Absolutely Iconic: A Review of Batman and Robin: Year One

written by Mark Waid (plot and script) and Chris Samnee (plot)

drawn by Chris Samnee

colored by Mathew Lopes

One of my absolute favorite creative teams in all of comicdom is the duo of writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee, whose work I first discovered in the pages of Marvel Comics' Daredevil series, on which the duo collaborated from 2011 to 2015.  I've diligently followed their collaborations, from their twelve-issue Black Widow run from 2016 to 2017, to their brief run on Captain America in 2017 and even their work for other companies, like IDW's four-issue miniseries The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom. While some of their stories have inevitably been better than others, their work was almost always engaging, crisp and supremely entertaining, a tragic rarity in modern comics.  They appeared to go their separate ways just before the COVID-19 pandemic, with Waid doing various books and Samnee going on to co-create a comic book for Image with Robert Kirkman. 

Little did I know that they had a truly memorable collaboration still to come, for DC Comics and for arguably one of the most iconic comic book characters in existence. It was to my surprise and delight that I found out last year that they had teamed up, after YEARS apart, on a twelve-issue miniseries titled Batman and Robin: Year One, 

As the title suggests, the series chronicles Bruce Wayne's and Dick Grayson's (untold) early adventures together as Batman and his newly-minted Boy Wonder, Robin. In particular, they have to team up against a formidable threat to Gotham City, the conniving and corrupt General Grimaldi who seeks to upset the tenuous balance of power between the existing crime families in Gotham by pitting them against each other. To help him do this, he has a secret weapon: a man who can change his likeness on a whim, or none other than Clayface. To make matters worse, former District Attorney and now wildcard criminal Harvey Dent, aka, Two-Face wants in on this action. Amidst all this, will Batman and Robin be able to save Gotham City from a brewing gang war, especially since Child Protective Services is watching Bruce Wayne like a hawk to see if he's fit to be a parent for his new ward, Dick Grayson?

As someone who only sporadically reads DC Comics as opposed to my regular Marvel fare, I couldn't say if this story hasn't been told before in some other form, but it seems likely that this is the first time both Batman and Robin have gotten the "Year One" treatment, and to my mind, there's no better creative team to do it. Waid, of course, is a veteran of DC Comics, having written volumes of DC Comics for decades, including seminal work like Kingdom Come, and Samnee, I would argue, is one of his very best collaborators, whose work evokes the Silver Age brilliance of the likes of Bruce Timm and the late Darwyn Cooke. It's almost like these guys were born to tell this story, and they bring every ounce of the creative energy that made their runs on Daredevil so darn memorable.  They have a knack for marrying propulsive narrative, snappy dialogue and visual flair that just makes it impossible to put this book, which is a fairly hefty 264 pages, down until the very last adventure.  Reading this was just pure joy from start to finish.

Now, if only Marvel could lure these guys back to do a run on Spider-Man...

10/10

Meaty: A Review of Batman/Deadpool

written by Grant Morrison (main story), Scott Snyder, Tom Taylor, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Tom Taylor, Mariko Tamaki and G. Willow Wilson (back-up stories)

drawn by Dan Mora (main story) Hayden Sherman, Bruno Redondo, Amanda Conner and Denys Cowan (back-up stories)

After my distinctly unpleasant experience purchasing and reading the Deadpool/Batman crossover as published by Marvel Comics, I took my sweet time in buying its counterpart published by DC Comics, Batman/Deadpool.  I was loath to spend the premium that the crossover special would inevitably exact if it meant putting up with another anthology of stories whose creators basically sleepwalked through creating them. However, the excerpts popping up on social media showed promise, especially in terms of what they showcased of Grant Morrison's dialogue and Dan Mora's art, so about a full month after the comic book's release, I took the plunge.

Boy, I am glad I did.

To get this out of the way right now, this book, like its Marvel-published counterpart, consists of one main story and several shorter, back-up stories. The difference, however, is that, each of them is head and shoulders above the stories contained in that book.

The main story features Batman and Deadpool, whose universes collide as a result of a dalliance between Marvel's Eternity and DC's Kismet, fighting (of course) and then teaming up to investigate a mysterious presence in Greece, which may prove to be too much for either of them acting alone. The threat is so great, in fact that for all of Batman's skill and preparation and Deadpool's near immortality thanks to his healing factor, the pair of them will need help from a most unlikely source.

