We all find out some forty years later why she never got married. From Batman #153.
Posted by Dustin
This was obviously before Batwoman discovered her true sexuality. Let's just hope that Batman had nothing to do with her switching sides. From Batman #151.
Posted by Dustin
Here is Venom! An interesting take on Batman's mortality with undertones that comment on drug addiction. Plus it has a bat-beard! Check it out below. Next week we've got an extra long BBFB on The Long Halloween.
Posted by Nick
After reading the first issue of this story arc, I was very impressed, and hoping I wouldn’t be disappointed by part 2. Fortunately, I wasn’t. This issue delivers everything the first did.
The plot is pretty simple, but great nonetheless. Basically, Batman and Zinda Blake (who we met at the end of the last issue, and is a Blackhawk who was shot into the future) try to infiltrate Blackhawk Island. Batman is Successful, but Blake is captured by the villainous Theodore Gaynor. Gaynor escapes leaving Batman to die, but our caped crusader finds his way off the island, and manages to discover the identity of the mysterious man from last issue. And it is pretty unexpected, leaving me excited to learn more about just what’s going on. The story is fast paced, and never drags. The dialog is extremely well written as well. I really think Royal McGraw has the potential to be a great writer. He definitely knows what he’s doing here.
Just as good as the story though, is the art. I really like Marcos Marz’s art, and his cover for the issue is fantastic. His work feels clean, smooth, polished, and it flows wonderfully. His style also fits the story perfectly.
There’s not a lot to say about this issue, because I really can’t find anything I didn’t like about it, and I don’t want to spoil it too much. I highly recommend you pick this up; it has everything you could want in a good comic book story.
Batman Confidential #37:
Reviewed by The Caped Crusader
Batman has always a ton of tools and gadgets that he can use in some of the tightest situations. Here we see he really does have everything, even a "Bat-Robot" to use as a decoy. From Batman #138.
Posted by Dustin
The fate of Batman finally revealed? Bruce Wayne rises from the dead? The latest horror from the Blackest Night is none other than our own Caped Crusader?
In a stunning development from the ongoing DC universe series “Blackest Night” the skull of Bruce Wayne (that was ripped from its resting place by the villain Black Hand) has now been used as the instrument to induce the deaths of some of Earths greatest heroes.
You heard that right. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. In the latest issue of “Blackest Night” (number 5) the arch villain, Nekron, stands astride the resting place of seven million souls that once populated Coast City the home of Earth’s Green Lantern, Hal Jordan. Seemingly, only Barry Allen stands between Nekron and the fate of our world but he is soon aided by Wally West and Earths mightiest heroes the Justice League of America. The battle hangs in the balance until these heroes are joined by the seven “New Guardians” of light (read Green Lantern #48 for more back story) led by Hal Jordan. As victory is within their grasp the grimmest manifestation of the “Darkest Knight” we have ever seen is resurrected.
People, you have to see this Cadaverous Crusader to believe it. In a two page splash Ivan Reiss, ably assisted by inkers Prado and Albert and colorist Sinclair, the guardian of Gotham takes on his most hideous incarnation ever. This Batman is both compelling and repellent. Truly, it is one of the most stunning representations of Batman to date. Worse yet, in this story Batman is used as the emotional tether that Nekron needed to bring about the deaths of Wonder Woman, Superman, Conner Kent, Bart Allen and the Green Arrow Oliver Queen. As this unholy Batman regurgitates Black Lantern rings Nekron calls those heroes to their deaths as he has held them from their everlasting demise all along.
As soon as this new gothic horror of Gotham descends upon us he is gone. Having served his purpose, “Bruce Wayne” as Nekron calls him, is banished to the afterlife once again and his connection is severed. In his wake stands a new dark vision of the JLA and the fates of Barry Allen and Hal Jordan hang by a thread.
Was this truly “Bruce Wayne”? Is Red Robin/Tim Drake wrong about his fate? What answers will be given in the delayed “Batman and Robin” issue #7 and how does it tie into Blackest Night #6? If you haven’t picked up the magnum opus that is Geoff Johns “Blackest Night” I urge you to do so. This series that was once a bit slow paced and frustrating has really taken off and may be one of the best story lines we seen in comic books in years.
Written by Dark Knight Dave
So many of you that have been around the site for awhile may recognize some of these scans over the next couple of weeks. Most of these were used on the old blog and never made it on to the site. We start off with a scan from Batman #102. I am sure that you can tell that this era was all about the camp.
