In Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13, we are treated to 5 stories featuring Batman, Nightwing, Deadman, Booster Gold, and Guy Gardner!
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13 cover by Simone di Meo. (Credit: DC Comics)
Title: Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13
Writer: Tim Seeley, Mark Russell, Delilah S. Dawson, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Jason Shawn Alexander, Rodney Barnes
Artists: Kelley Jones, Jon Mikel, Serg Acuña, Lisandro Estherren, Jason Shawn Alexander
Colors: Michelle Madsen, Mike Spicer, Matt Herms, Patricio Delpeche
Letters: Rob Leigh, Ferran Delgado, Dave Sharpe, Becca Carey, Tom Napolitano
Cover Artist: Simone Di Meo
Variant Cover Artists: Jason Shawn Alexander, Francesco Mattina
Release Date: May 28, 2024
This comic book review contains spoilers.
“Nightwing & Deadman: Down the Road Part 1”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Kelley Jones
Colors: Michelle Madsen
Letters: Rob Leigh
During a routine nightly patrol of Bludhaven, Nightwing (Dick Grayson) notices a woman standing on the edge of a bridge. He stops to talk to her down and sees that she has bloody back wounds and is covered in tattered ribbons. She looks at him and speaks the cryptic message “if I fall may I never land” before jumping into the harbor. Nightwing jumps in after her, but she seemingly disappears into thin air before he can save her. After a series of investigative dead-ends, Nightwing is visited by Boston Brand AKA The Deadman who provides him with a bumblebee token that allows them to communicate. Having both previously worked in the circus, they deduce that the ribbon-covered woman must have hailed from there too. “If I fall may I never land” is an old circus superstition Deadman says, it also happens to be the last words Dick’s parents said to him before they died. The pair decide to stow aboard an old train carrying circus performers, but they are attacked by a group of performers after being discovered in one of the boxcars. Deadman dispatches one of the men who is then chased through the nearby woods by a large supernatural creature calling itself “The Unfallen.”
Nightwing and Deadman are both welcome additions to this book, and their shared circus background opens the door for an intriguing dynamic. Nightwing even comments on the fact that they have so rarely crossed paths despite their uniquely shared experience. Hopefully we will get more of the budding good-cop/bad-cop partnership in later issues. The mystery centered around the ribbon-covered woman has yet to really grab me, as it relies mostly on retconned information. There isn’t much trust granted to the reader as nearly every development is explained meticulously through Nightwing’s expositional narration.
Kelley Jones is obviously a legend, and there are times when the art distinctly recalls his iconic 90s runs on Batman, helped in no small part by Michelle Madsen’s wonderful washed-out coloring. Having said that, the character designs vary drastically from panel to panel and at times appear sloppy and slapdash. Nightwing looks bloated, and Deadman’s figure is detached from anything resembling normal human anatomy.
“Time Jerks Part 1”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Jon Mikel
Colors: Mike Spicer
Letters: Ferran Delgado
Time Jerks opens with an immediate homage to James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy with Booster Gold flying through space in a dome-windowed craft listening to a CD mixtape labeled “Tame Travel Jamz.” After accidentally bumping an asteroid, Gold crash-lands on Earth 65-million years in the past, and Skeets warns him to try not to do anything to throw the timeline off its axis. Then, with the help of the “Jurassic League” (a group of human-dinosaur hybrids in spandex superhero costumes), he is able to repair his vessel and launch himself back into space and back into his original time period of 2471 C.E. The only problem is, when he lands, he discovers that the entire planet is now populated with those dinosaur-human hybrids from before. It turns out that the meteor Gold hit was the same one that was supposed to wipe out the dinosaurs, so they now inhabit the Earth as intelligent beings.
I’m a sucker for anything off the wall like the “Jurassic League,” and while I haven’t read the 2022 run, I had a good chuckle seeing them here. Maybe I would need to read that to understand how dinosaurs were sentient 65-million years ago, because that’s just treated like an established fact in this story. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just a Planet of the Apes story with dinosaurs (SPOILERS! the 2001 version more so than the 1968). It’s ok. Jon Mikel, who worked on the original Jurassic run, provides some really fun art here. A T-Rex dressed as Batman is just… wow. The best thing I can say about this is it makes me want to check out the original Jurassic League story.
