Manhunter: The Deluxe Edition - Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson

In the summer of 1973, I drove up to Denton, Texas, to look for an apartment because I was attending what was then North Texas State University and didn’t want to live in the dorm again when the fall semester started. While I was there, I stopped by Fultz News Agency on the square downtown to check out the comic books and paperbacks. One of the comics I picked up was an issue of DETECTIVE COMICS with a new back-up feature: MANHUNTER, a revival of an old Golden Age character brought to the current day and enmeshed in a thriller/espionage plotline. It was written by Archie Goodwin, a writer whose work I enjoyed, with art by Walter Simonson, a relative newcomer.

I became a fan immediately, and since I was already buying DETECTIVE on a regular basis to read the Batman stories in it, I followed the Manhunter story as well and thoroughly enjoyed it. But it was designed to be a limited storyline, and after half a dozen backup stories and a full-length crossover with Batman, that was it. The whole thing came to an end, and while I remembered it fondly, I never reread it in the more than five decades since then.

However, recently I noticed that the digital version of the collected edition was on sale, so I picked it up and read the whole thing again. Sometimes that proves to be a mistake. A while back on Kindle Unlimited I noticed another series I’d read 50+ years ago that was written and drawn by one of my favorite comics creators (who shall remain nameless), so I revisited it. I read part of the first issue, said to myself, “This makes no sense at all”, and returned it. Sometimes you just had to be there when it was new.

Thankfully, that’s not the case with MANHUNTER. I still thought it was great. I love the way Goodwin and Simonson tied it in with the original Golden Age character. The plot is maybe a tad bit thin, but the scripts move right along and Simonson’s art is excellent. The crossover with Batman is handled well. There’s an epilogue by Simonson published after Goodwin passed away, a silent story with no dialogue but using the plot Goodwin and Simonson worked out, and it’s quite good, too. I was glad I gave this one another try. If you read it back then, maybe you should revisit it, too. If you’ve never read it but enjoy Silver Age DC, it’s well worth checking out.

By the way, I did find an apartment on that trip to Denton. It was a crappy little place on Normal Street, for those of you familiar with Denton. I lived there for a year, which was the only time of my life I could say with any justification that I lived on Normal Street. I didn't care for apartment living and commuted for the rest of my college career, even though it was a pretty long drive. I do have a few good memories from that year to go with the noisy neighbors and lousy plumbing.

Batman & Superman in World's Finest: The Silver Age, Volume One - Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, et al.

When I was a kid I was a sporadic reader of the Superman and Batman team-ups in WORLD’S FINEST. I only had so much money to spend on comic books. Now there’s lots of stuff I never read back in the day that I can catch up on. For the past couple of months, I’ve been reading BATMAN & SUPERMAN IN WORLD’S FINEST: THE SILVER AGE, VOLUME ONE, which reprints the first meeting of Superman and Batman from SUPERMAN #76 in 1952 and then the regular Superman/Batman series from WORLD’S FINEST #71-94, from 1954 to 1958 . . . which was before I could read, so I couldn’t have read them anyway. Most of the stories were written by Edmond Hamilton. Several are by Bill Finger, the co-creator of Batman. The art is mostly by Dick Sprang, the regular Bat-artist in the Fifties. A few stories were drawn by the great Curt Swan, the iconic Superman artist as far as I’m concerned. It’s an entertaining volume, especially the story where Luthor and The Joker team up.

But . . . these short (12 pages), gimmicky, stand-alone stories don’t have much impact. The villains are mostly petty crooks with stupid schemes, and there’s never any real sense of danger for our heroes. I can understand why, after a steady diet of stories like this, the stuff that Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko came up with over at Marvel just a few years later was like a punch in the gut to the comics readers of the time. The difference is really stark (no pun intended). Despite that, I enjoyed this collection and already have the second one on my Kindle. For long-time comics fans, it’s worth reading. Available in paperback and e-book editions.

Batman: The Dark Knight: Golden Dawn - David Finch

Batman has been my favorite DC Comics character since the great stories about him by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams some forty years ago. (Has it been that long? Really? Good Lord . . .)

