Batman: The Brave & the Bold #1 – Tom King, Ed Brisson, Christopher Cantwell, Dan Mora, Writers; Mitch Gerads, Jeff Spokes, Javier Rodriguez, Dan Mora, Artists
Ray – 9/10
Ray: This oversized anthology seems to be a replacement for Batman: Urban Legends—but with a broader focus outside Batman and Gotham, and some seriously heavy-weight creative teams right out of the gate. This first issue has three multi-part stories and one one-off. So how does the debut issue shake out?
First up are one of DC’s most iconic creative teams, Tom King and Mitch Gerads on “Batman: The Winning Card.” A full-length story, this tale is set during the early days of Batman’s time in Gotham—and during the first day’s of Joker’s attack. It seems like a series of vignettes—Batman pursues a drunk and foul-mouthed petty criminal to the train tracks, Alfred keeps watch over a rather obnoxious guest waiting to meet Bruce, Jim Gordon, and his men guard a paranoid rich man who is convinced he’s about to be robbed and murdered, a desperate man searches for his missing daughter, and a little girl with a balloon sits in the rain and talks to an unusual pale-skinned man about some odd things. The stories seem disconnected at first, and then one by one they link up in a disturbing unveiling of just how ahead of the game Joker already is. No surprise, a King/Gerads book is likely to be excellent.
Also full-length, Brisson and Spokes’ “Stormwatch: Down with the Kings” tries to bring the Wildstorm antiheroes fully into the DCU with a new crew. This tale sees Director Bones assemble a new crew of anti-heroes from around the DCU—including original Kenyan agent Flint, Deathstroke’s daughter Ravager, Green Arrow’s ex Shado, and a pair of villains Brisson has already worked with, Ghost-Maker’s erstwhile sidekick Phantom-One and cybernetically-enhanced police brutality poster boy Peacekeeper 0-1. Add in a new crew of international agents, and it’s a busy crew sent into action to recapture a powerful metahuman. This story definitely pays tribute to the parent property’s ’90s roots, but with some nicely dark twists behind the scenes.
Christopher Cantwell makes his DC debut alongside Javier Rodriguez on “Superman: Order of the Black Lamp,” a shorter continuing tale that finds the Man of Steel dealing with something new—existential angst. He’s struggling to find his place now that his identity is secret again, and Lois Lane is battling to keep the Planet afloat as the new Editor in Chief. This intersects when she tasks Clark with finding a killer story—and reporting on Superman isn’t doing it. But when Clark gets a mysterious cipher tying back to an old adventures show he watched as a kid, he’s pulled into an intriguingly pulpy mystery. I think maybe this story could have stood to have more pages, but it’s a very promising start.
Finally, Dan Mora goes solo on “Heroes of Tomorrow,” a black-and-white tale set in a Gotham of the future, where a cybernetic Batman goes up against a high-tech Joker. There’s relatively little context to this tale, but a lot of surprises. When the reveal of the two boys Batman is trying to save is made, it raises a lot of questions and the story doesn’t have enough time to answer them, but it’s an interesting look at a completely new Gotham and Mora’s art is always stunning. Hope to see more.
Overall, this is a fantastic start from four excellent creative teams.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