“Artemis: The Poison Within Part 4”
Writer: Delilah S. Dawson
Artist: Serg Acuña
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Dave Sharpe
This month finally sees the conclusion to the drawn out Artemis-AXE story we’ve been following since February. Artemis faces off against the AXE (Amazon eXtradition Entity) troops in the deserts outside of Qurac. After co-opting a helicopter and dodging areal cannon fire, Artemis is rescued by two fellow Amazonians in a passing jet.
My thoughts on this story remain the same as in past months. It reads to me as filler. Almost an advertisement for Tom King’s Wonder Woman run with almost nothing to grasp onto in and of itself. It even ends with a tag “follow the saga of Amazons in the pages of Wonder Woman.” There was no great revelation or twist in the final part of this story. No reason to justify its existence beyond that final tag. Serg Acuña and Matt Herms’ art and colors are fantastic as always. Otherwise this just felt like a wasted exercise.
Nightwing & Deadman: Down the Road Part 1 by Tim Seeley, Kelley Jones, Michelle Madsen & Rob Leigh. Courtesy of DC Comics.
“The Invader Part 1”
Writer: Joshua Hale Fialkov
Artist: Lisandro Estherren
Colors: Patricio Delpeche
Letters: Becca Carey
In the issue’s fourth story, we finally get our first appearance of Batman (unless you count Batsaur), and I’m not complaining. Here Batman comes across a grounded UFO straight out of a 1950s movie. When he attempts to enter it, he experiences a psychic attack that forces him to relive past trauma through a distorted green haze. He calls resident JL spaceman Hal Jordan for help but is instead sent the affable and occasionally hapless Guy Gardner. Guy is unable to identify the craft even with the help of the Guardian’s knowledge. On the final page, we finally get a glimpse of the alien itself. It’s a classic Roswell gray shooting beats of light out of its three-digit hand.
This chapter is light on story but still an intriguing setup for things to come. Guy Gardner and Batman are always an enjoyable pairing, as highlighted in the Brave and the Bold TV series. Joshua Hale Fialkov’s dialogue skews a little juvenile at times, especially with Batman. Lines like “I do know how to ask for help- on the EXTREMELY rare occasions I need it” and “The guardians know literally everything in the universe” sound more like they’d be coming from a Dick Grayson than Bruce, but on the other hand, this is a story where Batman has a space helmet with translucent bat ears that serve no practical purpose other than to look cool (goofy?). Maybe it’s Batman’s unwonted self-awareness, maybe it’s the 50s-era UFO plot, or maybe it’s just Guy’s appearance, but this really feels like it could’ve been one of those teasers for the aforementioned Cartoon Network show. And that’s a compliment!
Lisandro Estherren and Patricio Delpeche give the story a beautiful sketchy watercolor look. It carries over a bit of the janky design elements from Kelley Jones’ Nightwing & Deadman work, but it suits this one better since the story is shorter and taking itself far less seriously.
“Perp Walk”
Plot and Artist: Jason Shawn Alexander
Script: Rodney Barnes
Letters: Tom Napolitano
Perp Walk ends the issue with a short out-of-continuity story about a regular perp finally murdering the Joker for good. Rather than experiencing relief, Batman appears indignant towards this man, telling him how the Joker pushed him to be better. He takes the man to a cell at police headquarters and tells the on-duty cop that the man’s a murderer. Finally, he mournfully says goodbye to Joker at the morgue and thanks him.
Batman claiming that Joker “pushed him out of his comfort zone” is just an absolutely bizarre thing to say even in the modern era obsessed with the two’s paradoxical codependence. I miss the days when Joker was simply Batman’s nemesis and any deeper connection was just lightly conveyed subtext. Now every Batman/Joker story has to be about how they have some deep spiritual connection. They have to love each other more than they hate each other. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when presented literally. Batman tells a man who killed a serial killer in self-defense that he will spend the rest of his life behind bars before visiting the Joker’s corpse, gingerly touching his hand, and thanking him. This kind of thing has just gone too far. It’s not interesting anymore.
The artwork by Jason Shawn Alexander has a creepy sketchbook quality to it. Batman’s ears jut high above the cowl and his shoulders curl like a gargoyle. Joker’s smile also twists into a spiral at the ends. At its most abstract, it recalls Dave McKean’s work on A Serious House.
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advance copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