No matter how much DC manages to alienate long-time fans like me with big "event" storylines and constant rebooting, somehow Batman manages to remain consistent. He's still recognizably the same character I read about all those years ago. One of the newer creators handling his adventures in recent years is David Finch, a writer/artist I hadn't heard of until I came across a collection called BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT: GOLDEN DAWN. This book reprints the first five issues of a new BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT series from 2010, plus a couple of stand-alone stories, and I have to say, it's a very pleasant surprise.

The main story in this one introduces Dawn Golden, a beautiful socialite who was friends with Bruce Wayne when they were both kids. Now she's grown up, she's been kidnapped, and Batman sets out to find her before something terrible happens. Several different classic Batman adversaries wind up playing a part in this one, along with one of Jack Kirby's later creations for DC, Etrigan the Demon. There's also a shadowy villain manipulating some of the action behind the scenes. The identity of this mastermind isn't revealed, which is a little frustrating but I can live with it. This story arc moves along very well, and I enjoyed it.

The two stand-alone stories include one written by Grant Morrison that sets up Morrison's "Batman, Incorporated" storyline. I'm not a big fan of Morrison's writing overall, although he's done some stories that I like a lot. The other story is a vignette set in the future about the ultimate fate of the Batman/Superman team.

Finch's art is pretty good throughout. He draws an ominous-looking Batman, which is appropriate, and his version of Etrigan is a good one, too. His writing is very straightforward, not fancy at all, which is not a bad thing. Between this collection and the one authored by Scott Snyder that I read a couple of weeks ago, I'm actually starting to think about reading some of the Batman comics on a monthly basis again, something that I haven't done in many years.

Batman: The Black Mirror - Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder, the creator and writer of the AMERICAN VAMPIRE series, has also been writing Batman stories for DETECTIVE COMICS in recent years. I recently read THE BLACK MIRROR, a collection of a year's worth of stories from Snyder's run on the Caped Crusader.

I'd gotten out of touch with the continuity in the DC universe (and still am, to a large extent), but this volume has a quick summary of what's been going on. Bruce Wayne has given up being Batman (what, again?) and left Gotham City. Dick Grayson, the original Robin, is now Batman. Tim Drake, one of the replacement Robins along the way, is now sort of grown up and is a character called the Red Robin. Bruce Wayne's son Damian, introduced in BATMAN AND SON, is now Robin. Luckily, the stories in this volume focus almost exclusively on Dick as Batman, so my confusion about the other two characters didn't really keep me from enjoying the four connected story arcs that make up the book.

The title story, "The Black Mirror", is actually the first one and concerns Batman's attempts to break a ring of black marketeers dealing in stolen supervillain technology and artifacts. Police Commissioner Jim Gordon takes center stage in the next arc, "Skeleton Cases", as his son James Jr. (I don't know where he came from, either, I wasn't aware that Barbara Gordon had a brother) returns to Gotham City. Problem is, James Jr. may well be a serial killer. "Hungry City" features the return of another new character from the past (if that makes sense), the daughter of the crime boss responsible for the murder of Dick Grayson's parents. She seems to have gone straight and become a very successful businesswoman, but is she really? A bizarre and almost impossible crime draws Batman into an investigation of her activities and naturally winds up with him almost getting killed a couple of times. Then the ongoing mystery of James Gordon Jr. comes to an end in "Skeleton Key", which also features the return of the greatest Batman villain, The Joker.

So, having read Batman comic books for more than fifty years, what do I think of this almost current version? Well, not bad. Snyder's scripts are pretty good, featuring some actual detective work on Batman's part, goofy touches reminiscent of classic Batman (a giant killer whale inside a bank lobby, for instance), an evocation of Gotham City as a gritty, noirish place, and a few nods to continuity and history. I wish I could say that I liked the artwork by Jock (Mark Simpson) and Francesco Francavilla in these stories, but I really don't. Francavilla's work is the stronger of the two, in my opinion, but to an old curmudgeon like me, the storytelling just isn't clear enough. Now, if you'd had Neal Adams or Jim Aparo illustrating these same stories, the way they did back in my day . . . (Yeah, yeah, that's a nice story, Grandpa.)

All in all, though, I found enough to like here that I'll probably read more of Snyder's Batman work. There are at least two more collections available.

