With all the controversy about the greater Batman reboot storyline going on after this week’s release of Catwoman, and all the cries of “sexist!” and “misogynist!” and “Draw more panels of Bat Doinking or I can’t come!”, you might be longing for a simpler time when a Batman reboot included about 90 percent fewer twitching boners.
Not to worry: Warner Home Video has you covered with a clip from the upcoming Batman: Year One DVD that you can check out after the jump:
EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers… although it would be hard to ruin it any worse than it already is.
When I was in high school, in those dark days before even the first Tim Burton Batman movie was released, it was hard to be a Batman fan. Based upon the fact that Batman lived with a prepubescent boy, I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time, time that I could have spent attempting to convince girls that reading Batman didn’t make me unfuckable, instead defending the character as a heterosexual gynephile, based purely on implied attraction between Batman and Catwoman, including sidelong glances, near kisses, and vague double entendre.
You damn spoiled rotten kids today, what with your Anne Hathaway, and your slashfic, and your Catwoman #1.
Seriously: check this shit out:
Newsarama has an exclusive, three-page preview of Frank Miller’s upcoming Legendary Comics graphic novel Holy Terror, where an “original” superhero named The Fixer hunts and kills Al Qaeda terrorists. Check it out here and come on back.
I put the word “original” in quotes because the book was originally announced as Holy Terror, Batman! at WonderCon more than five years ago. Apparently somewhere between then and now either Miller or DC Comics decided that they didn’t like the idea of a story where Batman might stomp the testicles off of gentlemen of Middle Eastern descent before showing them to him. Or maybe people just started questioning where the phrase “Don’t forget to dip the batarangs in pig’s blood, Robin,” might fit into continuity even after the New 52 reboot.
Either way, somewhere along the line Miller took the white-out to Batman’s ears and finally put the finishing touches on the book. And checking out the preview, all I can say is, MAN… I am REALLY looking forward to Sin City 2.
Holy Terror comes out next Wednesday, September 28th.
You didn’t ask for it. We didn’t want to do it. And yet we own microphones and whiskey, so Crisis On Infinite Midlives is proud to present our the first episode of our podcast: The Sack Of Justice!
EDITOR’S NOTE: You might ask what the title means. It means we had whiskey, and sack is a funny word. Don’t overthink this. God knows we didn’t.
This weeks topics include: the first two weeks of DC’s New 52 (Including Batgirl, Deathstroke, Detective Comics, Red Lanterns, Men At War, and Hipster Douchebag Superman – I mean Action Comics), Ultimate Spider-Man Miles Morales, Williams’ Batwoman and associated Bat Nipples, and Atomic Robo vs. Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. vs Hellboy!
Let’s make this a drinking game: every time you hear us slur or misname a creator, drink! Then by the time this is done, you’ll be as drunk as we were when we recorded this!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:52 — 33.8MB)
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We’re only halfway into the four-week reveal of DC’s New 52, so it might be a little early to say this about any particular book, but I’ll say it anyway: I firmly believe that Batman & Robin was only released because “New 52” sounds catchier than “New 51”.
This book tries to be all things to everyone who ever read a Batman comic book. And while that might be a noble goal for some marketing drone slavering over the idea of thousands of non-comic geeks stumbling into comic stores to “check out that new blasphemous, hipster douchebag Superman I keep hearing about,” for an actual comic reader, it leads to an uneven, schizophrenic read that can’t seem to decide what it wants to be.
After an introductary action sequence where a new villain, Nobody… no, HE’S Nobody… the name of the bad guy is Nobody… um, third base? Anyway, there’s a new bad guy. Nobody. He’s invisible. Spoilers. Yeah.
The book proper opens with a reproduction of the parlor from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One where Bruce Wayne told his father’s memory that he would become a bat. Which for a rebooted Batman story isn’t a bad place to start, and God knows that last week’s Detective Comics #1 did itself a solid referencing Miller’s classic look…
And two pages later? Batpoles.
Tony Daniel draws one hell of a Batman. He’s got some kind of bastardized mixture of 1990’s McFarlane, modern Jim Lee fine line and detail work going that makes things just look exciting and keep the eye on the panel, combined with enough broadly inked, shadowed, Frank Miller-style panels of Batman in silouette that mix together to make an instantly recognizable, iconic style of Batman art. Of all this week’s New 52, Detective Comics #1 is probably my favorite in the art department, which is saying a lot considering this week included work by Rags Morales, George Perez and Yanick Paquette. Then again, considering this week’s art included Rob Liefeld’s Hawk & Dove, Daniel could have drawn Batman as: “>(:|)-<=<” and still not been my least favorite. Seriously, though: I’m liking the look of this book.
Daniel is putting together a pretty solid entry-level Batman plot in this book as well. Make no mistake; for the first 18 pages or so, he’s not exactly reinventing the wheel: Batman feeling tortured by failing to prevent the Joker’s murders, persuing Joker relentlessly only to end chase to save a little girl from danger and evading capture by the police via an attack helicopter chase, all in Batman’s first major story following a reboot, is not exactly groundbreaking storytelling (*cough* *cough* Dark Knight Returns *cough*). But Daniel keeps the story moving along and entertaining, and breaks up what could be considered derivative by introducing the concept that Joker might commit his crimes while naked, which made even this old Batman fan take notice and comment: “AAAAAAAAAAANOOAAAAAWHYYAAAAAAA”.
Now to me, here’s some good news: Tony Daniel, the writer and artist on the DC Rebooted Detective Comics #1, did an interview with USA Today talking about how he’s writing some honest-to-Christ Batman whodunit stories, as opposed to stories about The World’s Greatest Caveman No Pilgrim No Why Is Batman Time Traveling Curse You Morrison Your Weed Is Laced Arrrgh.
The article has a bunch of art from Detective Comics #1. Check it out and come back…
Not only is Daniel apparently committed to doing some old school detective comics, he’s the first creator on a major DC book I’ve heard really taking advantage of the reboot to come up with some new villains:
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