I have read quite a few of Grant Morrison's stories, including the breakthrough graphic novel Arkham Asylum, a good chunk of their remarkable run on New X-Men in the early 2000s, the landmark 12-issue series All Star Superman, and the brief but memorable original work WE3. This work actually showed a new side to the writer that I hadn't seen before: they have a good handle on the humor needed for a Deadpool comic books. Unlike Zeb Wells' clunky script, Morrison's jokes are actually funny, and they don't shy away from Deadpool's dubious origins as a thinly-veiled parody/ripoff of Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke.  Unlike Wells, Morrison actually bothers to come up with an explanation of how Batman's and Deadpool's universes have managed to collide, with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek framing device involving cosmic entities Eternity and Kismet having a one-night stand. The villain, whose identity I will not spoil, is a real treat as well. 

As much as I enjoyed Greg Capullo's work on the Marvel version of this book, I absolutely adored Dan Mora's work here, and I desperately want to see him work on a flagship Marvel book sometime soon, preferably Spider-Man or Daredevil.   Mora is a bona fide superstar, and I can really see why Morrison was keen to work with him after they collaborated on a graphic novel featuring an alt-version of Santa Claus several years ago. His work is gloriously dynamic and slick in its detail at the same time. He's got a flair for visual storytelling akin to the likes of John Romita Jr., but I daresay, he draws considerably prettier pictures. 

Unfortunately, however, as with Deadpool/Batman, the page count for the main story is distressingly short at 27 pages. Given how good these collaborators are, I would have loved a few extra pages, like a nice, round thirty or forty, but it is what it is.

Fortunately, though, the slew of backup stories here, which feature crossovers between Constantine and Doctor Strange, Nightwing and the Wolverine formerly known as X-23, Harley Quinn and the Hulk (!) and Static Shock and Ms. Marvel, come surprisingly close to making me forget that this is an anthology because each one is remarkably well-done. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them, because the creators involved, writers AND artists, are very obviously firing on all cylinders. Each of these stories made me yearn to see these artists strut their stuff on Marvel books. 

These anthology books, for me, are always a compromise in storytelling quality, but to draw a food analogy, if a proper story is a full-course meal, Marvel's Deadpool/Batman was the equivalent of a bag of chips, whereas DC's Batman/Deadpool was at least the equivalent of a couple of good burger sliders. Still not a fully satisfying meal, but a definite step up from the last crossover book featuring these characters.

This was worth my money; I'm just sorry there weren't more pages of crossover goodness.

8.5/10 

Crossover Craze: A Review of Deadpool and Batman (Spoiler Alert)

(Main story)

written by Zeb Wells

drawn by Greg Capullo (pencils) and Tim Townsend (inks)

colored by Alex Sinclair

25 pages. That's the most important thing readers need to know about this overpriced monstrosity of a "special edition." The story that was used to hype the first intercompany crossover between Marvel and DC in over 20 years only comes to a paltry 25 pages, despite the comic book itself sporting a hefty 7 dollar cover price, which comes to even more when it's sold overseas, like here in the Philippines.

Oh, sure, there are a whole bunch of supporting stories featuring other crossovers, like Captain America and Wonder Woman, and Daredevil and Green Arrow, but let's be frank, none of those are what people paid a small fortune of their hard-earned money for.  Truth be told, I won't even bother reviewing any of the backup stories because it's kind of insulting that they even threw them in here. Throwaway stories like that used to serve as teasers for full-sized comic books, but now they're patched together into an anthology to justify a bloated cover price. This only works, however if there's a good, solid main story anchoring everything. The question is: is there?

No.

Short version: The Joker hires Deadpool to capture Batman so that he can take part in another of his death traps. Batman outsmarts Deadpool and Joker, but it seems that he can't disable Joker's death trap, set to poison all of Gotham, without dying. Luckily, the basically unkillable Deadpool, who has turned against the Joker, triggers the trap, saving Gotham and defeating the Joker. Pretty standard stuff, and in truth, as stories go, it's not even that bad.

What's egregious, for me, is the execution.  It's been a while since I've read a script that has felt this perfunctory, this by-the-numbers. This isn't even bare-minimum stuff.  Deadpool doesn't even break the fourth wall here, even though there were a wealth of opportunities. His wisecracking is painfully unfunny, and he even manages to fumble the open-goal jokes about Batman and his succession of strapping young male sidekicks. Who wrote this crap, anyway? Oh, right, Zeb Wells, the ***hat who took Marvel editorial's assignment of splitting up Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson to new low by having his self-insert stick his d**k inside her.  For creating a character as universally-loathed as Paul Rabin has become, Wells has apparently been awarded the plum assignment of writing the first DC-Marvel crossover in over two decades...and this is what he gives us.

