In Batman: The Brave and the Bold #11, readers may feel like it’s an endurance test at times, but there are enough bright spots to make it more than worthwhile.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #11 main cover by Simone Di Meo (All images courtesy of DC Comics)
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #11
Writer: Karl Kerschl, Christos Gage, Delilah S. Dawson, Michael W. Conrad, Zac Thomson
Artists: Karl Kerschl, Danny Kim, Serg Acuña, PJ Holden, Ashley Wood
Inker: Norm Rapmund
Colors: Msassyk, Diego Rodriguez, Matt Herms, Mike Spicer
Letters: Steve Wands, Pat Brosseau, Dave Sharpe, Tom Napolitano, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover Artist: Simone Di Meo
Variant Cover Artists: Ashley Wood, Francesco Mattina
Release Date: March 26, 2024
This comic book review contains spoilers
“Batman: Mother’s Day Part 2”
Writer and Artist: Karl Kerschl
Inker: Norm Rapmund
Colors: Msassyk
Letters: Steve Wands
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #11 opens strong with the second of a three-part revival of the classic Gotham Academy run featuring returning characters such as Olive Silverlock, Isla MacPerson, and Maps Mizoguchi. An academy student named Tristan has been infected with Langstrom’s Man-Bat serum and is now aerially terrorizing the city. Meanwhile, Bruce tries to patch things up with Isla after the events of the last issue. The next day, Bruce checks on Anastaia’s recovery (the Gotham socialite who was bitten by the Man-Bat) but is infected himself. He hallucinates, jumps out of the top floor window, and takes a cab to the only man that can help him. But before Kirk Langstrom can administer an antiserum, the infection takes over and Bruce flees back to Isla MacPerson’s apartment, now with evil glowing red eyes.
Fans of Gotham Academy should be pleased to see its revival now with Bruce Wayne thrown directly into the mix. Unfortunately, the story necessitates Batman to exhibit a general incompetence that comes across as very out of character Last issue he was caught in a bit of a love triangle due to a poorly timed photograph between him and Anastaisia, but it was presented as more of a misunderstanding. Now he goes to visit her with absolutely no precautionary measures and immediately allows her to kiss his neck just so Kerschl can have him be infected with her vampiric kiss. Batman just falls headfirst into her trap. It’s lazy writing.
The story looks great though. It’s nice to see a return to the Gotham Academy-style and the few glimpses we get of Batman recall Neal Adams’ iconic 70s design. Msassyk’s purposeful color choices stand out most notability in the B:TAS-esque red sky during the Man-Bat pursuit and the misty greens oozing out of Langstrom’s lab.
“The Sweet Science”
Writer: Christos Gage
Artist: Danny Kim
Colors: Diego Rodriguez
Letters: Pat Brosseau
DC Comics has a storied history of western comics dating back to the original All-Star Western in the early 50s (I still hold firm that its short lived 2011 revival is criminally under-appreciated). So I’m always holding out hope that DC will try another ongoing Western series. In the meantime, however, we get this cool little West Texas shoot-em-up.
Bat-Lash, referred to here as “Bat,” is cheating in a barroom poker game before he is caught and challenged by a brute named Elijah and his two minions. After a shootout kills the minions, the barkeep breaks up the fight and proposes that the two duke it out for a reward the following night. Bat requests that his reward be his cousin Josephine’s freedom. The next night, after a forty-three minute brawl, Elijah falls headfirst into a furnace thus freeing Bat’s cousin from financial servitude. In the final panel, the two of them walk gleefully into the sunset.
Straight and to-the-point. This is a fun little western story story with some terrific art from Danny Kim that was giving me Frank Quitely’s Jonah Hex-vibes. It’s solid overall, but the abbreviated length means that a lot of exposition is conveyed in a very short amount of dialogue. After the opening confrontation, we learn that Bat was cheating to earn enough to free Josephine from working as a prostitute after her father had sold her to pay off mounting gambling debts. Perhaps there could have been a less clunky way to deliver that information but you can only do so much in twelve pages. Nonetheless, I get no greater joy than flipping open a DC book to find one of their old western characters in a new story. DC, more of this please!
