Batman Comics

Good evening Gotham! It’s an in-between week for comics, so there are no new Batman books to talk about today. That gives me a chance to share some favourite (love it) and not-so-favourite (livid)  moments from recent issues. Here we go!

Justice League 3, by Geoff Johns, Jim Lee and Scott Williams, gave us this page scoring points for love it. I enjoy stories about people from other places coming to our world, and seeing Wonder Woman getting to know the better parts of America is so much fun. Somehow I always knew she’d go for ice cream.

I love Wonder Woman’s kick-ass attitude! There’s a great Batman moment a bit later on in the issue, as the Justice League fights demons that are attacking the planet.

Vampire Batman, telling Green Lantern how to use his ring? How could I not love it?

Next up is Teen Titans 3, by Scott Lobdell, Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund. @VenPixel pointed out a livid moment in the issue, when Kid Flash cracks a four-digit code to unlock a door. I’m not an expert, but I don’t think the switches on the control panel could keep up with his Flash-enhanced typing skills (see ‘switch debouncing‘)!

Silly speedster, keypads are for humans. Another thing in Teen Titans that makes me livid is this scene, in which Red Robin is disguised as an old man ‘riding the rails’ to accompany Skitter across the country. When he reveals his superhero identity to Bunker, there’s a moment when Tim’s face is entirely bare – anyone as paranoid as Tim wouldn’t allow that.

Why isn’t he wearing the domino mask under the old man face? Wow, that was a weird sentence. I liked the comic overall, but I feel like they’ve been too lax with Tim going around unmasked. If we accept the idea that a tiny little mask protects his identity, we have to also assume he’ll be extremely diligent about wearing it.

Last for tonight we have Batman 3, by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion. I haven’t really been talking in detail about storylines, but I definitely love the current story in Batman. ‘The Court of Owls’, a group of men who have been “ruling Gotham from the shadows since colonial times” attempted to kill Bruce Wayne. Bruce turns to Alfred for help, and Alfred shares this story about Bruce’s great, great grandfather Alan Wayne, and his terrible fear of owls.

I love the idea that Alfred’s father was butler to the Wayne family before him! And how he tries to drug Bruce with “medicinal” tea, now that’s a butler! The art is also beautiful, on this page I especially like the top panel (we’re inside the Batman cowl, watching Bruce and Alfred) and the use of colour.

That’s it for me! It’s been fun taking a love it or livid look at comics – I might do it again! Let me know what you think of these or any other Batman comics in the comments, and have a great night.

Writer: Scott Lobdell

Artist: Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund

Date: Dec 2011

I quite enjoyed Teen Titans 2! So much so that I wanted to take a couple minutes to share my favourite moment with each of the main characters from the issue. Be warned, there are definite spoilers below, and you really should go get a copy of this comicbook, it’s a lot of fun!

First of all, our most fabulous flying friend Tim Drake, aka Red Robin. Check him out here in his “civilian” clothes — he’s not exactly shying away from supporting the superhero community, even when he’s not in full superhero gear! (remember, click the pictures to embiggen)

Then we have Superboy. It seems that he’s being held by the shadowy Government agency N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and made to capture other meta-human teenagers in order to earn his own freedom. Is it wrong that I kind of like evil slave Superboy? Probably. But look how hot he is!

One of those captive teenage metas is Kid Flash, and he’s really living up to his name. Here we see how he escapes from the clutches of N.O.W.H.E.R.E. – I like his attitude!

Towards the end of the book, Red Robin is in trouble and we have an excellent scene where Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) saves the day! I don’t buy Tim’s crush on Cassie, in my mind his heart belongs to Superboy (or Batman), but it’s always excellent to see the female superhero saving the male one! With Wonder Girl I really feel like I’m coming in at the middle of the story – I don’t know who she is, how she got her powers, how she’s connected to Wonder Woman, or really much of anything about her other than her kick-ass attitude. That’s actually been a lot of fun, I enjoy getting to know her a piece at a time and I’m definitely going to keep an eye on her in future issues. Plus, what an awesome costume!