The only good news is that Greg Capullo's art is sensational...but then...twenty-five pages.

Save your money, folks. 

5/10 (and ONLY for Capullo's art). 

Refreshed and Rejuvenated: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #1 to #5

 written by Joe Kelly

drawn by Pepe Larraz

colored by Marte Gracia

As someone who has collected  comic books off and on for the better part of four decades, most of them from Marvel Comics, I have resigned myself to the reality of the periodic reboot.  I get that it's done to rekindle interest in the book, after by launching a new significant storyline or a new creative team, and while I'm generally not a fan of it, sometimes, a relaunch works pretty well for the character, and this particular relaunch just happens to be one of those times that worked.

So, following his "Eight Deaths of Spider-Man" storyline that closed out the last volume of this series, writer Joe Kelly is back with an all-new five part story pitting Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man against his old nemesis, Roderick Kingsley, aka the Hobgoblin, who has a new scheme up his sleeve involving hallucinogens, and a particularly nasty henchwoman in Itsy Bitsy.  These drugs are no joke, either; they prove to be enough to give no less than the Rhino a heart attack.  Will the help of the still-not-evil-again Norman Osborn and a newly introduced character, Pete's old friend from middle school Brian Nehring be enough to help Peter save the day, or does the Hobby really have his number this time?

 Just to be clear; though the numbers of the book have been reset, unfortunately, Peter's status quo has not been.  He ended the last volume out of work, having left his job at Oscorp, and tries out a new job at Rand Enterprises (though notably, Danny Rand doesn't show up at any point), but he still hasn't gotten back together with Mary Jane Watson, from whom he was forcibly and clumsily separated by editorial mandate during the book's last relaunch. Heck, even his current love interest Shay Marken, who was introduced during the last run, has him on "probationary status."  Fortunately, the clunky legacy of Zeb Wells' run doesn't stop Kelly from turning in a surprisingly decent and complete story that delivers both a satisfying narrative and manages to tease more ahead, which is what any truly good comic book story is supposed to do.  There's not status-quo shattering going on here, but some pretty solid character work involving Peter's childhood that manages to enrich his relationship to Aunt May and carry on the one decent thing about Zeb Wells' run; Peter's tenuous alliance with the rehabilitated Norman Osborn. 

As much as I appreciated Kelly's writing this time around, though, for me the real draw his was artist Larraz, whose work I actually remember from a few issues of Ultimate Spider-Man some years ago, but whose work has grown exponentially in quality since then.  I know this book only just had A-list artist Ed McGuinness turn in an impressive body of work, so bringing on another top-tier talent on board so soon feels almost too good to be true. I am really glad I stuck around for the post-Zeb Wells era because Larraz has blossomed into a truly sensational artist whose work is both distinct and original and yet evocative of all time Spider-Man legends like John Romita Sr.  I was particularly happy that Larraz delivered an entire, uninterrupted five-issue storyline.  If we have yet another situation of rotating artists, I think Marvel are off to a really good start this time around. 

This new run of the book, while not without its problems, is off to a rock-solid start, and I am really excited to see what Kelly and his rotating team of artists has to offer in the issues to come.  

9/10

That was...Long: a *Late* Review of Daredevil #4 to #19

 written by Saladin Ahmed

drawn by Aaron Kuder and various

colored by Jesus Aburtov and various

One of the first casualties of having to adult pretty hard over the last few months has been the meager creative juices that I need to come up with regular blog posts, as a direct result of which, this blog has been tragically neglected in favor of generating much easier, less cerebrally-taxing content like unboxing videos. Heck, even my movie review YouTube channel and has gone tragically neglected. 

Considering how many hours I had poured into this blog, that seems like a shame, especially considering how regularly I used to post here.

Anyway, I'm just going to cut to the chase here; writer Saladin Ahmed's first mega story arc on everyone's favorite blind lawyer/superhero started out strong, and I managed to review the first few issues before life got a little too busy.   Unfortunately, it has since extended into a bloated, unwieldy and somewhat monotonous story that was at least four, possibly five issues longer than it needed to be, and ruined by a chaotic rotation of artists and a resultant shifting in tone that made it hard to stay focused. Not only that, but it ended with more questions than answers. This was a mammoth nineteen issues, and it ceased to be particularly interesting after the first ten or so. 