“Artemis: The Poison Within Part 2”
Writer: Delilah S. Dawson
Artist: Serg Acuña
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Dave Sharpe
While sleeping in the desert, Artemis is bitten by a snake with psychoactive venom and experiences a hallucinatory journey of self-acceptance. This is the second part of a story and all that has happened so far is Artemis got bit by a snake and recovered. The inner monologue doesn’t even correspond to the action most of the time so what we’re essentially getting is some general self-improvement platitudes about moving on from trauma on top of some really cool psychedelic imagery from Serg Acuña and Matt Herms. I really can’t overstate how little happens in these twelve pages. You could skip this part entirely and not have missed anything (and part 1 too for that matter). A complete ‘nothing-sandwich’ of a story. These pages would’ve been better served if shuffled to “The Sweet Science” or “Private Stein.”
“Private Stein”
Writer: Michael W. Conrad
Artist: PJ Holden
Colors: Mike Spicer
Letters: Tom Napolitano
Fortunately, if you’re a connoisseur of all the non-superhero characters that cropped up in DC during the mid-20th century like I am, then Bat Lash isn’t the only pleasant surprise in-store for you. Here we have a World War II-era Sgt. Rock story of all things. Four US soldiers have been captured in an enemy POW camp and one of them going by the name “Private Stein” is tortured but refuses to talk. This name is actually pulled from a real world WWII Marine who was killed in action after receiving the Medal of Honor in 1945. When the enemies leave the torture chamber, the solders start trading war stories of the legendary “Sgt. Rock” and argue over whether he’s real or just a myth. It turns out he’s very much real because when the enemies return, Private Stein reveals that he is actually the coveted Sgt. himself before busting them out in a blaze of glory. This Sergeant’s got a touch for the theatric, doesn’t he?
This is another fun story that I wish we’d see more of from DC. Unfortunately when characters like Bat Lash and Sgt. Rock are so underutilized, they become mythic and every story they’re in boils down to “look how cool this guy is.” They’re forever preserved in their dimensionless Golden Age glory, when they would arguably benefit the most from our modern sensibilities regarding character depth and complexity. This is particularly true of Sgt. Rock who, outside of Darwyn Cooke, has remained stagnant for a half-century. I hate to even be critical because these stories are so rare but if we got more of them then we’d have the opportunity to see different kinds of stories. As much as I love seeing Rock and Bat kick butt and take names, it will inevitably get tiring and people will start to see these characters as gimmicky and boring. I don’t want that to happen.
The art from PJ Holden and Mike Spicer does a fantastic job recalling Joe Kubert’s classic style. You can tell this isn’t just a work-for-hire job for them. The flashback scenes even use Ben-Day dots and faded colors to give it the appearance of those weathered old Our Army at War issues you can find at your local comic book store. I said it for “The Sweet Science” and I’ll say it again here: DC, more of this please! Please!
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #11 variant cover by Ashley Wood
“The Crown of Twelve Tails”
Writer: Zac Thompson
Artist: Ashley Wood
Letters: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
This book has been out for a while now, you know the drill. As always we wrap up with an extra-short black & white Batman tale. Batman finds Ratcatcher’s dismembered body organized in ceremonial fashion in a Gotham City graveyard. Trace DNA leads him to a countryside cabin where a man named Jürgen Fowler is carrying out another ritual with Ratcatcher’s remains. Batman discovers that Fowler has gone insane after being bitten by an infected Rat. He takes him down and hands him over to the police.
This is an ugly story, both visually and thematically. The charcoal smear-black makes it hard to read the action. Even if it kind of fits Ratcatcher’s characteristic depravity, it still doesn’t make for a fun read.
Final Thoughts:
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #11 sees a fun continuation of last month’s Mat-Bat story and the return of two iconic DC legends, but still struggles to hold its consistency over all five stories. Maybe it’s time to drop the second Batman story (which is rarely good) and reorient the book as more of a DC showcase for lesser used characters like Bat-Lash, Sgt. Rock, and Wild Dog. Fans of these characters may not even know that they are being featured deep within the B, C, and D stories of yet another fledgling Batman book.
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced 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.
