The New 52 Review: BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #1

"This Batman is fo' reals, y'all!"

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #1
DC COMICS

PLOT: Paul Jenkins and David Finch
WRITER: Paul Jenkins
PENCILS: David Finch
INKS: Richard Friend
COLORS: Alex Sinclair
LETTERS: Sal Cipriano
32pp, Color, $2.99 U.S.

Late last year, DC Comics launched a new Batman comic book series, Batman: The Dark Knight (#1, cover date January 2011). The series was written and penciled by David Finch. It dealt with Bruce Wayne’s life in Gotham City, with an emphasis on the commitments, relationships, connections he has in the city.

Now, a new volume of Batman: The Dark Knight is the fourth Batman comic book series to come from “The New 52,” DC Comics re-launch of its superhero comic book line. As I read it, this book features a Batman that is older, smarter, more powerful, and certainly more dangerous. I would say that he is 30-something, maybe even late 30’s. He acts and sounds like a police officer, and in the opening scenes, Batman is a very self-assured superhero.

Batman: The Dark Knight #1 (“Knight Terrors”) opens with Bruce Wayne attending one of those social gatherings that involve charity and very rich and successful men, like Wayne, making speeches. All is not clean and neat, as Bruce has to entertain a sleazy Senator and fend off an aggressive officer from Gotham City Police Department Internal Affairs. The beautiful Jaina Hudson makes the night interesting, however. Meanwhile, all hell has broken loose at Arkham Asylum, and Two-Face seems to be the focal point.

Setting the initial action and conflict of a first issue at a high society party doesn’t seem like a smart move on the part of co-plotters David Finch and Paul Jenkins, who wrote the script. That would be true if Finch and Jenkins weren’t setting up what seems like a more dangerous Gotham; don’t turn your back, Bruce, to anyone – unless you’re ready to take on the knife. Add Arkham sequences, and Batman: The Dark Knight will need a Batman who is a seriously dark knight. The storytelling is not as polished as it is in the new Detective Comics and new Batman and Robin, but it could get there.

The art by the team of Finch, Richard Friend (inks), and Alex Sinclair (colors) is quite good. By now, Finch’s pencils no longer really resemble the pencil art of Marc Silverstri, Brandon Peterson, Jim Lee, or whoever may have influenced him – not really. Some of the faces Finch draws quite frankly look bizarre, and in one case, what looks like an ugly top lip is really a mustache. Still, there are moments of brilliance: the two-page spreads on pages 2 and 3 and on 12 and 13 (of the story) and also the final page, which has an EC Comics quality.

B+

The New 52 Review: JUSTICE LEAGUE #1

JUSTICE LEAGUE #1
DC COMICS

WRITER: Geoff Johns
PENCILS: Jim Lee
INKS: Scott Williams
COLORS: Alex Sinclair
LETTERS: Patrick Brosseau
COVER: Jim Lee, Scott Williams, and Alex Sinclair
VARIANT COVER: David Finch, Richard Friend, and Peter Steigerwald
40pp, Color, $3.99

DC Comics’ premiere superhero team, the Justice League of America, first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #28 (cover dated February/March 1960). The League’s original lineup of superheroes was Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter. The League got its own title, Justice League of America in 1960. Over time, that series was re-launched as Justice League (1987), JLA (1996-cover dated 1997), and Justice League of America (Vol. 2, 2006), among various other miniseries, specials, alternate versions, etc.

Now, DC Comics is re-launching its superhero comic book line with 52 #1 issues – “The New 52,” and the first new #1 is Justice League, written by Geoff Johns, penciled by Jim Lee, and inked by Scott Williams. This new League has a starting lineup: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, and Cyborg (originally of The New Teen Titans). Additional members will include The Atom, Hawkman, and Deadman, among others.

Justice League #1 opens five years prior to whatever is the current time in the DC Universe. Batman is caught between a vicious alien creature that he is chasing across the rooftops of Gotham City and helicopter-borne members of the Gotham City Police Department that want to put a cap in his ass. Just when it seems that Batman is in trouble, Green Lantern arrives. Now, Batman has an unwanted partner as he tries to unravel a mystery that seems to originate from outer space.

