Thursday, September 3, 2009

Batman is Dead...

I know, I know... I haven't posted in forever. Well my life is a pretty calm, which I enjoy, but I don't have much to write about. So, here is a little review I wrote for a website that should be launching very soon....stay tuned!!


Batman is dead and buried. Well, to be more accurate, he is “mostly buried” as currently his skull is playing “Yorick” to the Black Hand’s “Hamlet”…consequentially if you aren’t reading Blackest Night, you should be.

Anyway, in the mainstream continuity Bruce Wayne as Batman is no more, which is exactly why I was happy to open the first issue of Kevin Smith’s Batman: Widening of the Gyre to see the original caped crusader gracing the pages. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a bleeding heart “Bruce Wayne is the only Batman” kind of guy. I’ve been a huge fan of the Battle for the Cowl series, and I was as satisfied as anyone to see Dick Grayson embrace his legacy as the Dark Knight. What I missed was the brooding, smart-assed, constantly spinning inner dialogue of Bruce Wayne as he stalked the night. If the lines that mark the differences between Grayson’s and Wayne’s Batman feel blurred (and who could blame you, it’s been over a year since his death), Smith does an excellent job at jogging our memory with a few quick frames of banter between Grayson’s Nightwing and Wayne’s Batman to start off the issue. Of course the differences between the two are what truly made me miss Bruce. His constant analysis of every situation and his step by step assessment of “worst case scenarios” is why we love Batman to begin with. Lest you forget how Batman is always thinking, Smith throws in a quick reference to Batman always keeping an eye out for an “all powerful red and blue alien take over,” and he’s not referring to a Lantern Corps.

Over-all, Smith’s return to Bruce Wayne as the Dark Knight was successful. In the first issue he managed to reacquaint us with the character and establish the world for this six issue arc. He shows us the best of Batman and even manages to throw in a short appearance by the Joker and Poison Ivy. I was pleasantly surprised at the use of Jason Blood/the Demon as a foe to remind us that Batman is truly a frail human, but the main focus of this series is more than likely the introduction of a “new player” in Gotham who makes “a splash” on the last page. The art was satisfying and aimed at an older audience, thanks to Poison Ivy sporting “Garden of Eden” garb and some minor body dismemberment/consumption by the Demon. As far as first issues go, I’m hooked and plan on collecting all six issues to get my out-of-continuity-non-Hush Bruce Wayne fix for now…

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