Batman and Robin #25

August 13, 2011

Title: The Streets Run Red Part 3: Boys’ Night Out

Writer: Judd Winick
Art: Greg Tocchini & Andy Smith
Colorist: Artur Fujita
Letterer: Patrick Brosseau
Cover Artist: Guillem March
Editor: Mike Marts
Publisher: DC Comics

Red Hood’s twisted partner, Scarlet, has been captured and held hostage by someone with a grudge against Jason Todd. As he comes to the rescue, though, he’s got two unwilling partners by his side – Batman and Robin.

Judd Winick, the writer who brought Jason back from the dead and has probably done most of the work with the character since then, finishes off this three-issue story by contrasting Jason and Dick Grayson, Batman. It’s a fair enough point of contrast – Jason harbors a deep hatred for Dick that is understandable, if not justifiable. And the end of this story places Jason in an interesting place – he’s certainly not part of the Batman “family” anymore, but he can’t entirely separate himself from them either. The unfortunate thing is that the book really doesn’t have anything terribly new to say about any of the characters involved, and in fact, sets up a status quo for Jason that it seems will be negated by the time his new Red Hood and the Outlaws title launches in the new DC Universe in September. (It feels kind of unfair to judge these books in view of a relaunch that hasn’t happened yet, but it’s also practically impossible not to do so.)

The book has its moments, but not really enough of them to make it an easy recommendation.

Rating: 7/10

Red Sonja/Claw: Devil’s Hands #1

March 14, 2006

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: The Accursed

Claw returns – back-to-back with Red Sonja!

Writer: John Layman
Art: Andy Smith
Colors: Wildstorm FX
Letters: Travis Lanham
Editor: Ben Abernathy
Cover Art: Alex Ross (variant by Jim Lee & Gabriele Dell’Otto)
Publisher: DC/Wildstorm/Dynamite Entertainment

Well here’s an oddity for you: an inter-company crossover between a licensed character (Sonja) and a long-defunct character from the imprint’s parent company (Claw). Wildstorm is going to soon resurrect DC’s old fantasy character Claw the Unconquerable, and they’re kicking it off with a crossover with Dynamite Entertainment – and they’re actually doing quite well.

Red Sonja, of course, is the long-suffering barbarian woman (another product of Conan creator Robert Howard). Claw is one of many barbarian heroes that popped up in Conan’s wake – his gimmick is his hand. Cursed from birth, he wears a red gauntlet over his withered claw of a right hand, a demonic hand that craves blood.

As the miniseries begins, Sonja happens upon Claw who has been saved from a suicide attempt by the timely intervention of a barbarian horde that wants very much to kill him themselves. Joining together (I can’t believe Layman was strong enough to resist the urge to have them fight one another for no good reason), Sonja hears about Claw’s plight and offers to bring him to a sorcerer of her acquaintance who may be able to help.

Since most fantasy/barbarian comic book characters live in fairly generic fantasy/barbarian worlds, putting these two characters together doesn’t take nearly the leap of faith you need to mesh most superhero crossovers, and in fact, the story works very well. Layman handles both characters well, and Andy Smith’s artwork is great. It’s got a fine barbarian quality with just the right amounts of blood and gore to make the story work, but not so much as to make it over the top.

Bottom line – Red Sonja fans should be quite pleased by this miniseries, and as Wildstorm is clearly hoping that some of them will follow this to the upcoming Claw series, I don’t think they’ll be disappointed.

Rating: 8/10