GRAPHIC NOVEL and TRADE PAPERBACK (TPB) REVIEWS

Batman: Going Sane 2008 (SC TPB) 144 pages

Written by J.M. DeMatteis, with Eddie Campbell & Darren White. Pencils by Joe Staton, with Bart Sears. Inks by Steve Mitchell
Colours/letters: various

Reprints: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #65-68, 200 (1994-1995, 2006)

Rating: * * * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

This TPB also includes Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #200 (another Batman-Joker story) which I haven't read.

Make of it what you will, but even in this age of "sophisticated" comics, and "intellectual" critics waxing purple about the profundity of (some) comics, smart stories can still get neglected, even ignored. Sure, maybe it's because said stories aren't as great as a fan might think...or maybe they're a wee bit too smart, too ambitious for their own good.

Case in point is J.M. DeMatteis' "Going Sane" story line. Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight was a comic in which creators were given the creative freedom to tell self-contained arcs, without having to follow it up with another, and another, (as the regular writer of a title is expected to do). In other words, each and every storyline should be something special. Although LOTDK has produced a number of TPB collections, "Going Sane" probably stands as one of the few that actually fulfills the mag's intent.

The story has Batman and the Joker getting into one of their usual life-and-death struggles, only to have the Joker seeming to kill Batman. Faced with the loss of his nemesis -- his "audience" -- the insane Joker can only retreat...into sanity. He adopts a new life, thanks to plastic surgery, and with his mind blocking out his memories of his criminal career. He even falls in love. Meanwhile Batman is recuperating, annonymously, in a small town, ministered by a kindly lady doctor. Both Joker and Batman have retreated from their former existences, faced with the possibility of starting again. But such normalacy proves temporary, and the two ultimately head for a climactic clash.

Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke is generally regarded as the definitive Batman-Joker story, but I'll admit I never "got" it. It struck me as shallow and simple. Meanwhile, J.M. DeMatteis had earlier acquired accolades with his Spider-Man saga Kraven's Last Hunt (which, indeed, could be seen to have influenced the Killing Joke -- though was better). There are definite echoes of Kraven's Last Hunt in "Going Sane" (without the two stories being the same) so that one could argue Kraven's Last Hunt was a dry run for this, arguably superior tale.

Ever thought the Joker could elicit sympathy, or could be cast as a tragic figure? Ever thought a Joker story could put a bit of a lump in your throat...without radically altering the character, or diverging from established mythos? If not, "Going Sane" will make you a believer.

The story is structurally complex, playing around with character analysis, symbolism, and thematic parallels, as both Batman and the Joker experience similiar life decisions. Some symbolism is, admittedly, heavy handed, but rarely pointless or overly indulgent: the former Joker and his love coming upon a river and she remarking they've reached the end of the road, unaware she speaks of their relationship, or the recurring use of water as a theme and metaphor. Even the very title, "Going Sane", is given a clever twist in the final panel of the saga. DeMatteis makes us believe in the Joker's new identity of Joseph Kerr; a decent man plagued by nightmares, not fully aware of the demon inside. We believe and we care, care enough to want him to triumph, even as we know he won't. Nor is Batman neglected -- this is a Batman story, after all. DeMatteis' handling of the Batman is also surprisingly deft for a man who has written him rarely. He delves into his psyche, and humanizes him, in a way that largely puts to shame Denny O'Neil, Alan Moore, Doug Moench, Frank Miller and others who, over the years, have tried to lay bare the soul of the Dark Knight.

DeMatteis sets out to tell a sophisticated, grown up tale, a tale rife with symbolism and thematic threads -- which alone is unusual for comics writers, though Moore, Miller, Busiek and others have occasionally tried, usually with less finesse. But it's also very much a human tale, where the characters are more than just ciphers, and their experiences more than just intellectual abstractions. And though exciting, with plenty of action and excitement, DeMatteis isn't afraid to slow down, to tell a tale that is as much a drama as it is an adventure. And even the pop references, with the Joker showing a love for old time comedians, show a writer that isn't entirely pandering to the usual, teen audience (will most kids even know to whom he's referring?)

