Batman #34 review

After the long look back at Gotham that was Zero Year, this issue catches the book up to the events of DC’s weekly Batman Eternal series while introducing a new madman to the mythos. The Meek is wandering Gotham, murdering the patients of Dr Leslie Thompkins, not because of her link to Batman but because […]

American Vampire: Second Cycle #1

Scott Snyder curates a caveful of flying critters in Batman, but I’ve missed his take on the vampire kind of bat since his collaboration with Rafael Albuquerque went on hiatus. So it’s good to see volume two of American Vampire, their 20th century-spanning horror serial, kick off.The narrative has moved up in time to the 1960s, where […]

Batman #29 review

Last month the Zero Year story was set aside for a fill-in to give artist Greg Capullo time to do Scott Snyder’s extra-length script justice. This issue we see what a wise move that was, as Capullo, inker Danny Miki and colourist FCO Plascencia produce a meaty chapter that sustains the gorgeousness from beginning to […]

Action Comics #27 review

Last time, Superman rescued Lana Lang and her engineering colleagues from a raging beastie which emerged from a hole in South America. He let everyone think he’d […]

Batman #26 review

It’s still Zero Year, when Bruce Wayne was developing his Batman role, and he’s fighting Dr Death. A brilliant medic self-transformed into a monster able to control his bone growth, he wants revenge on Wayne employee Lucius Fox for perceived slights. And if he gets to take down Bruce Wayne along the way, all the […]

Action Comics #16 review

If you’ve not been reading Action Comics, any attempt at summation of this issue by me is going to fall very flat. We’re almost a year and a half into a grand, glorious storyline spanning several periods in Superman’s life, as well as the far future. Then there are the representatives from the magical Fifth […]

Action Comics #15 review

… or Mrs Nyxly Explains It All. There’s an awful lot of exposition this issue, but it’s anything but awful, as Clark Kent’s landlady, recently revealed as an emigree from the Fifth Dimension, gives him the big picture. In a truly fascinating instalment we see Superman on the roof of her building, remembering the confrontation […]

Action Comics #14 review

I’ve heard complaints that Grant Morrison isn’t imbuing Action Comics with the same sense of wonder that pervaded his All-Star Superman run. As if to answer those critics, ‘Superman’s Mission To Mars’ opens with a sequence showing just how awesome the Man of Steel is – without actually showing him. There’s real grandeur as super-hearing, […]

Action Comics #13 review

Linus was right. The Great Pumpkin does bring wonderful gifts at Hallowe’en. What else could explain the best issue of Action Comics this year showing up in October? ‘The Ghost in the Fortress of Solitude’ is presented as a fable for a dark, autumn night, with an omniscient narrator telling us what happened on October […]

Sword of Sorcery featuring Amethyst #0 review

She learned the truth at 17, that she was born to be a queen. OK, sorry, I couldn’t resist riffing on the old Janis Ian song after reading the lead strip in this new DC title. A reinterpretation of an Eighties cult favourite, Amethyst tells of how school outsider Amy Winston receives a very special […]