Batman #5 REVIEW - Gotham must be stopped

As far as ultimately climactic moments go for a comic book story arc, Tom King does not disappoint this week with Batman #5. Since the start of the "I Am Gotham" arc the entire series has been a tour de force of Batman dealing with his own internal demons while facing a pair of super-powered siblings, both of whom were just recently corrupted by Hugo Strange and Psycho Pirate. The corruption left Claire Clover AKA Gotham Girl, a frightened, quivering mess, while Hank Clover AKA Gotham went on a a rampage to destroy the city and cleanse it of its decay.

I'm simply not going to spoil much out of this one for you especially the first couple of pages or so, but I will tell you that it was nothing short of hilariously appropriate and was a great tension breaker for the situation at hand. The book is basically a big chase between Batman and Gotham where the Caped Crusader works over intercom with Duke Thomas to determine exactly how Hank and his sister got their powers and what they can do to stop Hank before he destroys the city. 

From the beginning, King has made this Batman series a personal and emotional one with great introspective beats and fantastic parallels between Bruce Wayne and The Clover siblings. Just as Bruce took responsibility in Issue #3 for Gotham's very creation, here he is ready to sacrifice himself to save his city from Gotham's angry call to misplaced vengeance. To be fair, he does call for "help" in the middle of the mission and he gets it big time, if only to wear Gotham down and make him use most of his power until he burns out. 

I have been very glad that DC Rebirth has seen Batman strong in now three different books: All-Star Batman by Scott Snyder, Detective Comics by James Tynion IV and this Batman series. In Detective Comics Batman faces a more physical challenge and foe, while in All-Star Batman he dabbles in physical and emotional struggles throughout that first issue. I feel like this Batman series is definitely the most emotional of the stories to this point and that runs right up to the end of this book and will continue on for one more issue before the next arc begins in the series. 

Along with the great emotional depth, there's great action in this book too, matching the intensity and scale of the previous four issues in the "I Am Gotham" arc. There's never a sense that the stakes aren't high and they come to a huge rise at the end of this book. 

This is my first introduction to the writing of Tom King and he really started off Batman's first Rebirth series with a bang. I haven't been disappointed with a single book yet and look forward to continuing this series into the next arc. 

5 out of 5 - DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH: Batman #5

This series runs twice a month, next issue due out September 7. 

All-Star Batman #1 REVIEW - Two-Face turns the tables on The Dark Knight

Before reading All-Star Batman #1 my only prior exposure of Scott Snyder's Batman work was the one shot Batman: Rebirth book that he developed the story for that Tom King wrote. While I liked it, it wasn't my favorite book of the Rebirth one shots and that disappointed me because I'm a huge Batman fan and I really, really wanted to love that book and I just didn't. Something just wasn't quite there for me. Since then, I've been waiting for this book because I've heard many a great things about Snyder's Batman writing and I was just hoping for something better than the Rebirth one shot. 

Oh boy, is this book better. Like, A LOT better. 

The thing I appreciate about Snyder and also Tim King who is writing the current Batman series is that they understand just how impressive Batman has to be at what he does without making him overpowered. There are times when he definitely gets overwhelmed or surprised by his villains, but that's when he is at his best, when the chips are down and his enemies falsely believe they have him trapped, only to be proven very wrong......usually in a painful manner. 

All-Star Batman #1 is told with a disjointed timeline for its first story, "My Own Worst Enemy, Part 1" and you're left to do some reasoning on just what exactly is going for the first few pages. It's pretty straightforward though and you discover that somehow Two-Face has managed to turn all of Gotham against Batman for a very high price and Batman's only hope is to bring him to a location outside of the city that will provide some answers as long as everyone else in between doesn't kill him first. 

From the beginning, this book puts Batman in a perilous and vulnerable position that he has to find a way out of overall and within the scope of everyone else turning on him. It's there when he is on the ground, seemingly in a kill box that he manages to be the hero that we all know him to be and come out on top at least for that one battle or two that he faces in the ongoing war that is sure to rage for a bit here in this arc. Two-Face has a meticulous plan up his sleeve and whatever it is, it's dangerous enough for Batman to allow himself to be vulnerable just to root it out. 

This book is a bit more than the other DC Rebirth books at $4.99 instead of $2.99, likely because of the second story in the book entitled "The Cursed Wheel, Part 1," which is finally giving us some more setup of the current relationship between Batman and Duke Thomas, his latest partner in crimefighting. It's a shorter story at the end of the book, but it's a solid one too nonetheless that promises to give us some good backstory on the Bruce-Duke paradigm, one that does appear to be in effect in All-Star Batman and the current Batman series. 

I've said it before that this is a great time to be a Batman fan for the DC Rebirth line as this is now the third Batman series being printed and all of them are very good. Unlike the others though, we will be waiting a full month to continue this story arc but just like the others, it's off to a great start. 

5 out of 5 - DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH: All-Star Batman #1

This series is monthly, next issue due out September 14. 