Artist Joe Staton, with Steve Mitchell on inks, might seem like an odd choice for Batman, with Staton's cartoony style. But this is a different kind of cartooniness than I've commented is common today, with artists who seem to have learned drawing from saturday morning cartoons, and Japanese anime. Staton's is a rawer, kinetic style. Sometimes crude, but frequently dynamic and expressive, and he draws a dark and spooky Batman better than I expected. And that very cartooniness maybe makes him ideal for tackling the Joker (not the most realistic bone structure in comics).

So why is "Going Sane" largely forgotten even as aging comic fans are constantly looking for those great stories that will vindicate their hobby? Why does Alan Moore, or Kurt Busiek's Astro City get held up as shining lights of sophistication...and this gets relegated to the cheap bins? (Only being collected more than a decade after it was first published -- and then presumably just because DC was looking for Joker stories to have on the shelf to coincide with the movie, "The Dark Knight"). Well, to be catty, maybe it's just too smart. Maybe it's not as self-reflective as critics like their comics these days -- DeMatteis comes from an older style, which tackled super beings as though they were people first, unlike many modern comics which seem to analyze super heroes as superheroes. Maybe DeMatteis' willingness to create suspense and tension through the characters, rather than just piling on the action scenes (though there are those) had critics reaching for their TV remote controls.

All I can say about "Going Sane" is this: I've got a friend who has been acting as an experimental test subject for me. Not a comic fan, per se, he has been dutifuly reading comics of all stripes and sizes that I give him, looking for that "great" story that will impress him, a non-comics regular (including the works of Moore, Miller, Gaiman, Busiek, Waid, etc.). "Going Sane" is practically the first one which he has, at last, grudgingly, thought was pretty darn good.

Make of it what you will.

This is a review of the story as it was serialized in Batman: LOTDK comics.

Cover price: $14.99 USA.

Gotham by Gaslight
see review in Batman Elseworlds section

Batman: Gothic 1991 (SC TPB) 128 pages

Written by Grant Morrison. Art by Klaus Janson.
Colours: Steve Buccellato. Letters: John Constanza. Editor: Andrew Helfer, Kevin Dooley.

Reprints: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #6-10 (1990)

Rating: * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

Suggested (mildly) for Mature Readers.

The sinister, supernatural Mr. Whispers is going around killing Gotham City mobsters, enacting revenge for their having "murdered" him twenty years before. Meanwhile, Batman begins to suspect that Mr. Whisper is really his old boarding school head master, as well as a child murderer, leading him to a European monastery and tales of a centuries old deal with the Devil.

There are some intriguing aspects to Gothic, and moments that threaten to get creepy and moody. But the opening issue establishes some of the overall problems. Though intriguing, in order to establish that someone is killing Gotham mobsters, writer Grant Morrison depicts Mr. Whisper going around, killing mobsters...again, and again, and yet again -- at least once in a particularly gratuitously grisly way. And since that's about all there is to that issue (other than Batman having a dream, recalling his childhood), there's a real sense of thinness...and repetition.

Morrison seems to have trouble developing his story. Batman is told that Mr. Whisper had been murdered 20 years before, and also recalls that his headmaster (whom he suspects to be the same man) quit the school under a cloud of scandal. So wouldn't you think that would be his first area of inquiry, looking into the events of twenty years before? Apparently not. In fact, it's never explained what the scandal was that caused the headmaster to leave the school (since it's unclear anyone other than Batman -- and that only now -- connected him too the child murders). Morrison stretches out his story by introducing questions, ignoring them for an issue or two, and then having some character explain it all in a rush that leaves little room for the story -- or the suspense -- to unfold. In one sequence Batman is told about a haunted monastery, where the ghost of a flaming nun has been seen. Batman goes to said monastery, and sees...the ghost of said nun. Uh, wouldn't it have made more sense to have Batman be warned simply of strange lights seen in the monastery, so that when he investigates, he -- and the reader -- can be surprised by the nature of said lights?