Posted by Dustin
Season 2 of Batman: The Brave and the Bold is now underway. Warner Bros. kicked off the season with an interesting episode that reminds myself of a old Hanna Barbera cartoon, Wacky Races. Tiggerbrown and rhine1784 reviewed the show, so let's see what rating it gets.
Review: Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Death Race to Oblivion
Synopsis: Heroes and villains are forced to race each other in order to save the world from destruction by Mongul.
The teaser reveals the mindless aggressive “Blockbuster” against the Caped Crusader as he and Captain Marvel team up to foil his museum master plan. SHAZAM!
Ladies and Gentlemen….START YOUR ENGINES!! In episode 1 for Season 2, the BMBATB starts out Mad Max/Wacky Races style. The evil and tyrannical alien Mongul with the help of his artificial planet weapon “War Moon” puts the heroes and villains to epic test. They must race each other for the savior of planet earth. Batman, Plastic man, Catwoman, the Joker, Black Manta, the Green Arrow and many others join in on the ultimate race, survivor style. As friend and foe race against the champion Steppenwolf, the War Moon slowly begins to house the drivers who aren’t so lucky.
This is the exact sort of episode which makes BTBTB so wonderful. The story line and characters within are absolutely a perfect fit for this series. We do get to see a slightly different side of Batman, “When it comes to protecting Gotham, I have no friends”. Season 2 is definitely off with a bang and the quality is superb.
BTBTB: Death Race to Oblivion:
Reviewed by rhine1784
Next we move on to Tiggerbrown's review.
Review: Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Death Race to Oblivion
Do you remember the movie Death Race 2000? Jason Statham starred in the 2008 remake of the much cooler 1975 cult classic with David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone. When I read the title to the season two premiere of BTBTB I thought to myself, “Man, they’re getting serious.” But Dustin called it in the preview, this more like the cartoon Wacky Races than a high octane, blood and guts action film.
There’s no Penelope Pitstop or Muttly here, but the campy cast of DC heroes and villains do their best to ham it up. The story is pretty basic: Mongol transports a group of heroes and villains to a barren desert where he forces them to race against Steppenwolf for control of the Earth or be executed. Using a weapon called the Warmoon; Mongol threatens the home city of each hero and the entire world. Batman, Green Arrow, Huntress, Joker, Catwoman and others all get their vehicles primed for the race to save the Earth. If you’re not familiar with the classic 60’s cartoon Dustin was comparing this to, think Cannonball Run but with super heroes. Just a side note; if WB had decided to make a live action Batman feature film instead of Superman in 1978, Burt Reynolds may have easily become the face of the Dark Knight. Pretty scary thought, isn’t it?
The episode works best when played for laughs. The Joker shines in the role of comic relief playing the commentator as well as getting in some site gags such as using a giant whoopee cushion to put Black Manta out of the race. I also liked the decision to include Woozy Winks, Plastic Man’s oafish sidekick. His very 1940’s depiction fits perfectly with the old school tone of the episode. The more dramatic plot elements are where the episode drops the ball. For example, having Batman pretend to be ruthless in his attempt to win the race at the expense of the lives of the other drivers was unconvincing for any fan of the Caped Crusader. Even Mongol should know better! I suppose if your only introduction to Batman is from this series, the rivalry between Green Arrow and Batman may have convinced you.
The production value, animation and acting were all up to the usual high standard. While he’s no Mark Hamill, Jeff Bennett stands out above the rest as the Joker. I much prefer this throwback to the Dailies style than the attempted modernization in The Batman.
I also continue to like the BTBTB version of the Huntress. This incarnation may be the series’ most intriguing female character. I hope she is featured again.
I leave the prelude to last. Captain Marvel is one of my favorite all time super heroes. Billy Batson and the World’s Mightiest Mortal are portrayed true to the Whiz comic’s original characters, much more so than in the Clash episode of Justice League Unlimited (Although it was still pretty spectacular!). My only criticism is that his appearance was far too short. If there is one character that would fit this series to a tee, it is The Big Red Cheese! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a full length Batman and Captain Marvel team-up.
Overall this episode had its comedic moments, but isn’t exactly the direction I was hoping for after last season’s finale or the Music Meister.
BTBTB: Death Race to Oblivion:
Reviewed by Tiggerbrown
Overall, I would have to agree more with Tiggerbrown. The episode was enjoyable and reminded me of a cartoon from my childhood, but there was nothing special that would make me remember the episode a couple of months from now. Let's hope the the season two episodes have more and better things in store for us.
Posted by Dustin
As you can see from here (Batman issue 366), Jason Todd dyed his own hair. Bruce didn't force him to do it as implied in Grant Morrison's "Batman and Robin". Don't pay any attention to what Vicki Vale is wearing. Don't.
