Robin (or Robin-like character since they call her Bluebird).

I have a weird perspective on the Batman and Robin relationship because – with the advent of the New 52 – I went from reading ALL Batman titles to just the “main” Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo title.  I literally haven’t cracked the cover of any other Bat-book in two years.  I missed the Death of Damien, haven’t read the new iteration of Dick Grayson as Nightwing and haven’t seen this new Tim Drake in whatever title he is in.  Therefore, I haven’t seen a “Robin” in over two years.

And that’s sad because I’ve always enjoyed the Batman – Robin relationship.  So I am tickled to see Batman with a new protege to team-up with.  If Zero Year is supposed to be an origin story for Batman, it would be awfully incomplete without a “Robin”.  In fact, if you want to continue comparing Zero Year to Year One, the biggest flaw in Year One is that it neglects the importance of Robin.

Batman #27 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Greg Capullo (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), FCO Plascencia (colors) and Steve Wands (letters)

Wow! What a great issue!  Honestly, this is better than a Batman story has any excuse to be given that I kinda think of all these Marvel/DC characters are a little old and used up.  I mean, these comics usually have potential to be FUN, but it is hard for them to be GOOD.  I’ve read a LOT of Batman over the years and this is as good as anything that’s ever been done with the character.  I remain a huge fan of Year One and still think Year One is a superior story from the standpoint of Bruce’s motivations to become Batman, but Zero Year is stomping Year One when it comes to Batman himself and his relationship with Gordon (and Alfred).  It’s hard for me to say that something is superior to Year One, but it is true.

There are two things that really stand out about this issue.

Detective Comics #27 – Review

by John Layman, Scott Snyder, Paul Dini, Brad Meltzer, Gregg Hurwitz, Peter J. Tomasi, Jason Fabok, Neal Adams, Dustin Nguyen, Guillem March, Bryan Hitch, and Sean Murphy

The Bat-Man, a mysterious and adventurous figure, fighting for righteousness and apprehending the wrong doer, in his lone battle against the evil forces of society…

Giant anniversary issues like this are always interesting to dissect. What’s the best use of all those pages? Will it connect to current storylines, or should it serve as a celebration of the character’s history? This behemoth issue tries to have its cake and eat it too, but that’s only a problem if it fails. So the question is: did it?

Let’s start at the very beginning, as I hear that that’s a very good place to start. The issue opens with a story from Brad Meltzer and Brian Hitch that goes by the highly appropriate title, “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate.” This iteration of “Chemical Syndicate” is a clever retelling of the 1939 original. Though it has been updated, it is a remarkably faithful adaptation. The major difference is the addition of Batman’s later character traits and a running commentary from the Dark Knight, himself, which would not have been possible in the original story without spoiling the surprise ending.

Though Meltzer displays an impressively economic writing style, cramming a lot into a short fifteen pages without overcluttering his story, the real meat of this story is in the narration. Basic Batman caption boxes do a fine job of showing up a mysterious and yet inexperienced version of the Caped Crusader. Meanwhile, a series of journal entries posit a number of answers to the question “why does Batman do it?” The answers are a master class in Batman, neither overglorifying the vigilante, nor digging too deep into his neuroses to appear heroic. Particularly over the last few days, I’ve been growing tired of a Batman too damaged to inspire us to anything healthy. Perhaps I’m biased by my recent musings, but I think this story navigated these dangerous waters very well.

Superman Unchained #5 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Jim Lee (pencils), Scott Williams (inks), Dustin Nguyen (art), Alex Sinclair & John Kalisz (colors),

The Story: If Superman’s image of himself 40 years from now is that bad, what hope is there for the rest of us?

The Review: While some folks may decry any grimness that enters the ultimately cheerful Superman mythos, I always thought Clark’s halcyon childhood in the comics was a bit too sugar-coated to be credible.  If Smallville and Man of Steel did the comics one better at anything, it was giving the young Clark some actual trauma and a bit of a temper—too much at times, sure, but my point is the changes weren’t inherently bad ones.

Since the DC relaunch, the comics have aligned more closely with Superman’s TV and film appearances by emphasizing that Smallville life was not always watching sunrises/sunsets from wheat fields.  Now, I may join the pitchfork-bearers when it comes to things like killing off the Kents,* but I have no problem with the notion of Clark’s burgeoning powers as a consistent source of tragedy for him.  It’s logical that his nature would invite more dramatic consequences to his actions than the typical farm boy.  With his origins, it’s asking too much to make it seem as if he experienced the ups and downs of childhood and adolescence like everybody else.