The mystery aspects are also oddly handled, with Batman gleaning clues from dreams or happenstance, rather than from more conventional deductive sources. At one point he infers a clue because he accidentally plays the wrong tape (which even Alfred remarks seems like a stretch)! Maybe because of the supernatural aspects to the story, Morrison figures such plot devices are justified (perhaps we are to assume God is helping Batman along or something) but it just makes the story seem loosely plotted.

Even the moderately intriguing idea of underworld figures banding together to hunt Mr. Whispers two decades before (which Morrison lifted from the famous German melodrama, "M") doesn't really seem developed, nor are the characters.

Which brings up Morrison's treatment of Batman. Morrison tells the story only through the pictures and dialogue -- not even a voiceover narration as other Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight stories have employed. This may explain why Batman seems like such an elusive character throughout. I kept reading chapters thinking Batman only had a bit part, but then I realized he appeared on many of the pages -- Morrison just fails to make much impression with him.

As well, I've long felt there was a problem with the modern take on Alfred. In the mid-80s, writer Frank Miller (and editor Denny O'Neil) introduced the idea of Alfred as a sarcastic, wisecracking character, which, admittedly, injected some humour into the stories. But the danger is that Batman's sole human interaction -- with Alfred -- can be sapped of all warmth or humanity, rendering an already isolated character (Batman) even moreso. Some writers have bridge the two versions. Not so Morrison. The scenes between Batman and Alfred are cold, again, explaining why Batman -- as a human character -- doesn't reallly emerge in this story. Worse, Alfred's asides aren't even all that funny!

Lack of character, and humanity, lingers throughout. Morrison spends a lot of time with the mobsters, without ever fleshing them out. Batman, meanwhile, suspects a childhood school chum, who he had always assumed had transferred away from the school, was in fact murdered by Mr. Whisper. Yet that never plays into his motivation -- in fact, it's barely even addressed.

There are plot holes and unexplained aspects (Batman is tied up in one of those goofy death traps villains like so much...but it's entirely unclear how he escapes it; particularly annoying since the death trap is the cliff-hanger between two chapters and is stretched out over a number of pages). And, overall, like a lot of the five chapter, "epic" stories published in LOTDK, this really doesn't seem to have enough to fill out its length (perhaps explaining why, after beginning the series with a bunch of five-chapter stories, the idea was dropped for the next hundred or so issues of LOTDK!)

There are also a few oblique scenes that assume you know your Bat-lore intimately, like tying an aspect of the story into the night Batman's parents were murdered...without ever actually coming right out and saying that!

The art by Klaus Janson also left me with mixed feelings. Janson, formerly an inker with a highly identifiable crude, heavy brush style, could enhance an artist's pencils with dark, raw mood and smouldering atmosphere, even as he could hurt the work by blunting over the finer details of a picture. As an artist, his work retains a certain kineticism and dark mood, and some nicely composed panels (perhaps a storytelling knack he picked up from his years of inking Frank Miller) but the underlying pencil work seems rushed and shows only the vaguest grasp of anatomy, or even how human bodies bend. The result is art that is intriguing at first, suiting the dark, sinister mood, but starts to wear after a while in its crudeness and lack of nuance.

An intriguing, decidedly dark, potentially creepy tale, full of hints of big -- even relevant -- themes...but the whole thing seems undeveloped, its potential largely unfulfilled. Not terrible, perhaps, but nothing noteworthy, either.

This is a review of the story as it was serialized in Batman: LOTDK comics.

Cover price: $18.95 CDN./ $__ USA.

The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told 1988 (SC TPB) 352 pages

Writers: Gardner Fox, Bill Finger, (and various uncredited Golden Age writers), Denny O'Neil, Frank Robbins, Archie Goodwin, Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Alan Brennert, Bob Rozakis.

Art Bob Kane, Dick Sprang, Jerry Robinson, Jack Burnley, Jim Mooney, Sheldon Moldoff, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Frank Robbins, Jim Aparo, Alex Toth, Marshall Rogers, Walt Simonson, Michael Golden, Joe Staton.

