Sunday 27 November 2011

This month in... 1983


Not done one of these in a while, so lets take alook shall we?
Afraid to say, beyond that fantastic cover, its a real bunch of piffle; a tale pitting the Bat against the Joker amongst Mayan pyramids that could've come straight from the 50's - especially as Joker uses that era's Joker Copter.
What makes it even more depressing is that we've got the fabulous team of Don Newton and Alfredo Acala drawing. They're of course reknowned for their brilliant, moody art and, with the jungle scenes here, they're sure in their element.
But, as usual for this time, the colouring is atrocious and does their work no favours whatsoever - would love to see the original B/W pages of their run on the title.
Only in one place does the colouring come anywhere near close to being ok:

But then that's offset by having to depict the Joker Copter:

The only other thing of note in this issue is Batman seeing Jason Todd as Robin for the first time. But, again, piffle:
The night before the events on the pyramid, the blond haired Jason,alone in Wayne Manor, stumbles across Dick Grayson's old Robin outfit. At the climax of the tale, all seems lost, when Jason swings in to save the day, the explanation of how a kid living alone stumbles across the costume then gets down to South America just in the nick of time is: "I found this spare costume in ROBIN'S CLOSET. Then i died my hair BLACK and... Well, I... I kinda found enough cash in your drawer to buy a ticket to SAN MATEO."
Dear oh dear.

Monday 7 November 2011

Batman 52 - #1


Got to say, not been too great a fan of the Batbooks the last few years, not really liking the way the characters been going and the developments made.
So been looking forward to the reboot and kinda hoping it'd go back to basics - my prefered, comfort zone area for the guy.
What do i think then?
Really rate Scott Synder after his work on Detective just lately, as he was focusing on the, er, detective side of the character.
Which i'm happy to see he continues here. A nice, stepping in point with Bats brawling with a bunch of classic characters before getting into the mystery.
Could do without the accessing the Bat-Computer via a contact lens and the EMP Mask - with this sort of technology, how can anyone below the biggest of super villains be a challenge for him?
Don't know Greg Caullo's work at all, and i see there's been a bit of bitching on him having th gig, but what's the problem?
Reckon he's terrific, with a real Jim Lee look to his art, and his versions of the iconic villains are brilliant - Scarecow being tops, followed by the dripping Two face. Dunno about a curly Joker though.
All in all, great start.