Robin: Year One - Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty

Chuck Dixon is one of my favorite comics writers. His run on AIRBOY back in the Nineties was great, and he's done plenty of other things I've enjoyed, including a lot of Batman stories. In this mini-series from about ten years ago, he's collaborated with co-writer Scott Beatty and artists Javier Pulido and Marcos Martin to produce a very entertaining tale about the early days of the Batman and Robin partnership.

As a rule, I'm a little leery of "Year One" stories, because they're often just an excuse for the dreaded retconning. Not so much here. The plot works well and doesn't violate established continuity. (Although, does "established continuity" mean anything in the DCU anymore? I think not, he said snarkily.) Two-Face is the main villain here, although the plot twists enough to include run-ins with the Mad Hatter, Mr. Freeze, and the League of Assassins. The going proves to be unexpectedly rough for Robin, but he winds up being able to hold his own against some major league bad guys.

The script by Dixon and Beatty is excellent, with its hardboiled narration interspersed with journal entries by devoted butler Alfred Pennyworth. I'm less fond of the art by Pulido and Martin, which has that modern look that manages to seem hyper-stylized and unfinished at the same time. Their storytelling is decent most of the time, though, and the art doesn't detract any from the script. (Boy, you can really tell that I'm a word guy instead of an art guy, can't you?)

Overall I enjoyed ROBIN: YEAR ONE quite a bit. It feels like it fits in with the classic era of Batman, and that makes it good stuff as far as I'm concerned.

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? - Neil Gaiman

As I've mentioned before, I'm a long-time Batman fan. In fact, the first superhero comic I ever read, back in the late Fifties, would have been either a Batman or Superman book, I don't remember which. And the character is still going strong. BATMAN: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CAPED CRUSADER? reprints all the Batman stories written by Neil Gaiman. The two-part title story, which appeared in the final issues of BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS to carry the original numbering, finds Batman attending his own funeral and listening to a variety of stories about himself told by various family members, friends, and enemies. These are all alternate histories; as Batman notes in the course of the story, "It didn't happen that way." Everything winds up in the sort of ambiguous manner that I'm generally not too fond of, but Gaiman makes it work fairly well. And the art by Andy Kubert is excellent, as you'd expect.

There are also origin stories of a sort for a couple of villains, Poison Ivy and The Riddler, and a bizarre story with great black-and-white artwork by Simon Bisley that finds Batman and The Joker waiting in the green room to go on-stage in a comic book story. It works better than you might think.

While I wasn't overly fond of it, this collection is okay. I loved Gaiman's story for Marvel, 1602, but feel like he sort of missed the mark here. It's still entertaining, especially for long-time Batman fans, a category in which I definitely belong. 

Trinity - Matt Wagner

Over the years I’ve read and enjoyed a number of comics written by Matt Wagner, his long-running series SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE being the most notable. TRINITY is a fine trade paperback reprinting a three-issue miniseries written and drawn by Wagner and featuring DC’s three most iconic characters: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

Now, when I was a kid, I wasn’t a Wonder Woman fan. I suppose I was as sexist as any other ten or twelve year old boy in the Sixties. Plus I really didn’t like the art on the issues coming out then. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, DC tried to remold Wonder Woman into a Modesty Blaise sort of character, and while that was interesting, it never really worked for me, either. In the Eighties, though, there was another Wonder Woman relaunch with excellent stories and art by George Perez, and that one won me over. I’m still not a huge fan, but Wonder Woman is okay.

Throw her into an epic story with Superman and Batman, though, and you’ve got something. TRINITY is the story of Wonder Woman’s first meeting with them, and it involves an evil, globe-spanning conspiracy hatched by one of Batman’s arch-enemies, Ra’s Al Ghul, as well as one of Superman’s antagonists, Bizarro (who’s not really evil but still plenty dangerous anyway). Several things make TRINITY a fine piece of graphic novel entertainment. Wagner provides the art as well as the story, and it really works. He’s a good storyteller who uses classic layouts most of the time. His script is top-notch, capturing the personalities of Superman and Batman in all their complexity. There’s a sense of rivalry that’s always there, as well as a certain frustration and disapproval that each feels about the other’s methods, but above all, they’re friends. Then that sort of gets knocked cock-eyed by the arrival of Wonder Woman. No, there’s not any sense that they’re vying for her affections (although Batman is surprisingly interested in her). Wagner is too subtle a writer to take the easy, obvious route. But having Wonder Woman around does change the dynamic between Superman and Batman, at least a little.