Many early comics featured a number of shorter stories in one issue, so that most of those stories don't represent the whole comic; even up into the '70s and '80s some of these comics featured back up stories or, indeed, the story included here was the short back-up story!...1940s: "Batman vs. the Vampire" (Detective Comics #31-32), "Dr. Hugo Strange and the Mutant Monsters" (Batman #1), "Knights of Knavery" (Batman #25), "1001 Umbrellas of the Penguin" (newspaper strip), "The Origin of the Batman" (Batman #47) - 1950s: "The Birth of Batplane II" (Batman #61), "Operation: Escape" (Star-Spangled Comics #124), "The Jungle Cat-Queen" (Detective Comics #211), "The First Batman" (Detective Comics #235), "Origin of the Superman-Batman Team" (World's Finest #94) - 1960s: "Robin Die at Dawn" (Batman #156), "The Blockbuster Invason of Gotham" (Detective Comics #345) - 1970s: "Ghost of the Killer Skies" (Detective Comics #404), "Half an Evil" (Batman #234), "Man-Bat Over Vegas" (Detective Comics #429), "The Batman Nobody Knows" (Batman #250), "Deathmask" (Detective Comics #437), "Death Haunts the Skies' (Detective Comics #442), "There is no Hope in Crime Alley" (Detective Comics #457), "Death Strikes at Midnight and Three" (a text story from DC Special Series #15), "The Deadshot Ricochet" (Detective Comics #474), "Bat-Mite's New York Adventure" (Detective Comics 482), "A Caper a Day Keeps the Batman at Bay" (Batman #312) - 1980s: "To Kill a Legend" (Detective Comics #500), "The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne" (The Brave and the Bold #197)

Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Additional notes: commentaries by Dick Giordano; Mike Gold; Robert Greenberger; creator bios.

I always seem to have mixed feelings about "Greatest" collections and "Best of..." assemblages.

On one hand, what's not to like? A wide variety of stories collected between a single cover -- some undoubtedly quite rare and hard to find. And stories that have already been vetted by editors, so that you can be pretty sure they're all of at least decent quality. It's a grab bag of tales, and really, that's all you can ask. And assuming the price hasn't changed much...that's a pretty good deal (350 pages for the price that normally wouldn't get you half those pages).

On the other hand, if the promise is that these really are the "greatest" you can kind of expect a certain level of quality, mixing significant, "classic" tales with just well told stories. And that's where my mixed feelings can come in. Because I've rarely read a "greatest" collection that entirely lived up to its name. This one included.

On a technical level, The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told tries to cover most of the key bases. It reprints stories from over a four decade span, and features appearances by a number of familiar foes such as Catwoman, Penguin, The Scarecrow, Two-Face, the Joker (the latter only in one tale since he got his own TPB collection). And there are lesser recurring nemeses such as Hugo Strange and the first appearance of Blockbuster. There's some interesting variety as well, including a Sunday newspaper strip story line, and a text story. Although published in the late 1980s, after DC's "new" post-Crisis reality had taken effect, all the stories here are pre-Crisis tales, and reflect that mythos -- including a couple of 1950s tales fleshing out Batman's origin: "The Origin of the Batman" (detailing his hunt for the man who murdered his parents, Joe Chill) and "The First Batman" (in which he learns Chill was hired by Lew Moxom); both of which are no longer considered canon (though combine to create a complex origin for the caped crusader).

I'm also appreciative of how much of the book is devoted to Bronze Age (ie: 1970s and later) material.

Other noteworthy -- or just plain better-than-average tales -- include a couple of Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams collaborations: the moody "Half an Evil" (with Bats battling Two-Face -- a story I'd read before so I may view with undue nostalgic affection) and "Ghost of the Killer Skies" which is a bit clumsy as a mystery as Batman investigates sabotage on a film set, but the climax in World War I fighter planes over barren fields is eerily effective (meant as an homage to Robert Kanigher-Joe Kubert's Enemy Ace). "Robin Dies at Dawn", owing a bit to a certain "Twilight Zone" episode, is a surprisingly effective tale from the early 1960s, beginning with a spookily illustrated sequence on an alien world, before reverting to more familiar Gotham City terrain, but boasting (for the time period) some good character stuff. And the Frank Robbins written and drawn "Man-Bat Over Vegas" is fast and energetic, with an interesting plot twist.

