Scott and Dan pick the comics they’re most looking forward to…
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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension
David Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One Artist’s Edition, IDW/DC. Book of the year? (Other than the forthcoming 1982 DC Comics Style Guide?) Yeah, I’d say so.
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Action Comics #1068, DC. I dug the first issue of this three-parter by Gail Simone and Eddy Barrows. It’s basically a Bronze Age story with some Golden Age elements thrown in, along with modern flourishes. It’s standalone, so if you’re looking for a good, old-fashioned Superman adventure, you’ve come to the right place.
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A Death in the Family: Robin Lives!, DC. As I surmised, it’s not all happy time for Jason. He’s dealing with serious PTSD and looks headed down a dark path. Plus: Copperhead!
Check out this groovy Dan Mora variant, by the way. It’s a riff on Norm Breyfogle’s Batman #465, but with Jason instead of Tim. Because, see, Jason never died…
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Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 Facsimile Edition, Marvel. Spidey gets a new pair of shoes! And a whole outfit to go with ’em! (Check out Fred Van Lente’s latest COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: Secret Wars #8 vs. Crisis on Infinite Earths #8. Click here.) There’s also a foil cover, which I bet looks really cool with all that red.
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Batman and Robin #12, DC. I’m here for the Simone Di Meo Batman 85th anniversary variant, which simultaneously homages Neal Adams and Bernie Wrightson’s Batman #241 cover and Batman: The Animated Series. (Fun Bat-fact: Batman #241 was the first issue to use that famed logo.)
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Kardak the Mystic #1, Archie. A one-shot that brings back the obscure MLJ Golden Ager. Sounds like fun!
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House of Secrets #92 Facsimile Edition, DC. A new printing but this one has a leg up on the 2019 version because the UPC symbol is on the back. (There are also foil and sketch covers.)
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Beware the Planet of the Apes, Marvel. The trade paperback of the fun, little miniseries by Marc Guggenheim and Alvaro Lopez.
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Scott Tipton, columnist, 13th Dimension
Batman by Paul Dini Omnibus, DC. Dini’s runs on Detective Comics and Streets of Gotham are well worth collecting.
Dan adds: I finished Batman: Caped Crusader. I liked it. It was good. And I enjoyed all the villain twists, especially the Penguin, who was awesome. (I wish there was more of her!) But overall, there was something missing and I can’t quite articulate it. Somebody on Facebook said the show needed Dini. They might be right. By the way this volume, a new edition, includes one of the best Batman Christmas stories ever — “Slayride,” from 2006’s Detective #826.
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Jonny Quest #1, Dynamite. Looking forward to Joe Casey’s take on this Hanna-Barbera classic.
Bob Layton’s variant cover, colored by our pal Rich Seetoo
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X-Factor #1, Marvel. I’m a big Warren Worthington fan, so this has my interest.
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Iron Fist 50th Anniversary Special #1, Marvel. Some of my favorite creators are taking part in the proceedings here; folks like Chris Claremont, Elena Casagrande and Ty Templeton.
Dan adds: LOVE that Alan Davis cover!
August 12, 2024
“But overall, there was something missing [about Batman: The Caped Crusader] and I can’t quite articulate it.”
I felt the same way. I expected to like it, and I thought it was just…okay. I think there were three problems:
— The stories were banal. I liked that they tried to do something different with the characters, but in most of the episodes, that was as far as they went in pushing the stories. There seemed to be an expectation on the part of the creators that the twists about the characters would be enough. But it wasn’t. I had no problem with them doing things like gender-bending the Penguin. The problem was that she (and that story) wasn’t all that interesting. Most of the episodes were like that. They felt like a promising first draft that never got revised.
— The direction was bland. This was the thing that really held back series for me. So much of each episode was people just standing around. Which is fine if that’s what the story requires. But as other animated series have shown, that can still be presented in a more visually interesting and dynamic way (how many times did we need to see Batman and Alfred just standing in front of that map in the Batcave?). And then the action sequences themselves just felt flat to me. Compare that to other Bruce Timm produced animation (like Justice League Unlimited or the direct-to-video movies of the past 15 years). What this series needed was a good action-oriented director like former JLU director (and current Spider-Verse director) Joaquim do Santos. Instead, the direction felt not too far removed from the kind of direction we used to see in Hannah Barbera cartoons of the 1970s and ’80s: a lot of bland, unimaginative camera placement and sluggish editing. And was it just me, or did the animators not know how to animate people walking or running?
— It was overly nostalgic. There was no reason for this series to be set in the 1940s. This isn’t a personal bias against that era. What I mean is that nothing in the narrative was specific to the 1940s (e.g., no allusions to social issues or tropes of the time (this was my beef with Wonder Woman 1984, too: nothing in that story required it to be set in 1984, so why do it and make such a big deal out of it (like putting the year in the title)?)). So the 1940s visual styling ended up coming across as a superficial stylistic affectation that added nothing to the story and was even distracting (if you’re going to keep drawing attention to anachronisms that differ from the current day, like rotary phones and small black and white TVs, then what’s the payoff?). Instead of feeling alive and innovative, the series came across as a self-indulgent pastiche.
Again, at the end of the day I thought it was okay. But it was a real struggle to get through (I fell asleep during three separate episodes). Maybe I’m reading too much into this (because I have no idea how much involvement he had in the series), but Matt Reeves’ name in the credits set off a lot of alarm bells for me. Just like his Apes movies and his The Batman movie, this series was very pretty to look at (e.g., art direction and design), but narratively empty at its core, sluggishly paced, and a chore to get through.
August 12, 2024
Can we just give X-Factor back to Madrox (and Peter David) already? Thank you.