Posted by Josh
Today's posts come from an artist you may remember from the past. Adam Hughes used to draw the Catwoman comics a couple of years ago. Well, it turns out that he posted up some interesting art for the cover of Catwoman #83, due out in January,on his deviantART page. He posted these back on November 9, but we came across them today since he posted up a new Catwoman image.
Posted by Dustin
Red Robin #6 marks the debut on the series of artist Marcus To and inker Ray McCarthy on both the cover and interior of the book replacing Francis Manapaul, who handled the covers, and Ramon Bachs, who did interiors, respectively. The fact that this is the second issue in a four issue arc, and the art team has been changed is not a thing I like to see in the middle of stories, even if it is getting rid of Bachs distinct change from Red Robin to Tim Wayne/Drake/Alvin Draper whatever the hell he calls himself these days.
The issue opens with a flashback to Panama city, and Red Robin telling us what Vitoria, the woman attacked by hundreds of spiders last issue, has been doing with her time, she’s been going all around South America killing random people just because she can. After that page on Vitoria, we have more Tim narration talking about looking into the files of the league and how they don’t pay taxes; did anyone want to know if a super assassin empire paid taxes? Me neither. Tim talks about how he set a trap to catch a member of the Council of Spiders, and how a spider fell into his trap, and now he is going to fight this poor man wolverine, right after we go back fourteen hours to Tim using a computer in one of Ra’s Al Ghul’s hideouts.
This scene is basically showing that Tim is now in way over his head, with bad men you just don’t want to mess with. Tim is reminded by Ra’s right hand man, White Ghost that when the league gets the Council of Spiders, they are going to kill them, much to Tim’s horror, for some reason. Why he wouldn’t think a group called the League of Assassins wouldn’t kill their enemy, I will never know.
Back to Tim fighting Wolverine, I mean, no let’s be honest, it’s Wolverine, Tim spends most of the fight standing about stopping people from hitting Wolvie until everyone faceless grunt on his team except his beloved Pru, is dead. Cut back to Panama City before and Vitoria meets a man from Ra’s league of assassins, who says he can bring her in, she decides to kill him instead, and then says to herself “Assassins” and that’s the last of her for this issue.
Next we have a two page scene with Vickie Vale in Lucius Fox’s office, looking for Bruce Wayne to interview, Bruce, who is really Tommy Elliot comes in and whisks her off to dinner, care about this storyline? Yeah, me neither. Back to Tim fighting Wolverine, now that Wolvie is tied up, Tim tries to play good cop, to Pru’s silent bad cop, telling him “Talk to me. Please. If you don’t talk to me the league takes over and you don’t want that” so Wolverine talks and tells Tim that this was only “One” of the hits, Tim finds out that only did he cause the deaths of many of Ra’s other men, but may also have caused Tam Fox to be killed by an eight foot Man-Spider. Yes, you read that right, Man-Spider, I’m not going to say it the other way, cause the other way makes it sound better than it is.
Right, somewhere in there is my synopsis of the issue, now to say what I think, first off, we jump around way too much for my liking, lets count how many jumps we have, page one is a scene about Vitoria, the crazy spider lady, page two has three, one in London, one in Athens and one in Budapest, next we have the Ra’s lair fourteen hours ago from, then back to Budapest with Red Robin for two pages, then Panama city with Vitoria before, back to present but in Gotham city, back to Budapest for a few pages of boring pages of Tim saying “This is all my fault…..I miss my daddy” Vitoria in a pointless page telling us what she killed a man and then finally Budapest followed by Ra’s lair again.
If that seemed like a lot to take in, well it was, there was so much going on in this issue, and so little to care about, that you can’t and not be able to follow the narrative. Yost’s writing here is distinctly average, it felt like when coming up with this issue he realized the main story of Tim fighting this cheap Wolverine knock-off was dull so he added his beloved jump around to try and throw the reader around so much that at the end they would feel like the read something interesting, well it wasn’t. The pages involving Tim talking about all the deaths he caused and what he found in Iraq and the black lanterns felt so forced to me, I was actually hoping Yost would throw me one of his cut always. The ending did not give me that “Oh my god! I need to get the next issue!” moment, it was more like “Oh, would you look at that…..a spider….man” as I put the comic down to clear my mind of it. This whole issue makes me want to say to Chris Yost, that, if you spent half as much time writing an interesting story as you did give me pointless flashbacks then you would have an awesome story. Also, I am really getting sick and tired of all the jumping around that Tim is doing around the world, Tim should be given a city he can call his own, like Nightwing had Bludhaven and be able to operate out of there, and not all the world traveling that he has been doing, because along with the flashbacks and jumping around, that’s getting old fast.
