Batman: The Brave and the Bold #4 – Collin Kelly/Jackson Lanzing, Ed Brisson, Rob Williams, Meghan Fitzmartin, Writers; Kelley Jones, Pasquale Qualano, Stefano Landini, Belen Ortega, Artists; Michelle Madsen, Ivan Plascencia, Antonio Fabela, Colorists
Ray – 9/10
Ray: The latest chapter of this anthology has another fill-in for King and Gerads’ Joker tale, but it’s one with an impressive creative team—Lanzing, Kelly, and legendary Batman artist Kelley Jones on “Enter the Abyss,” a chilling tale that finds a mysterious force kidnapping people all around Gotham. When one of the victims is Cullen Row, the brother of Harper, that leads Batman into the company of one Jane Smith, a supernatural being who knows more than she’s letting on about the thing under Gotham. The story here is compelling, with some great twists, but the star here is Jones—no surprise. The man is just as good as he was 25 years ago when I discovered his art, and some of his visuals here are genuinely disturbing. Surprisingly, this is also a tie-in to Lanzing and Kelly’s other DC work right now—Batman Beyond.
The fourth chapter of Stormwatch: Down With the Kings by Brisson and Qualano is the only holdover story this issue, and this installment is a surprise Knight Terrors tie-in. As the only installment with close ties to continuity, it gives the Stormwatch members their own taste of terror thanks to the Core, but we have some strong visuals such as Shado’s panic over losing her skill with a bow. Despite it being an illusion, it reveals some interesting hidden secrets about the team, and sets up the next chapter.
Harcourt: Second Life by Williams and Landini kicks off a new narrative, and it focuses on Emilia Harcourt, the ARGUS agent and key player in the recent Peacemaker series who is out to solve a murder—her own. She was killed under mysterious circumstances, woke up in the Lazarus Pit, and now has light-based powers—and a debt to Amanda Waller that she has to pay off, whether she likes it or not. This first chapter is really just snapshots of the plot, with a lot of unsolved mysteries, but it has some great action.
Finally, it’s “My Family” by Meghan Fitzmartin and Belen Ortega. Given that creative team, it’s not a surprise that it focuses on the Bat-family. Batman is facing off against a team-up of Hush and Bane, beaten within an inch of his life—and hallucinating his younger self at the worst moment of his life. While this is very similar to a scene we saw in the recent Knight Terrors Batman book, it does have a great emotional climax and some excellent black-and-white art.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