For those of you just tuning in, this particular run began after writer Chip Zdarsky ended his run Matt literally going to Hell to save his friends. Ahmed brought Matt Murdock back as a Catholic priest, with everyone in his world having seemingly forgotten about him.  In the course of his nineteen issue arc, Ahmed has had Matt face off against demons representing the seven deadly sins, each one possessing someone close to him, or at least someone he knows, which was a pretty good pretext to have members of his supporting  cast and even the occasional guest appearance.  As it dragged on, though, each appearance felt more and more like stunt-casting or fan service and less like a compelling story, and the fact that so many different artists subbed for the original series artist, the excellent Aaron Kuder, made for a very disjointed reading experience. Ahmed's writing may have been uneven but it was enjoyable overall, but the art experience reading this run was just the pits. A decent editor would have had the sense to rotate the artists properly so that each mini story arc could have had a consistent tone and been part of a bigger, better whole.  Instead, the whole thing just has the feel of something cobbled together.

I've been a fan of this character for years and even through some of his lean years I have been able to appreciate the work of the creative teams working on him, but as promising as Ahmed's early issues were, this particular run just kind of went off the rails, which is a shame because if it had only been managed properly, these past nineteen issues could have been so much better.

It feels unfair to grade the entire storyline like this, but in truth, I'd argue Ahmed brought this on himself by stretching out a 12 to 15 issue storyline to something this long. 

6/10

Surprisingly Novel: A Review of Episodes 1 to 10 of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

 written by Jeff Trammell and various

directed by various

Full disclosure: the last long-form Spider-Man adaptation that I truly enjoyed before watching this series was the 2018 Playstation 4 game. When Marvel Studios announced a new Spider-Man television series, I wasn't terribly optimistic about its quality as I hadn't been a fan of the studio's only other animated series, namely What If-? In fact, I managed to ignore the series for several months, even as positive reviews started to trickle in. At one, point, however, the positivity was too conspicuous to ignore, and so I  finally dived in, and boy, am I glad I did. 

In ten episodes, showrunner Jeff Trammell and his team of directors and writers have managed something that was, while not quite  impossible, virtually unthinkable: they managed to actually put a fresh spin on one of the most known properties in pop culture.

So just to get through the obligatory and obvious questions, yes, the show does present us with the origin of Peter Parker. He still lives with his Aunt May, but unlike the Peter Parker we have long known; his Uncle Ben has already died long before he gets bitten by a genetically-altered spider. One thing that doesn't change, however, is how the spider-bite basically turns Peter's life upside-down, in every sense of those words. 

Even long time Spider-Man fans will find something to love about this show, which truly honors the characters legacy.  Yes, there's a lot that's been done differently here, from his relationship with Norman Osborn to the impact of Uncle Ben's death on Peter's and May's lives, to the changes in Peter's supporting cast, which now includes disparate, previously unrelated characters like superheroes from other titles like Nico Minoru (Sister Grimm) and Pearl Pangan (Wave), but considering how many times we have seen this character done before, I get that it was important to think out of the box. There was a rumor that this show was supposed to actually tie into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and take place between the time that Peter Parker gets his powers and the time Tony Stark recruits him to fight Captain America, but I am glad they ultimately went in another direction because the last thing this show would have needed was to be shackled to MCU continuity like that. Reference is made to things that happened in the actual MCU, like the Sokovia Accords, but this show is clearly not tethered to the MCU in any meaningful way, which opens up so many possibilities. 

Showrunner Trammel and his writers toe a very fine line between introducing fresh elements into Spider-Man's origin story and keeping the overall narrative true to the spirit of the character. Without spoiling anything, I will say that they do not always get the balance just right, but on the whole, they still make it through the ten episode first season having delivered a very respectable iteration of everyone's favorite webslinger.  

The voice cast assembled is top-tier, with standout performances from Hudson Thames as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Grace Song as Nico Minoru, Kari Wahlgren as Aunt May, Zeno Robinson as Harry Osborn and Colman Domingo as Norman Osborn.  Voice casting was crucial here because even though this is an animated series, the actors' conviction really is a huge  part of making this new iteration of a 60 year old property feel fresh, and all of them deliver. 

