The Batman Strikes! #8

April 13, 2005

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Firefall

When Firebug takes aim at friends of Bruce Wayne, the Batman can’t be far behind.

Writer: Bill Matheny
Pencils: Christopher Jones
Inks: Terry Beatty
Colors: Heroic Age
Letters: Phil Balsman
Editor: Nachie Castro
Cover Art: Jeff Matsuda
Publisher: DC Comics/Johnny DC

Continuing the spinoff of the new The Batman cartoon show, this issue the Gotham mob takes aim at a flower shop owned by old friends of Bruce Wayne. To drive their point home, they call upon the city’s resident pyromaniac hitman, Firefly.

The book from here is a decent done-in-one tale of Batman doing his detective thing and taking on Firefly, and it will probably appeal quite a bit to fans of the television show. Unfortunately, I’m still not one of them. Perhaps Paul Dini and Bruce Timm just set the bar too high with their own animated Batman, but this title just feels a little off to me. The focus on making Batman younger is all well and good, but somehow the character has become more flippant, more wisecracking, and that’s an interpretation of the hero that just doesn’t hold up to me. To be blunt, he seems to be having too much fun.

Christopher Jones, he of Dr. Blink, Superhero Shrink fame, brings his pencils to this issue with great skill. He has a great talent for drawing the more cartoonish brand of superheroes, and although here he’s using the style and character models of the television show, if you look at some of his other work he’s really not compromising very much at all. He’s a really good match for the title.

Overall, this was an okay issue, but it would be better if Batman was just a bit more mature. It’s keeping in tone with the television show, and I have to give them credit for that, but at the same time it just doesn’t feel like Batman. At least, not to me.

Rating: 7/10