Batman Comics

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?

Happy Wednesday, Gothamites! Today’s a busy day for comics and there’s a bunch of good stuff in my pull file today. Let’s jump right in!

Batman 7 – I am so excited for this book! After all the buildup with the Court of Owls, in issue 7 we get a very Batman-centric story and a big reveal that’s a surprise but also totally makes sense. I’ve been following Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo on Twitter, and although they haven’t answered any of my tweets to them they’re still pretty cool. Seeing their excitement at working on Batman and the energy they bring to the story is really gratifying, I’m glad to know that the writers are much fans of Batman as I am.

Birds of Prey 7 -  The Birds finally capture Choke, the villain they’ve been dealing with for ages, but he’s got a woman on the inside! Who could betray the Birds of Prey? Hopefully we find out today. Jesús Saíz did the colours on issue 6, and now in issue 7 he does all the drawing. I quite liked his work on issue 1, so that sounds good to me!

Batman Beyond Unlimited 2 – I read issue 1 when it came out, but don’t actually remember it, and the synopsis on DC’s site didn’t help. Hey, I like Batman, I like the future, so I”m reading it.

Catwoman 7 – I just hope Selina doesn’t get beat up in this issue, it will make a nice change. As I said before, is it so wrong to hope that things will go right for Catwoman for a change? Today we get some fancy cars and fast driving scenes, which can be difficult to do in a still medium like comics, I’m looking forward to seeing how the artists Adriana Melo and Mariah Benes do it.

Justice League 7 – It hasn’t been a month since issue 6 came out, has it? Really? This issue jumps 5 years forward to the DCU present day; I wonder how the team’s relationships have changed and grown! That out-of-character moment for Batman in issue 5 still really grates on me, but who can help loving the Justice League?

Red Hood and the Outlaws 7 – I’m really only in it for the Owls. …And because Jason Todd gets naked pretty often. Actually, I do like Kenneth Rocafort’s artistic style, that’s been consistently good through this series.

Nightwing 7 – Nightwing has been an excellent comic, I definitely like getting an in-depth look at Dick Grayson that’s centred around his life. In the previous issue, Haly’s Circus returned to Gotham and Dick was caught up in a deadly situation. Today we should finally find out why a former circus performer has been carrying a grudge against Dick. I really enjoy this cover, by Eddy Barrows and Rod Reis, it feels very textured.