A 1950s battle with the Catwoman is entertaining enough, while a newspaper strip story line involving the Penguin is thoroughly enjoyable, even if modern, anal retentive fans would no doubt rage at the light-hearted premise (Batman and Robin agree not to arrest the Penguin until after his ailing aunt, who is unaware of his criminal career, has visited him, leading them to pass themselves off as the Penguin's friends to explain why they're hanging around).

Head and shoulders the best of the collection are the final two stories, both, ironically, by Alan Brennert (a writer with only a handful of comicbook stories to his credit). "To Kill a Legend" tells an intriguing, dramatic tale of Batman being offered a chance to save his parent's lives...on a parallel world; but Robin wonders whether doing so is the right thing, as it will rob that other world of its Batman. It was first published in the over-sized 500th issue of Detective Comics which also included a lot of nice back up stories, including Hawkman, Elongated Man, etc -- just FYI. The final story, "The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne" is, literally, the perfect tale to close out the collection, telling a tale of the Earth 2 Batman (I told you these were all pre-Crisis stories) whose feelings for reformed villainess Catwoman come to a head when they team up to battle the Scarecrow, whose fear gas exposes their secret terrors. Brennert crafts an intelligent, emotional tale, delving into the characters, examining the (possible) root causes of their motivations, to make for the ideal summation of the man who is the Batman. And the art team of Joe Staton and George Freeman is lively and infectious.

Ironically, another Brennert-written tale, not included here, I included in my list of one of the all-time great comics stories.

Early tales of battles with Hugo Strange, or a vampire tale featuring Darla and the Monk (who re-appeared in what I consider a classic saga from the 1980s) are interesting for their relevance to later stories, but aren't very good in and of themselves.

For all the good or great stories, there are a lot that just make you go: uh, why this one? Obviously, one can argue: is the point to assemble "great" stories...or merely representative stories? After all, maybe the editor's didn't want to send a false message about what Batman stories are like by picking too many high-minded, artistic tales. But one might expect a collection like this to detail how the character, and the medium, has evolved over the years. Instead, there are 1970s tales like "A Caper a Day Keeps the Batman at Bay" that, frankly, could've been written in the 1940s (though, sour puss that I am, after a second reading, I realize there is a certain harmless charm to it). And even such semi-classic tales like O'Neil's "There is No Hope in Crime Alley" turned out to be a major disappointment: simplistic, and emphasizing fisticuffs over human drama. The flavour of different eras is strangely ignored (other than showing a more ruthless Batman in the earliest stories). The 1950s and 1960s were supposed to be a time of "goofy" Bat-tales involving a lot of time travel and alien worlds, but little of that is represented here -- which means a later joke filler involving Bat-Mite has no context, since no Bat-Mite stories are included from his hey-dey in the early 1960s. During the '60s TV series, Batman comics apparently became campy, while during the late '60s/early '70s there was a move toward a more urban realism -- neither style is represeted here, in favour of basically forty years of battling super villains.

Someone on the editorial team must've been a big aviation buff, though, because a disproportionate number of stories seem to climax in aerial dog fights!

Artists are also represented inconsistently. Legendary Neal Adams gets two stories (fair enough) while Jim Aparo only gets one, and artists like Irv Novick and Don Newton, both long serving Bat-artists, aren't represented at all! While Alex Toth's only Batman story is included...but it's a pretty minor story. While on the writing side, none of Bob Haney's Brave and the Bold stories were, apparently, deemed worthy enough.

Obviously selecting stories is a tricky matter, particularly when the editors admit certain tales were left out simply because they had already been reprinted a few times over the years. It's hard to argue with that (even then, some of these stories I'd already read in other reprint venues). Still, it's curious to read the closing afterword, mentioning stories that were considered but didn't make the cut, such as "Night of the Reaper", a thought-provoking tale of Batman hunting Nazi war criminals. Leaving it out, in favour of some of the stories included, just seems inane (though I think it was included in a subsequent TPB, Batman in the Seventies).