This is one of the best comic book series I’ve read recently. If you’re a fan of the classic DC characters (another of whom makes a funny, unbilled cameo appearance), give TRINITY a try. I had a great time reading it.

Batman: The Man Who Laughs

I was in the mood for a good old traditional Batman yarn, and you can’t get much more traditional than Batman versus the Joker. BATMAN: THE MAN WHO LAUGHS is a trade paperback reprinting the long story of the same name, plus an unrelated three-part Batman story featuring the original Green Lantern. Both have scripts by Ed Brubaker, one of the most highly-regarded writers in comics today.

“The Man Who Laughs” is an updated retelling of Batman’s first battle against the Joker, but it’s a reasonably faithful one and includes a number of respectful nods to the long careers of the characters. I like this early setting for Batman stories, when everything still seems new, Jim Gordon is still a police detective, not the commissioner, and Batman is still a lone vigilante. Brubaker’s script is excellent, and I like the art by Doug Mahnke, too.

“Made of Wood”, the story featuring the original Green Lantern, is even better. I’ve always been really fond of the Golden Age Green Lantern, whose secret identity is broadcaster Alan Scott. This story features a modern-day serial killer who evidently has ties to an old, unsolved case that involved Green Lantern several decades earlier. At one point, Batman and GL discuss the case while playing golf in their civilian identities as Bruce Wayne and Alan Scott. I love the sense of camaraderie among many of the DC superheroes and the way they know each other’s secret identities. Again, Brubaker’s script is top-notch, and the art by Patrick Zircher likewise. By the way, the title of this story, for those of you who aren’t comics fans, refers to the fact that Green Lantern’s power ring is powerless against anything made of wood, its only weakness. I always thought this was a little goofy, but charming in its way, probably more so than the modern-day GL’s weakness, which is the color yellow.

I had a great time reading this one, so good, in fact, that I may feel a Batman binge coming on . . .

Batman: Vampire

First of all, the three graphic novels from the Nineties reprinted in this very nice trade paperback collection – BATMAN & DRACULA: RED RAIN, BATMAN: BLOODSTORM, and BATMAN: CRIMSON MIST – don’t take place in the regular Batman continuity. They’re alternate versions of Batman – “Tales of the Multiverse”, according to the cover. I believe at one time DC also referred to this sort of thing as “Elseworlds” stories. When I was a kid, anything outside the established continuity was called an “Imaginary Story”. I always loved the concept that some superhero stories could be more “imaginary” than others.

I missed these particular stories when they were first published, so they were new to me. Author Doug Moench spins a yarn that could only be told in an alternate DC Universe. Simply put, Batman becomes a vampire, just as the collection’s title says. This takes place in the first of the stories during an epic war against Dracula, who has come to Gotham City to expand his legion of undead followers. Batman’s allies in this struggle are vampires who have overcome their thirst for blood and dedicated themselves to wiping out Dracula. Even though the Lord of the Undead is defeated, things don’t turn out too well, and Batman is left a vampire himself, although a “good” one, much like the TV character Angel would be a few years later. The Joker enters the plot in the second story and makes things even worse, and they continue to spiral downward for Batman in the third story, which involves many of the villains from his rogues’ gallery, such as the Penguin, the Riddler, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, and Killer Croc. And if Batman has always been the most noirish DC hero, that’s really true here, as he struggles against evil both without and within.

This is classic Batman with a horror spin. Doug Moench was one of my favorite comics writers during the Seventies, based mostly on his great run on MASTER OF KUNG FU with artist Paul Gulacy. (And, boy, I’d love to read all those issues again and see how they hold up.) His scripts on these three Batman stories are excellent, with plenty of action and angst. Speaking of Paul Gulacy, the artwork in this collection by Kelley Jones reminds me a little of Gulacy’s work, as well as Berni Wrightson’s. I’m not always a big fan of Jones’s art – his human figures get a little elongated and bizarre-looking for my taste – but it’s really good in these stories, especially the first one, RED RAIN. I’m glad I was able to catch up to these three stories all in one book, and if you’re a Batman and/or horror fan, I think you’ll enjoy them, too.

