DC Comics Review: Batman and Robin #5

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Rating: *** 1/2*

Another great issue in Grant Morrison’s run on Batman and Robin.  The issue picks up right where we left off in the previous issue with Red Hood and Scarlet confronting the new Batman and Robin.  Some very cool dialogue between the current Robin Damian Wayne and the second one The Red Hood Jason Todd.  It’s funny.  Even though I’m on the side of Batman and what he stands for, the Red Hood makes a good point when he says that after killing all of these criminals, they will think twice before setting foot in Gotham. 

Damian is being his normal arrogant self here, and decides to try and take Jason out, but Jason proceeds to catch him and ram his face into the ground.  Batman not being too happy about that, returns the favor.  Scarlet grabs Damian in retaliation and holds him at knife point.  Batman backs off of the Red Hood and allows them to escape as they need to turn the Penguin over to police.

Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Batman and Robin #5

DC Comics Review: Red Robin #4

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Rating: ***

I wasn’t thrilled that Damian Wayne would be replacing Tim Drake as Robin, but with that disappointment came the revelation that Tim was now the new Red Robin.  In my reviews of this series so far, I haven’t been all that thrilled with the writing or the artwork for this series.  The first two issues were okay, but the last issue was not very good and I began to think that maybe it was time to drop this title.  This month’s issue was able to prevent that decision from being made.  Writer Chris Yost has written a good issue - maybe the best in the series so far, but Ramon Bachs artwork is still weighing things down which prevents me from giving this book a better rating. 

Our story picks up with Tim in Iraq.  The members of the League of Assassins that we’ve seen in the previous issues are there waiting for him to assist him with his mission in locating Bruce Wayne.  It dawned on me in this issue that these three members of the League of Assassins don’t look like people Ra’s al Ghul would normally have in his League.  The lead member in this trio is a black man who fought against Tim and the other members of the Bat Family as a ninja when Ra’s was being resurrected.  Normally I picture Middle Eastern assassins with Ra’s, but at this point it doesn’t really matter.

Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Red Robin #4

DC Comics Review: Blackest Night: Batman #1

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Rating: ***

The Blackest Night storyline continues in this separate three issue mini-series entitled Blackest Night: Batman.  This series will focus on the Black Lanterns going after the deceased relatives a various Bat-family members.  As I mentioned in my review for Blackest Night #2 , this first issue also focuses on Boston Brand - Deadman and his physical body being resurrected into a Black Lantern.  Writer Peter Tomasi does a good job here, but I have to give him some negative points on this one because of the way he writes the character of Damian Wayne - Robin.  If you’ve been reading Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin, Morrison portrays Damian as a major jerk.  Judd Winick follows Morrison’s lead, but has toned it down a bit over in his stories in Batman, but the jerk personality of Damian is thrown completely out the window here in Tomasi’s version of the character.  There’s no arrogance; no snide comments about Dick not being the real Batman, nothing.  Instead we get a character who if you picked up this issue without knowing what has happened over the past few months, you would think that this new Robin is more along the lines of Tim Drake.

With that being said, the story is still very good in my opinion.  It opens up with Batman (Dick Grayson) and Robin at the graves of Bruce Wayne and his parents, Thomas and Martha.  As we all know, Black Hand went to Bruce’s grave and took his skull for some unknown reason.  The caskets of Thomas and Martha have also been dug up, but their remains have not been resurrected into Black Lanterns.  In this scene, Tomasi’s makes his first mistake of writing Damian out of character as Damian shows genuine feeling of sadness as he sees the bodies of his grandparents.  He’s so distraught that he can’t bear to pick up their bodies as Dick decides to remove them from their graves to a safer location.  The Damian that we see in Batman and Robin probably wouldn’t care much for the bodies of people he didn’t know - even if they are related to him.  He’d probably say something like let’s toss ‘em back in the hole and let’s go.

Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Blackest Night: Batman #1

DC Comics Review: Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Rating: ***

The conclusion to “Batman: Battle for the Cowl” is here. I enjoyed the two previous issues of “Battle for the Cowl” immensely, but for some reason this issue left me wanting more. I’m not sure what else I wanted or expected from this issue, but the issue was a bit of let down. This is of course the storyline which names the new man to take over the role of Batman. For months now we have all assumed that the man who takes over is Dick Grayson aka Nightwing the first Robin and that the new Robin will be Damian Wayne Bruce Wayne’s illegitimate son. At the end of the issue, everything seems to be revealed as far as who’s the new dynamic duo. Who are they and what did we see in this issue? Lets find out!

Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3

My Future with the Batman titles

Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, DC Comics,

According to IGN.com there are some big changes in store for the Batman titles post-Battle for the Cowl. In June we will see some new series premiere and the traditional Bat-titles get new creative teams. Here is the list: “Detective Comics,” “Batman,” “Batman and Robin,” “Red Robin,” “Gotham City Sirens,” “Batman: Streets of Gotham,” and the “Outsiders.” I also saw on a message board over at CBR that Batgirl will be getting her own series again. The CBR message board also posts who are the creative teams behind each book.

The good news for me is that Grant Morrison is off “Batman”. The bad news is that he’s being replaced by Judd Winick. I’ve enjoyed stuff that Judd has written in the past. His work on “Exiles” and “The Outsiders” was good - particularly the “Exiles” that book rocked and hasn’t been good since he left. However, I was not all impressed with his previous work on Batman. Why DC didn’t just give the “Batman” title completely to Tony Daniel as he’s staying as artist I don’t know. Maybe it would be too much to handle? I love what Daniel is doing on “Battle for the Cowl”. “Detective Comics” will be written by Greg Rucka and will feature Batwoman - I’ll check out the first issue, but I’m not a big fan of Greg Rucka so I may end up dropping it. I also could care less about Batwoman.

Although Grant Morrison will be leaving the “Batman” title, he will be staying in the Bat-universe and will be launching a new monthly series entitled “Batman and Robin” along with his usual artist collaborator Frank Quitley. According to IGN, this title will be the “flagship” of the Batman titles. I’m not happy with that statement as I feel the original title of any group of comic books should be the flagship title. The flagship title for Batman should be and always be “Detective Comics”.

Click to continue reading My Future with the Batman titles

What’s next for Batman after Final Crisis?

Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, DC Comics,

Batman is dead.  In this week’s issue of “Final Crisis”, Batman died at the hands of Darkseid.  I always felt that if DC were to ever write this story, (I’m not including the death of Earth 2 Batman or any Elseworlds stories) Batman’s death would come at the hands of one of his rogues.  It would be an epic tale where the Joker or Ra’s would finally succeed in getting one over on Bruce in a moment of weakness. 

So now that he’s dead, where do we go from here?  Well we know DC will be putting “Detective Comics” and “Batman” on hiatus and in it’s place will be a three part miniseries entitled “Battle for the Cowl”.  We can assume from the title that there will be a fight of some sort to see who will take over as Batman.  The players are: Nightwing, Robin, Jason Todd, and Hush.

This is much different that what we saw during the “Knightfall” trilogy where the mantle was simply given to Jean Paul Valley aka Azrael.  Bruce’s relationship with Dick Grayson was estranged at the time and Tim Drake was too young, so for some reason it was deemed fitting that the character of Bruce Wayne would rationally relinquish the most important thing in his life to this guy he barely knew - but that’s ancient history now.

Click to continue reading What’s next for Batman after Final Crisis?