Somebody’s First Comic Book: Batman #281

Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!

TITLE: Murder Comes in Black Boxes

CREDITS:

Writer: David V. Reed
Art: Ernie Chua & Tex Blaisdell
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Cover Artist: Ernie Chua
Publisher: DC Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: It’s Batman. It doesn’t matter if I’ve ever read a comic before or not, everybody knows who Batman is, right?

IMPRESSIONS: Commissioner Gordon calls in Batman to investigate a strange murder – a limousine jumps a curb in the rain and runs over three people, all of whom turn out to be foreign intelligence agents. Batman knows who all of them are, but he doesn’t have any reason to believe any of them know each other. He finds a clue left with their bodies, recorded messages from the men proving they were trying to contact Batman before they died. He rushes off to find the fiancé of one of the dead men, worried that she may be the murderer’s next target. Naturally, she’s attacked and Batman starts beating people up, because that’s what he does.

Anyway, without giving a play-by-play of the entire comic book, Batman manages to track down the bad guys, but they get the drop on him and the comic book ends on a cliffhanger. Oddly enough, the cover of the book only seems to correspond to the last page of the story. It seems to me that’s a strange way to sell a comic book, by giving away the ending, but there’s not a lot else in this story that would lend itself to a really striking image. There’s none of Batman’s more famous bad guys – no Joker or Catwoman or anything like that – to make the cover pop. The story itself actually is kind of the same. There’s nothing in here about Batman himself, we never see him out of costume or interacting with anybody except Gordon, the fiancé, and the people he beats up. This seems to be kind of a straightforward mystery. It’s okay, but not the best mystery ever. I’m only mildly curious about how Batman gets out of the predicament he’s in on the last page. And mild interest isn’t enough for me to look for issue #282.

GRADE: B

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger-The Journey Begins #4

September 13, 2010

Creative Director: Stephen King
Plot and Consultation: Robin Furth
Script: Peter David
Art: Sean Phillips & Richard Isanove
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Cover: Sean Phillips & Richard Isanove
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Roland and his new companion, a young Billy Bumbler, find themselves facing the evil John Farson in the ruins of Gilead. The Man in Black flees and Roland finally begins the chase that we see him take in the first of Stephen King’s novels. Along the way, however, he finds himself in a crowded town besieged by “Not-Men” and inhabited by a hauntingly beautiful young woman.

It’s fair to have been a little nervous at the idea of Robin Furth weaving entirely new stories about Roland, especially in the largely unexplored years between the fall of Gilead and when we first encountered him chasing the Man in Black across the desert, but she’s really doing a highly impressive job. Furth is managing to bring in elements from both Roland’s past and future to create these stories, which are as strong and engaging as one could expect from a character like him. The stories feel both fresh and familiar, like something new, but at the same time, something that belongs here.

Some of Furth’s other work, however, has revealed a bit of a problem when it comes to scripting. Enter Peter David, who as usual does a fine job taking her plot and converting it to a story that fits the pacing and necessities of a comic book script. Introducing not only new characters but also new settings and situations helps to expand this world considerably, and as the seven novels really only allowed us to explore a fraction of Mid-World, that’s a welcome addition.

Phillips and Isanove together do some truly wonderful artwork. Phillips has largely abandoned the “widescreen” approach that Jae Lee did on the earlier Dark Tower comics. While he still employs larger panels overall, he’s no longer married to the horizontal layout, giving him more versatility and opportunities in the storytelling.  The result is a book that’s somewhat richer than its predecessors, something that makes for a really satisfying experience.

Rating: 8/10

Superman (1987 Series) #203

March 30, 2004

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Divinity (Godfall Part Six)

Freed from Kandor, Superman is on a race to save Metropolis from a Kryptonian madman.

Writer: Joe Kelly & Michael Turner
Pencils: Talent Caldwell
Inks: Jason Gorder
Colors: Peter Steigerwald
Letters: Comicraft
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Cover Art: Michael Turner
Publisher: DC Comics

The “Godfall” arc comes to an end and, as expected, the status quo for Superman is pretty much restored to what it was before he was lost in the timestream several months ago. That’s not to say this story doesn’t have any repercussions – the bottled city of Kandor has taken a new shape, and a new villain has been introduced that could menace Superman for some time to come. The only problem is that Superman really needed a major punch to pull it back up, and this storyline, for me, didn’t quite deliver.

The story was okay, if a bit confusing the way it played fast and loose with so many continuities, but Talent Caldwell’s artwork was superb. Clearly a protégé of the celebrated Turner, Caldwell gives the characters a big, powerful look without lapsing into more cartoonish or manga-style artwork that has plagued a lot of superhero comics over the last few years. Whatever assignment he lands next, artwise, it’s bound to be satisfying.

The best sell for this issue has to be the six-page sketchbook at the end, where incoming artist Jim Lee shares several of his renditions of the man of steel and writes a bit about the challenges of drawing such an iconic character and still making him your own. It’s not an enviable job – if you draw a bad Superman, nearly everyone in the world can look at it and tell it’s a bad Superman. Lee needn’t worry, though – even for the few pages he drew Big Blue during his run on Batman he did a great rendition of the character, and if the sketchbook pages are any indication, he’s going to do even better next month when he and Brian Azzarello begin their year-long run.

In the end, this whole story arc has kind of been marking time – past storylines were already pretty well wrapped up and the reader was left with a feeling that they were just waiting for the new creative teams to come on board. Well, that time is now. Let’s hope they deliver.

Rating: 7/10