Batman: Death Mask

I’m not much of a manga fan. I don’t like a lot of the artwork, and reading right to left always throws me. However, I’m willing to give one a try every now and then when it looks interesting, and as you can see from the cover, if you’re a Batman fan like me, this definitely looks interesting.

And as it turns out, BATMAN: DEATH MASK is a really good graphic novel. The story finds Bruce Wayne getting involved with a somewhat shady Japanese industrialist and winds up with Batman embroiled in an action-packed plot featuring murder victims who have their faces sliced off, a Japanese ceremonial mask with an ancient curse on it, a beautiful young woman who’s a dead ringer for one of Bruce Wayne’s old lovers, flashbacks to Bruce’s martial arts training in Japan before he becomes Batman, evil secrets from the past rising up to menace the present like something out of a Ross Macdonald novel, and a bunch of American gangsters. Whew. As you can tell, the pace in this story never slows down much. I even got used to reading backwards.

The story and art are by Yoshinori Natsume. Needless to say, I’d never read any of his work before. But I certainly would again, especially if it was another Batman graphic novel, because DEATH MASK is one of the best Batman yarns I’ve read in quite a while.

Batman and Son

Some of the first comic books I remember reading are issues of BATMAN from the Fifties, and here I am fifty years later still reading about Batman. Or The Batman, if you prefer. With the new movie opening this weekend, it seems appropriate, although I probably won’t actually see it until it comes out on DVD.

The trade paperback BATMAN AND SON reprints eight issues of the monthly BATMAN comic book, a storyline that introduces Damien Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia, the beautiful daughter of international criminal Ra’s al Ghul, who’s been one of the major villains in the DC universe for the past thirty years or so. Batman knew nothing about the boy, who was raised to be a weapon for use against him, but not everything goes according to Talia’s plan. As the story plays out, things take a late turn that left me sort of shaking my head in confusion. Maybe there’ll be a follow-up volume later on.

Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed BATMAN AND SON. The script by Grant Morrison is tight and fast-paced and evocative when it needs to be. The art by Andy Kubert is very good, including one of the covers from the original series that’s a collaboration between Andy Kubert and his dad Joe that’s excellent. Joe Kubert, of course, is one of the all-time great comic book artists and one of my favorites going back (again) nearly fifty years. As a bonus you get a prose short story featuring the Joker, also written by Grant Morrison. If you’re a comic book fan in general or a Batman fan in particular, I highly recommend this volume.

Batman and the Monster Men

BATMAN AND THE MONSTER MEN is a trade paperback reprinting a six-issue miniseries published by DC a couple of years ago, but the chapters flow together so well it might as well be a true graphic novel. The story is an updated retelling and expansion of a story from very early in Batman’s career, originally published in the early Forties before Robin came along. As such, it recaptures the grim, hardboiled feeling of those first Batman yarns and does a fine job of it.

This is the story that introduces Professor Hugo Strange, one of the first master villains to cross paths with Batman. Obsessed with his research into genetic manipulation, Strange resorts to crime to finance his experiments. Having transformed mental patients into hulking monsters by altering their DNA, he uses them to carry out robberies. Also weaving through this story is Bruce Wayne’s romance with Julie Madison, his first girlfriend in the comics, and subplots involving organized crime in Gotham City, in which characters who were created later are retconned into the original Hugo Strange story. This is the sort of revisionist history I don’t really mind, since it expands on what went before more than really changing it.

This series was written and drawn by Matt Wagner, who was also the author of the long-running SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE comic book, one of the very best in the past twenty years. I don’t know if the various story arcs from that series have been collected in trade paperbacks (I suspect they have), but they’re well worth hunting up and reading. So is BATMAN AND THE MONSTER MEN, which I enjoyed a lot.

Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, Volume 2

The second volume of this on-going series collects ten more stories of the Batman, ranging from 1940 to 2003. I had read several of these before, either in their original appearances, in the case of the ones from the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, or in other reprint volumes. They’re all entertaining, although none of them would be among my picks for the greatest Batman stories ever told. (As I think I’ve said before, those would be “Night of the Reaper” by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, and the Batman/Enemy Ace crossover, also by O’Neil and Adams, the title of which I can’t recall at the moment.) This volume features the extra-long story in which Jason Todd first became the infamous “second Robin”, a character so despised by the fans that he was eventually killed off. I’d consider this collection worth reading, since almost any story about Batman is going to be pretty good, but it’s a bit of a letdown after the excellent first volume in the series.

