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Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
The Detective Comics comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics and The Definitive Guide to Collecting Batman Comics. Updates in progress in April 2024 with titles scheduled for release through December 2024.
Many of DC’s heroes saw their comics relaunched in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths to delineate where their new continuity began. That was not the case with Batman, whose Detective Comics and Batman continued their runs uninterrupted.
Detective Comics #568 is chosen as the demarcation of Batman’s changeover from pre- to post-Crisis for three reasons.
First, it was a chapter in the Legends event, which was DC’s first linewide event after the conclusion of Crisis – necessitating all characters appearing therein were in their post-Crisis iterations.
Second, the creative team mentions the changes in the letters column of this issue!
And, finally, it’s the end of a run by and outgoing writer, Joey Cavalieri, so it makes a natural change-over point.
[Read more…] about Collecting Detective Comics comic books (#568 – Present, post Crisis on Infinite Earths)
Batman is one of the longest-lasting and most-enduring heroes in comics, published continuously from his debut in 1939 through present today. He’s also surely the most popular character, as proven month-in and month-out by the sales of his title being use as a benchmark against which all other titles are measured.
This page acts as an table of contents by chronological era of where to locate Batman and his titles throughout the Crushing Crisis Guide to DC Comics. Want an alphabetical index instead? Head to the Index of Batman Ongoing Titles. [Read more…] about The Definitive Guide to Collecting Batman Comics
by krisis
Have you ever attempted to make a new first impression on someone? Did it actually change their opinion about you?
I think it’s a near-impossible feat. First impressions are the ones that last. After that, each successive impression provides an increasingly diminished return until you’re barely changing someone’s opinion about you at all with each meeting – just reinforcing it.
How could you make a brand new first impression? It’s not enough to simply say, “Hey, look, I’m different now!” Even if your target believed you, they would still weigh your new behavior against the old you.
No, to make a new first impression you need an explosive bombast of both context and contradiction – a shy friend who slays a karaoke, or a messy coworker with an impeccable neat home. You need to convince them that their first impression was demonstrably wrong – or, at least, so incomplete or controverted as to be useless.
Every piece of fiction has the dilemma of making a first impression by introducing you to a universe you’ve never entered before. It’s hard enough to make a good impression introducing yourself let alone an entire universe! Even if they’re successful with that first impression, sequential storytelling mediums sometimes have to re-impress you, as with the season premiere of a TV show.
Few other mediums do what comic books so often do – willingly relaunch dozens of books at the same time with new directions as a means of screaming, “LOOK! We’re really, really different now! All-new, all-different, actually.”
And, of those that have, hardly any have ever put all the onus of an entire multi-title universe on a single episode the way DC Comics did on DC Universe Rebirth last July. Read my critical take on the issue below, and then head to the DC Rebirth Guide to follow your favorite characters from here.
Written by Geoff Johns with line art by Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis with Joe Prado, and Phil Jimenez with Matt Santorelli and color art from Brad Anderson, Jason Wright, Gabriel A. Eltaeb, and Hi-Fi Colour Design
DC Universe Rebirth is exciting and inscrutable – a tantalizing glimpse of change for continuity nerds and a tangled skein of contradictory continuity for new readers. It’s a love note dense with heartfelt apology to longtime fans that weathered all of New 52 and a Rosetta Stone for DC’s new continuity.
It is not necessarily the first comic you ought to read if you’re new to DC Comics or coming back from a lengthy lapse … unless you happen to be a major Flash fan.
The issue uses the device of Wally West trying to return to the present day from within the Speed Force, where has has been trapped since the Flashpoint event that lead to New 52. He follows several hunches on who can pull him out of the aether of time and back into reality. It’s not just about survival. West has critical information that might help to amend a timeline that has grown dark and cynical (and lost a decade of memories along the way).
Like the Ghost of The Fastest Christmas Ever, he first visits Batman (he’s the best detective!), an old guy named Johnny (he has the best chance to remember things!), and his former partner Linda (love will bind them together!), each without much success. Finally, he says hello from the other side to current flash Barry Allen (super-bros FTW!). [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: DC Universe Rebirth Special
by krisis
In Marvel comics it has become an ongoing, in-universe joke that Wolverine appears in more titles each month than would seem to fit into the life of any person, super or not. You’d almost think he shares the super-power of duplication with Madrox, or at least occasionally borrows Hermoine’s time turner.
Batman shares a similar status (eight and counting this month), but his multitude of appearances typically occur in and around Gotham. It’s not much of a stretch to picture him swinging through Batwoman on his way from Detective Comics to Batman & Robin.
Super-scheduling aside, the challenge facing any over-saturated hero is differentiation – how are the appearances different, and appealing to different audiences? Wolverine has it in spades – some books with X-Men, others solo, more with Avengers. Spider-Man gave up on it, and now he’s down to one main title that comes out constantly. There’s a new issue, like, every other day.
Batman is presently supporting three solo titles (four, if you count Robin), and I honestly don’t see much point in that beyond Bat-saturation. Batsuration? I’m definitely Batsurated, and it’s only week three. Why not move to the Spider-Man model?
Written by Scott Snyder, art by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion
Rating: 3.5 of 5 – Great
In a Line: “Are you asking me if you were convincing as a homicidal maniac?”
#140char Review: Batman #1 treads lightly between gory DC#1 & goofy B&R#1 w/a solid mystery & fuller cast. Capullo’s art is perfect. Expect more good things
Batman #1 packs a fun meaningless brawl, a portentous business move, and a grim mystery into one tidy debut issue that wisely cedes the “thrill-a-minute” crown to other Batbook debuts in order to sketch a fuller picture of Bruce Wayne and his cast of characters. Scott Snyder hits all the right beats and keeps Bruce in costume for just enough pages.
I love the device Snyder uses to set the tone, with Batman distractingly narrating a relatively rote mission with an editorial about the Gotham Gazette. If it’s a little glib it can be excused for being such an effective device for setting the stage of Gotham, as well as Bruce Wayne’s intentions for it as both a philanthropist and a superhero.
Greg Capullo is absolutely perfect for Snyder’s grim Gotham with a sliver of hope. His textured work never gets too dark thanks to inker Jonathan Glapion and a subdued set of desaturated colors from FCO Plascencia. I might even prefer his monstrous, deranged Joker to the lithe asexual one in Detective.
While villains get tons of line-work and toothy grins, Batman is portrayed simply – black cowl, lantern jaw with a slash of a mouth and a tiny furrow for a chin. The rest of Capullo’s Bat family is all dashingly, boyishly handsome. His version of the cave is expansive, but still claustrophobically hemmed in by columns of rock. His brightly lit ballroom scenes aren’t as striking, but they shouldn’t be – and I got a visceral thrill from the first scene of Bruce back in costume.
It’s hard to make an always grim Batman anything but flat and predicable – the issue becomes about gadgets, villains, and violence. Snyder’s Batman has dimension and a sense of gallows humor. In Detective it was all gallows and no laughs, and in Batman & Robin the latter was all maniacal giggles all the time. Only here does the millionaire playboy turned city defender really come through in the personality of our hero. While he’s not a wise-cracking Spider-Man, that doesn’t mean he has to be a humorless soggy cape, either.
Should you buy Batman #1? I say yes. Detective Comics was more of a classic and Finch might be more of a scorcher on art this week, but Snyder and Capullo find a comforting middle ground that pays homage to all of the versions of Batman we’ve grown up with. Perhaps devout Morrison fanatics will find this too plain-jane in anticipation of the return of Batman Inc, but otherwise it’s sure to please.