I didn’t expect much of Justice League #1, but I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s not great, but it is a very good read. The art by Jim Lee and his longtime collaborator, Scott Williams, features some impressive compositions and designs… of course, though Lee’s figure drawing is below his recent work. Between the coated paper stock used to print this book and Alex Sinclair’s succulent and gleaming coloring, there was a glare off this comic that tried to blind me.

Seriously though, I like this. Batman is Batman. With Green Lantern, Geoff Johns seems to be channeling Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark and Kanye West. I haven’t read a Justice League comic book in the last five or six years, and this is a great issue to welcome me back.

B+


FLASHPOINT #5: http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/2011/09/flashpoint-5.html

Leroy Douresseaux on BATMAN: TIME AND THE BATMAN

BATMAN: TIME AND THE BATMAN

DC COMICS

WRITERS: Grant Morrison and Fabian Nicieza
ARTISTS: Tony S. Daniel, Cliff Richards, Andy Kubert, Frank Quitely, David Finch, Richard Friend, and Scott Kolins
COLORS: Ian Hannin, Alex Sinclair, Tony Aviña, Brand Anderson, and Peter Steigerwald
LETTERS: Jared K. Fletcher and Travis Lanham
COVER: David Finch and Scott Williams
EXTRAS ART: Mike Mignola, Kevin Nowlan, Dave Stewart, Shane Davis, Sandra Hope, Barbara Ciardo, Juan Doe, Dustin Nguyen, Guillem March, Tim Sale, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Philip Tan
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2989-4; hardcover
128pp, Color, $19.99 U.S., $22.99 CAN

DC Comics recently published a hardcover comic book collection entitled Batman: Time and the Batman. It collects Batman issues 700 to 703 with some extras, including variant covers and a peak inside the Batcave rendered with 3-D modeling.

There is also a gallery of Batman illustrations, a portfolio of sorts entitled “Creatures of the Night: A Batman Gallery.” I won’t say that this gallery is worth the cost of the book, but it is worth at least a quarter of this book’s cover price. There are two hot pieces from Dustin Nguyen and a striking piece by Guillem March, among others.

Batman: Time and the Batman is essentially a bridge story arc that connects Batman R.I.P., Final Crisis, and Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne to one another. In the opening chapter, “Time and the Batman,” the three Batmen: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Damian Wayne fight the past, present, and future. Batman’s most dangerous adversary, the Joker, and a few others use the Maybe Machine, the invention of Professor Carter Nichols, to raise hell in Gotham City across decades.

Next, in a missing chapter of R.I.P., Batman faces Darkseid and trap that will have him doubting his own mind and perceptions and also lost in time. Finally, in “The Great Escape,” the new Batman and Robin face the Gateway Genius and Damian is confronted by how little he knows about his father. It is a sentimental and highly-enjoyable story from the underrated Fabian Nicieza and artist Cliff Richards.

I recently saw an article that began by describing Grant Morrison as a god to fans, and yes, I’m tired of hearing about fanboy gods. Still, there is reason to love some Grant Morrison because his current run on Batman has been so much fun to read. Let’s face it, pretty much every Batman comic book since Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns has lived in the shadow of (ominous music) The Dark Knight Returns.

To me, at least, Grant Morrison’s Batman is more Dennis O’Neil than it is Frank Miller, but what defines Morrison’s Batman is what defines most of his work, imagination. From page to page, the reader never really knows what to expect and from panel to panel the reader never knows what will come out of the characters’ mouths. After 70 years, Batman can be forgiven for suffering from sameness. In Morrison’s hands, Batman is fresh and bouncy. I swear that when I read this I sometimes think that the whole Batman universe is brand new.

Now, this doesn’t always work that way. “R.I.P. – The Missing Chapter” is a rambling mess; it’s the kind of nonsensical, tie-in comic that is the poster child for why crossover events have been done to death. On the other hand, “Time and the Batman,” the opening story, is sparkly and energetic. The story dances across the pages, as Morrison takes us from one Batman to the next (including Batman Beyond).

Most of this book is good, and although the “missing” chapter of R.I.P. is a true blue misfire, Batman: Time and the Batman is a Grant Morrison Batman book to have.

B+