You Sometimes Get A Second Chance: Batman & Robin #4 Review

Batman & Robin is a textbook case of the dangers inherent in telling a decompressed comics story. The first issue read to me as a wretched Goddamned mishmash of elements from Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies and the old 60s TV show: big, silly action – including riding Batpoles, and not in that good superhero porno parody way – combined with the introduction of some darker elements, like a new villain who dissolves his enemies in acid. It was a frustrating experience in cognitive dissonance, like watching Cesar Romero tie Adam West to a giant roman candle and then chop Burt Ward’s foot off with a rusty machete.

The first issue was so dissatisfying that I was prepared to drop the book from my pulls, except I didn’t want to risk accidentally losing Scott Snyder’s Batman by accident. And I am glad that I didn’t, because the subsequent three issues, which tie up the opening story arc, have proven that Batman & Robin deserves to stand with Snyder’s Batman and Tony Daniel’s Detective Comics as some of the most rock-solid, entertaining Batman comics in years. Sometimes I’m glad to be wrong.

Let’s get some of the prejudicial facts out of the way up front: I have never particularly liked Damian Wayne. Since his introduction he has often been written as a bitchy little brat, to the point where Amanda has sometimes gotten the both of us laughing by reading Damian’s dialogue in the voice of Stewie from Family Guy. Try it yourself, it’s fun: “Now look here, Pennyworth…”

Spawn Camping: Green Lantern Corps #3 Review

A few weeks ago I reviewed a comic book about a video game that was actually a damn good Green Lantern story. By contrast, the latest issue of Green Lantern Corps is a Green Lantern comic that is, for all intents and purposes, a video game.

This book is what Green Lantern would be if it was a first person shooter in Hoard Mode.

You think I’m kidding? The whole video game vibe frankly bakes off of this book. For starters, look at that Alex Garner cover and tell me it doesn’t look like concept art from some FPS. The first person point of view, “your” hand coming into frame at right to shoot plasma beams at anonymous bad guys in armor with lightsabers… just replace the DC Comics slug with a health meter and the New 52 bullet with an ammo indicator and boom! You’ve got a shooter! A shooter designed by a focus group loaded with Asperger’s patients (“So how about we give stormtroopers lightsabers and have them fight Green Lanterns? Jesus, Bob; they’re all peeing!”), but a shooter nonetheless.

The whole video game vibe continues right into the story proper and doesn’t stop, from the weird aliens coming in multiple waves, to the Green Lanterns using their rings – weapons that can turn whatever you imagine into reality – to do nothing more than create a plethora of BFG9000’s to mow the aliens down. Part of me thinks that writer Peter J. Tomasi took a screen grab of an epic Red Bull-and-Stoli-fueled Gears of War session, emailed it to artist Geraldo Borges, and said, “Lightbox this, but make everything, y’know, green. But don’t trace the chainsaws on the ends of the guns; I don’t want to get sued.”

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 7: The Skidmark of Justice

You thought we’d given up, didn’t you? No such luck; it’s a day, which means it’s time for another exciting episode of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast!

In this week’s episode, we talk about:

• How to get comics into the hands of children (Give a store to Jerry Sandusky! What, too soon?)!
• What to pay your kids for allowance (Or, Sundusky’s Lawsuit-Be-Gon)!
• New Jersey Comic Conventions (or: SDCC with GTL and MPV meaning HEP3!)
• F***ing Digital Comics: How Do They Work (Great, if you hate paper and reading comprehension)!
• The pros, cons, Novas, Phoenixs (Phoenixes? Phoenices? Phoenicians? Penises?) and Wonder Twin clones of Marvel Point One!
• Our favorite non-reviewed books of the week, and:
• Fisting a ham (Oh, it’s in there)!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:11 — 43.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More

As usual, if you listen to this at work, you should wear headphones! Unless your boss is into that hot, sweet, man-on-piglet action (And if he is, thanks for listening, Coach Sandusky)!

Thanks for listening, suckers!

And Then They Came For The Oans…

Comic Book Resources just published a preview of the upcoming Green Lantern Corps #1, written by Peter Tomasi (Of recent Batman & Robin infamy) and Fernando Pasarin on pencils. As with all DC’s New 52, I can only presume that it’s meant to be a jumping-in point for new readers unfamiliar with Green Lanterns, their background or any of their history. So let’s look at it while pretending to be one of those new readers, shall we?

We start with a man being locked into something called a “sciencell” against his will by uncaring jailors.

Batman, Robin and Curly Joe: Batman & Robin #1 Review

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.