The art by Marcus To and Ray McCarthy is reasonable, it’s nothing I’d write home about, the cover was the best part of the art, and the greatest thing I can say is that at least now Red Robin looks like he could be Tim Wayne, instead of two different people. Mostly the art is just regular comic art, it looks and feels like a regular comic, that when you are done reading, you’ll put away and never look at again, because the art is average this isn’t a comic you’ll go back to because of the writing either.
So all in all, a pretty average issue, there were some flaws with it, such as the man-spider and all the jumping around, and Tim being whiny and unlikable for most of the issue. Yost has promised that the flashbacks will be ending soon, which would be nice, but the real question is, when they end, will their still be a comic left when that time comes. To stick with the site ratings, I’ll give this a two and half, for my own personal scale, I’d say this comic has 50p bargain bin written all over it.
Red Robin #6:
Reviewed by Suavestar
I always thought this panel from Detective Comics issue 700 was cool. Batman, Nightwing and Robin face off again Ra's Al Ghul and his men during LEGACY.
Posted by Josh
If you are viewing this site, I think it is safe to say that you have probably seen this show at one point. The show started off by focusing on the Big Seven of the DCU. They were Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Martian Manhunter. Now you might argue if these seven should be the main seven, but that is besides the point. Justice League ran two seasons and then was renamed Justice League Unlimited, which also ran for two seasons giving the series a total of four seasons. Justice League Unlimited still featured the "Big Seven," but it also featured a lot of lesser known DC characters. And when I say lesser known, I mean that. I don't think as a casual reader of DC Universe comics, you would have came across Waverider or Vibe. But the series introduced new characters that casual fans and even some seasoned fans may never have known about.
There is nothing bad to say at all about this series. The stories were well written and the animation was high quality. The only downfall of the series was that it ended. The first two seasons featured many multi-part episodes were the story carried over between two and sometimes three episodes. JLU didn't have the multi-part episodes, but it did have an overarching storyline through both of the seasons. The show hasn't been aired regularly on Cartoon Network for quite some time. I personally own the entire series in individual season form.
As for this set there are a couple of negatives, but we will get to that in a minute. Let's cover the series as a whole collected. The entire series has ninety-one episodes. The price tag may seem steep depending on where you are going to buy it from, but even $99.99 as the suggested retail price, is well worth it. Let me put it into perspective. If you were to sit down in front of your TV and start watching the series, it would take you more than two days to watch the entire series. Now I don't recommend you do that, but you may find yourself doing exactly that once you start watching the series. It is just that good.
Now for the negatives. I don't know if it is just the copies that I get sent or what, but there is always some sort of packaging error. With this series, I know it isn't just mine. The fifteen discs are packaged in two plastic DVD cases. One having all of the discs for Justice League and the other one having all of Justice League Unlimited. The two plastic cases are then enclosed in a steel case. Now, the problem with this steel case is that it has lips around the edges, which makes it difficult to get the plastic cases out without having to bend the steel. If someone was going to spend close to one hundred dollars on the series, I would imagine that they do not want to damage the casing. Once you figure out how to get the cases out, you might notice (or this was just mine) that the cases are mis-marked. They are labeled Volume One and Volume Two, but when you open the Volume One case, you find Justice League Unlimited, which many know is actually Volume Two. The paper inserts describing what is on the discs is also mis-placed in the wrong cases. Now, it may seem that I am making a big deal about nothing (and I probably am) but I can't understand why something that gets designed by a person and sent to a factory never gets checked to see if it makes sense. On top of all the that, the discs are labeled as if you bought separate seasons instead of one through fifteen.
I know I am spending way too much time covering the packaging of the series, but the thing is that this is the exact same thing that you might already have if you own the separate seasons. The special features are the same except for one new one. It is on the fifteenth disc and has the series creators discussing challenges and opportunities that the different characters presented.
Overall, the series is remarkable. It is up to par with Batman: The Animated Series. And I would even say that the writing for this series is actually a little better since it as an overall story plot. If I put aside the packaging mishaps, this is the perfect gift for a DC Universe fan for the holidays.
Justice League: The Complete Series:
It would have been a perfect five if not for the packaging and lack of new special features. Keep in mind that this rating is not what the show itself would be rated. I am rating the series collected in this new form. I can't stress enough that the show is amazing. The series was released on November 10. You can find it on Amazon by clicking here. Warner Bros. sent over this clip to show with the review. Take a look:
Posted by Dustin