I also loved the character designs and overall incredible  animation, which, unfortunately, is not necessarily guaranteed in a Marvel show.  I liked Leonardo Romero's character designs, with the possible exception of Aunt May, whom I feel should have been modeled more after her clear MCU inspiration Marisa Tomei, especially given that not only does Peter resemble Tom Holland, but Wahlgren clearly patterns her vocal after her MCU counterpart. Still, that is a minor quibble considering how consistently good the art and animation of this show are. Even though this isn't a hand-drawn show like X-Men '97 from last year, the hand-drawn designs of Romero, who gets a helping hand from Paolo Rivera and Chris Samnee, flow fluidly on the screen thanks to some sterling animation work by Japanese outfit Polygon, Inc. I have long wanted to see a Spider-Man anime, to be honest, but if this is the closest I'll ever get to that, it will definitely do.   

The show does have its flaws, and some character beats do not quite makes sense, but overall, this story really did manage a fresh and interesting take on a character that most of the world knows only too well by now, and I, for one, and am really excited to see what they can bring for season 2.

8.5/10

The Eight Deaths of Spider-Man

 written by Joe Kelly and Justina Ireland and various

drawn by Ed McGuiness, Gleb Melnikov, Andrea Broccardo, CAFU and various

inked by Cliff Rathburn, Mark Farmer

colored by Marcio Menyz, Erick Arciniega

(a review the Amazing Spider-Man issues #61 to #70, with some tie-in issues also included)

As this iteration of the Amazing Spider-Man, allegedly Marvel Comics' most consistently selling Spider-Man book, comes to a close, I've decided to review the storyline that has closed it out, the somewhat offbeat, magical tale "The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man" which was tied into the line-wide "One World Under Doom" status quo that was established just a few months ago, in which Victor Von Doom has assumed the mantle of Earth's Sorcerer Supreme. This is relevant because it lays the context for a pretty out-there story, even by Spider-Man's standards.

In a nutshell, Sorcerer Supreme Doom recruits Spider-Man for a very important task that involves defeating the children of the god Cyttorak (yes, as in "the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak" that gave longtime X-Men bad guy-turned ally Juggernaut his powers...more or that later).  In besting Cyttorak's children, Spider-Man gets Cyttorak to keep sealed a cask that guards against an unspeakable evil. This seems straightforward enough, except that Cyttorak's children are, themselves, gods and Spider-Man basically has to die fighting each one, for which he requires a magical reed to ring him back to life. As he continues to fight and die, Spider-Man finds himself wondering if this time even he's bitten off more than he can chew.

I'm on board for this last storyline because I'm happy to see off Ed McGuinness, who during his tenure has, in my opinion, brought something quite special to the book, but who also joined at an unfortunate period in Spider-Man's publication history, i.e. one of the worst written runs the character has ever had to endure, from the ultimately inconsequential "Gang War" storyline, to the utterly imbecilic "What Did Peter Parker Do?" storyline, in which Zeb Wells and Marvel editorial contrived to drive Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson apart yet again.

It's a small consolation to me that Wells is nowhere to be found in this storyline, save perhaps through his avatar, the annoying self-insert Paul Rabin, and the writing tandem of Marvel veteran Joe Kelly and relative newcomer Justine Ireland provide an interesting sendoff for Ed to draw. Unfortunately, given that the main story is ten issues long, with a number of rather irritating tie-in issues upping the total page count, there's simply no way McGuiness would be able to draw all of the issues, so he just draws the first two and the last two. Fortunately, one of the artists sharing art duties with Ed, relative newcomer, Gleb Melnikov is a notable talent in his own right.  Andrea Broccardo, unfortunately, is arguably the weak link in the chain. 

For all the inconsistency in the art quality, at least the script is quite decently solid; Kelly and Ireland make a pretty decent writing team, all things considered. We see some great character work on display, and while some writers tend to lay it on thick with Peter's hang-ups about guilt and personal responsibility, here Kelly and Ireland present a take on the trope that actually feels refreshing.

For all the brickbats I've given this book of late, I'm glad this particular run has had a decent sendoff and I'm ready to start over with the new numbering and the new artist in the form of Pepe Larraz, who'll be teaming up with Kelly and John Romita, Jr., who, I hope can recapture his mojo by drawing better stories than the ones Wells gave him to draw. 

8.5/10