Superman/Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told

As DC’s best-known characters, Superman and Batman have been teaming up to battle various super-villains for more than fifty years. Since I like both characters, it makes sense that I’d enjoy SUPERMAN/BATMAN: THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD.

Most of the stories in this trade paperback are from WORLD’S FINEST, the comic book that featured Superman/Batman team-ups for most of its run. The first story, though, comes from a 1952 issue of SUPERMAN and tells how Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne learned each other’s secret identities. Up until that time, they had worked together a few times as Superman and Batman but neither knew who was really behind the other mask. From that point until the first reboot of the DC Universe in the Eighties (a move that I still disagree with, but that’s beside the point), Clark and Bruce not only work together to combat the bad guys but also form a lasting friendship. To tell the truth, that sense of friendship is the most appealing thing about many of these stories, which tend toward mild little puzzle yarns with no real sense of danger or adventure. Later, of course, in the stories from the past twenty years or so [Curmudgeon Alert!], things get a lot more grim and angsty, and the art gets more manga-influenced and hard to follow. But they’re still fairly entertaining.

Science-fiction author Edmond Hamilton, who also had a long career in comics, wrote about half the stories in this volume. Curt Swan, the quintessential Superman artist, provided the art for several of them. One short-short about a near-meeting between Clark and Bruce when they were children was written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Tim Sale, two of my favorite modern comics creators. When I was a kid reading comics, I always regarded WORLD’S FINEST as one of DC’s second-tier titles. Actually, back then I wasn’t all that fond of any of the team-up books, like THE BRAVE & THE BOLD or over at Marvel, MARVEL TEAM-UP. Reading the stories now, though, I find them pretty enjoyable and a nice shot of nostalgia, as well as being well-crafted in their own right. If you like Superman and Batman, you’ll definitely like this volume.

Batman: Nine Lives

This graphic novel is part of DC’s “Elseworlds” series, alternate histories of some of their comic book characters, if you will. In this heavily film noir influenced version of Batman, only Bruce Wayne and his caped alter ego are roughly the same as in the comic books we all know. Instead of Robin, Dick Grayson is an ex-cop, currently making his living as a private detective. His long-suffering secretary is Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Commissioner Gordon. The Joker is a gambler, the Penguin and Clayface are two of Gotham City’s gangsters, Mr. Freeze is the Penguin’s enforcer, Harvey Dent is a crooked, “two-faced” attorney, and Selina Kyle is a blackmailer and the owner of the Kit Kat Klub, rather than Catwoman. The look and trappings of the story place it in the Forties, and it’s a suitably convoluted yarn featuring a bunch of shady characters, narrated by Dick Grayson in the usual PI voiceover style.

This is a very entertaining book and probably would be even if you were reading it as a straight mystery and had never read any of the other versions of the Batman character. Being able to appreciate the differences just adds another level of enjoyment. The script is by Dean Motter, the art by Michael Lark, and I’d recommend it to any Batman and/or noir fans.

Batman: Detective

BATMAN: DETECTIVE is a new trade paperback reprinting a six-issue run of stories from DETECTIVE COMICS that were originally published a year or so ago. Five of them were written by Paul Dini, the driving force behind the Batman animated TV series, and the other is by Royal McGraw, with art by various hands.

Batman first appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS #27, of course, ’way back in the late Thirties, and ever since, his abilities as a crime-solver have set him apart from most of the other superheroes out there. All the stories in this volume are stand-alones, and most of them focus on Batman functioning as a detective as he takes on classic villains such as The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler, and Poison Ivy. There are a couple of villains who were new to me, Façade and Dr. Phosphorus. All of them make fine opponents for Batman.

This is an excellent collection with fine scripts and art from everyone involved. Batman remains my all-time favorite DC Comics character. I’ve read stories from every era of his history and liked them all (even the goofy, SF-dominated stuff from the Fifties). It’s nice to know that he’s still in good hands today.