A recent visit to Acme Comics of Greensboro NC procured me some new comics books.
Especially a whole bunch o' Bat books.
Which will be the focus of today's post.
Batman#12
Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez bring Verity Pennyworth into the Bat-Family.
It looks like Alfred is going to stay dead.
Bruce Wayne is a bit gob smacked by Verity's arrival.
Alfred the A.I. Hologram informs Bruce it was all there in the paperwork: final wishes, last will and testament, household transfer plans, et cetera.
Paperwork that Bruce has been reluctant to read.
Verity is a remarkable woman. She gets Damien to laugh.
Meanwhile, a strange eclectic variety of specialty assassins are arriving in Gotham City.
Target: Bruce Wayne.
Batman's got some cleaning up to do.
Batman - Bad Seeds: Sunset#1
Oh shit, it's a crossover event?!?!
Taking place over 10 (Count 'em---TEN!) weeks and a multitude of Bat Fam titles.
I ain't got that kind of time or coin!
I'm gonna try to keep up through the book end specials and Batman and that's it!
So what the hell is going on?
Co-written by Matt Fraction and G. Willow Wilson, the special sets up what will be on very long, very dark and very bad night for Gotham City.
Gotham City Mayor Pamela Isley (AKA Poison Ivy) plans to make the city a gift to the Parliament of Trees (it's a thing Alan Moore created in the Swamp Thing series about 40 years ago) by overrunning Gotham with prehistoric plant life.
Isley is doing this for... reasons.
By sunrise, Gotham City will be subsumed and lost forever.
Commissioner Vandal Savage meets the problem with the only solution he knows, brute force in the form of his paramilitary police force.
Batman and his associates are spread out over the city, trying to save lives, stop Savage and his police goons from making things worse and head off the problem at the source: how to convince Isley to stop doing this.
Will this really need 10 weeks of comic books to sort out this one night of terror? The greedy bastards at DC are getting enough of my money.
Batman#13
Is this Matt Fraction's first misstep in his epic run as writer?
Well, that can happen when you have to sublimate your long term plans to a larger crossover event.
Drawn by guest artist Matteo Scalera (who does a fantastic job), the bulk of the issue involves Batman engaged in a siege of Gotham City Police HQ to get to Vandal Savage for... reasons.
It seems that Savage has a chemical weapon that he intends to use to kill Pamela Isley. But that won't stop what she's started, the overpowering of Gotham City with prehistoric plant life.
Batman needs Isley alive to stop what she started and Savage is threatening all that with his brute force agenda.
I asked if this issue was a misstep because as much as it's cool to watch Batman by his own damn self take on the entire Gotham police force, I expect more from Fraction that one issue long fight scene, no matter how cool it's written or how well it's drawn.
And goddammit, it is a very well done sequence. But...
These comics cost to damn much to not have more meat on the bones than this issue delivers.
Batman of Two Worlds#1
This is a special issue released for Batman Day.
It is NOT a team up between our main universe Batman and Absolute Batman as many fans may have anticipated.
What we get are two short stories.
The main universe Batman gives us the tale of a high tech robbery told from the perspective of a small, downtrodden security guard who sold out for a million dollars to leave the keys out for the robbers.
The Absolute Batman story tells of a similar tale of a robbery aided by an inside man.
Absolute Batman exists in the universe created by Darkseid. This version of Batman does not have the resources of near unlimited wealth. Bruce Wayne is a blue collar civil engineer.
If you want to know more about Absolute Batman, click here for the Wikipedia entry.
No, I have not been following Absolute Batman due to the aforementioned lack of time and coin to keep up with every damn thing.
Batman & Robin: Year One: Dynamic Duos#1-#2
Mark Waid and Chris Samnee are back with a follow up to my favorite Batman series from last year as they continue to explore the formative first year of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson as Batman and Robin.
Why does the title of the book have the word "Duos" (plural)?
Perhaps it's because Catwoman is flitting around the edges in her classic purple dress/green cape ensemble? (My favorite look for Catwoman, I will admit.) I suppose the Cat will entice the Bat at some point to create a different partnership than the one Bruce has with his young protégé.
There's a new criminal conspiracy afoot. It's Gotham City, there's always some damn criminal conspiracy or whatever going on.
This one centers around a gang of criminal urchins. Batman has sent a disguised Dick Grayson to infiltrate the gang.
Things take a turn when the the undercover Robin is ordered to shoot Catwoman!
Holy deadly dilemmas, Bat-Fans!
Next week, Dave-El's Spinner Rack returns with DC super teams: Justice League and the return of the Legion of Super Heroes!
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