Batman #4 REVIEW - Gotham's reckoning is taking a turn for the worst

The plot is really starting to thicken in the story arc of Batman under his issues within DC Rebirth. Issue #4 deals with the aftermath of the end of Issue #3, with several soldiers dead, apparently at the hands of Hugo Strange and Psycho Pirate who have turned the tables on Hank Clover AKA Gotham and made him a very dangerous and unpredictable weapon with his powers. 

Meanwhile his sister Claire AKA Gotham Girl is in The Batcave with Duke Thomas, emotionally and physically shaken from the same ordeal that turned her brother rogue, making it all the more vital that Batman find him as soon as possible. 

This book is kind of a sharp 180 from the way the first three issues seemed to be headed and just when we were getting to a point where maybe we could start to trust Gotham and Gotham Girl, especially after what Issue #3 revealed about their origins, now they are, or at least Hank is becoming a major liability and a danger to the city that must be handled at all costs. 

From the beginning of this series, Batman has been the greatness that we have come to know and love from him in almost any book, starting with his incredible efforts in Issue #1 to save a crashing plane and continuing all the way into this book when he effectively intimidates Amanda Waller of ARGUS while asking questions about Strange and Psycho Pirate. While we still need to know and determine the extent of Hugo Strange's grand plan for Hank and the city of Gotham, Batman Rebirth has been enjoyable just from a storytelling standpoint, refusing to rely on huge splash pages and big demonstrative actions to carry the day. Tom King is telling a great story here and he has hit some really strong beats that play well to the plot and to certain characters involved within it. 

In many ways this book symbolizes the DC Rebirth effort in the first place, signaling a time when a character like Batman returns to his roots as fas as story and creation. This story arc at its core is very human and emotionally engaging, asking tough questions of the reader from the beginning and dealing with subjects such as self-sacrifice, morality, responsibility and emotional bankruptcy. That all seems a bit deep, but that's how good this series has been so far and I only expect it to continue. 

If it weren't for James Tynion IV's great work with Detective Comics right now, this would be my favorite Batman series. Then of course, we do have Scott Snyder's All-Star Batman coming. the bottom line is that right now it's a great time to be a Batman fan with the comics. 

5 out of 5 - DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH: Batman #4

This series runs twice a month, next issue due on August 17. 

Batman #3 REVIEW - The truth about Gotham's ironic origin

Batman #3 starts off with what appears to be Bruce Wayne retelling the story of his parents death and how it affected him and how he perceives the city of Gotham in all its seedier stench and low road to glory. We see a family of three, husband, wife and young son all walking down the wrong alley coming from the movie theater, only to be accosted by a thug in the night that wants nothing but bad from an innocent family. 

Except this time, Batman stops the thug and leaves the family with a hopeful message for next time, effectively changing his own history, right? Of course not, wrong superhero. 

No, this time we find out that what we were really seeing was the origin of Gotham, one of the new superheroes in the city now along with his sister Gotham Girl, who are pledged to help Batman in his never-ending quest for justice. 

Unlike Bruce Wayne, for whom the death of his parents at the hands of evil would fuel the monster that he would eventually let out to play in Batman, the young boy whose parents were saved by Batman was profoundly influenced by the event and resolved himself to help other and follow in the crimefighting footsteps of The Dark Knight, a path shared with him by his sister, leading the both of them in adult years to somehow acquire superpowers and transform themselves into the superheroes they are now in the present day, fighting alongside Batman. 

The dynamics of this story are phenomenal as we are given a few twists and turns with the narrative, but ultimately are told in brief detail the origin of Gotham and Gotham Girl, which serves to answer a few questions, most notably if Bruce knew who they were, which he certainly does. On the other hand, while the story remains compelling it doesn't answer every question we have, such as how deep Hugo Strange's involvement in what is going on in Gotham is and just how responsible he might be for the "Mystery Men" that are said to be coming. 

The Batman series has been one of the strongest out of the gate for DC in its new Rebirth line and it doesn't seem to be slowing anytime soon. Tom King and Danny Miki have displayed the core elements of Batman so far in this series while still managing to tell a new story with different wrinkles that we haven't seen before in these new heroes that were seemingly "created" by Batman, which raises some great questions as it is: Would Bruce have turned out any differently if his parents were saved by a hero just as theirs were? Would he be like them and still want to fight crime? How does Bruce feel knowing that doing the right thing actually created more heroes? 

It's that next level of storytelling that sits at the strong heart of this issue and this series as a whole. With DC Rebirth almost universally being praised for some seminal work being done with their comics right now, it was important for a character like Batman to have a strong start and he most certainly has that right now. It almost makes you wonder how Detective Comics current run and Scott Snyder's upcoming All-Star Batman run will compare. In any case, it's a great time to read some Batman right now. 

5 out of 5 stars - DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH: Batman #3

This is a biweekly series, next issue due out August 3rd.