Comic Book Reviews: Man-Bat #1 and Captain Marvel trades (Issues 1-12)

First off, yes I did change from the Sinestro Corps War that I was going to do on my audio blog, but I do think I have a pretty good review for you that should take precedence.



It's rare that I go into a Marvel Comics title, but after A LOT of praise, I'm giving Captain Marvel a shot. My thoughts are in the audio, but needless to say, since I'm bringing it up, there is definitely something there.

Kelly Sue DeConnick is an awesome writer and I wanted to give her due credit for what she's doing with Captain Marvel.

And for the record, even though I do say I'm not a fan of the art in the book, I'm just making it clear that it's NOT bad artwork. It's just a style that I don't feel matches the tone of the book.

Dexter Soy was a little gritty for the tone of the book, and Felipe Andrade's design's, while good for emotion, are an artistic style that I gravitate to in museums, not in sequential books, so it distracts from the narrative. Overall, though, none of them killed the quality of what was an incredible 12-issue journey.

Anyway, on to Detective Comics 23.4: Man-Bat #1!

I initially was going to skip this one. I had my fill of Villains Month and was content to move on to actual books again. However, after seeing the preview and checking out a review at Batman-News.com, it was blatantly obvious that this was a necessary read if you've been following the back-ups in John Layman's Detective Comics title.

First off, kudos to Detective for actually writing a book that's about something useful! This actually turned out to be a nice surprise.

The artwork here is great and it felt like the back-up stories even though Layman wasn't writing it.

Granted, I'm not sure how much of a difference it would have made if Layman had written it because, as the review I linked said, this is a fast read. But it's by design, so I'm fine with it.

Kirk Langstrom has escalated the Man-Bat serum even further in order to take down his wife's rampage. And once he's done that, he decides to be a crime-fighter in Batman's absence.

Unfortunately, the addictive nature of the serum is still present, and it leads to his articulate thoughts at the start of the book to be shorter, more primal sentences by the end. That's actually a pretty freaking good idea in order to justify less writing.

And yes, by the end, you'll know why this book means so much to the back-up. If you're reading Detective - more specifically, the Man-Bat stories - you'll need this title.

Once again, easily the best Man-Bat I've seen hits hard and well in a solo adventure, and I'm looking forward to whenever this character meets with Batman again.

If you haven't been following it, I'd get started now. This book is fairly new-reader friendly thanks to the exposition and you'll want to see how this story advances.

Overall, I'd say it's one of the most important Villains titles to pick up.

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