Pull File – May 30 2012
Good evening, Gotham City! It’s a quieter week again – I really wish DC would space out the Batman titles over the month! That said, I’m definitely looking forward to tonight’s comics, and this weekend I’ll enjoy the time I’m not spending on reading by working on my Bat-suit instead! What are you reading this week? Leave a comment and let me know!
Batman Beyond Unlimited 4 – Pretty sure I skipped issue 3, but I didn’t want the Annual to be lonely on the walk home from the Beguiling. The description on DC’s site has pretty much no information about this comic, and the issues that I did read weren’t particularly memorable, but who knows – this might turn out to be my favourite comic ever! There’s a whole world of possibility out there, old chum.
Batman Annual 1 - What’s the deal with annual issues? I’ve wondered this for a long time, and today with Batman Annual 1 coming out I decided it’s time to find out. Quickly Robin, to Wikipedia! It turns out Annual issues are just what they sound like, although they’re not reliably put out every year, and at first Annual issues generally included reprints of stories that had already been published elsewhere. These days the Annual issue is new material, often a themed issue with several stories or a one-shot story that does not fit in with the current continuity, and with a significantly higher page count than a regular weekly comic.
So, now that we’ve had our Official Comic Book History Moment, Batman Annual 1 is 48 pages of Mr. Freeze and how he relates to the Court of Owls. We already saw a bit of that in Red Hood 9, but this is a great way to showcase a new villain who I’m sure we’ll see plenty more of in years to come, and also keep the momentum going on the Court of Owls storyline until Batman 10 comes out in a couple weeks.
Here’s the cover, by Jason Fabok, with colours by Peter Steigerwald. I love how Batman looks, you can really tell how huge he is. Mr. Freeze is all white and shades of blue, which is entirely perfect for someone as wintery as he is, though the red goggles lend a certain menace while also suggesting that he’s got a fiery inner self behind the icy exterior. And need I mention the owl?
You know me and you went to Wikipedia for comic book trivia? For shame! Well, I guess Wikipedia beats me for a quick and dirty answer
Btw, the last thing I was reading before coming here was a discussion between some people saying they disliked what they did in the Annual, specifically the with Mr. Freeze’s wife and his back story. Made me want to read it, always liked the character.