Ultimately it's a decent collection, with most of the stories being enjoyable enough, but only a few really warrant being considered "great" (most notably the final two Brennert-scripted efforts) while not enough care is given to trying to represent the various stylistic eras. Which, maybe, could explain the nature of comics. After all, the fact that the editors seem to be selecting a lot of, frankly, run-of-the-mill, occasionally mediocre action tales as the "greatest" stories ever could explain the nature of a lot of monthly comics.

Original cover price: $20.95 CDN./ $15.95 USA. 

The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told 1988 (SC TPB), 288 pgs.

Reprinting: Batman #1, 4, 63, 73, 74, 110, 159, 163, 251, 321, Detective Comics #168, 475-476, World's Finest #61, 88, Brave & the Bold #111, Joker #3, 1948 Newspaper strip, 1966 Batman Kellogg's Special. (Note: many early comics featured more than one story per issue, so many of the early issues listed are reprints of individual stories, not the entire comic)

Featuring: "Batman vs. the Joker" (untitled); "The Case of the Joker's Crime Circus"; "The Joker and the Sparrow" (newspaper strip); "The Man Behind the Red Hood"; "The Joker's Crime Costumes"; "The Joker's Utility Belt"; "The Crimes of the Batman"; "The Crazy Crime Clown"; "Superman's and Batman's Greatest Foes"; "Crime-of-the-Month Club"; "The Great Clayface-Joker Feud"; "The Joker Jury"; "The Joker's Happy Victims" (cereal giveaway); "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge"; "Death Has the Last Laugh"; "The Last Ha Ha"; "The Laughing Fish"/"The Sign of the Joker"; "Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker-!".

By: variously Finger, Kane, Robinson, Burnley, Roussos, Moldoff, Sprang, Paris, Kaye, Mooney, others; and Bridwell/Infantio/Anderson; O'Neil/Adams/Giordano; Haney/Aparo; O'Neil/Chan/Garcia-Lopez; Englehart/Rogers/Austin; Wein/Simonson/Giordano
Colours: various. Letters: various. Editors: various.

Rating: * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: some stories once, others, more.

O.K., firstly, I think the title of this Batman collection -- The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told -- is a bit of an oxymoron. The Joker is a fine villain, but he's pretty one-dimensional and stories featuring him tend, likewise, to be lacking any real emotional or intellectual depth. And since Batman, moreso than some characters, had a pretty consistent look from the 1940s to the mid-60s, a big chunk of the book is pretty repetitive. So, with my biases up front, The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told remains an O.K. if unspectacular collection.

The earliest stories reflect an intriguing, dark ambience. There are some decent stories throughout, though only six comics (representing five stories) are printed from the post-'60s (when story and art styles were more adult-friendly).

Memorable stories include the 1st appearance of the Joker; "The Great Clayface-Joker Feud"; the classic Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge", easily the best comic in the collection and one of the moodiest comic book stories I've ever read; and others. There are off-beat stories and curios that, if not always great, nonetheless show a real commitment on the part of the editors and give the collection some zing. These include the Joker's origin; a complete newspaper strip story line; a rare 6 page breakfast cereal give-away; and an issue of the Joker's own, short-lived comic (featuring the superhero the Creeper, though written poorly out-of-character, I thought).

Added 2003: Yet for all that these are supposed to be "the greatest" Joker stories ever, I recently picked up World's Best Comics, an ultra cheap one-shot comic (.99 cents, US) DC published in October 2003 reprinting some Golden Age stories (as a way of encouraging readers to buy their extremely expensive Archive editions collections). In addition to Superman, Wonder Woman and Plastic Man, included was a Batman-Joker story from the early 1940s -- "The Riddle of the Missing Card" -- that actually struck me as better, and more ambitious, than a lot of the stories included here!

The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told also exposes a certain myth about the Joker. Since the '70s, the character has been portrayed as a homicidal psychopath, stories featuring him invariably resulting in death. All of which is justified, writers and editors say as though a mantra, because they are returning the character to his pre-'60s, pre-campy Caesar Romero TV version incarnation. But looking at these stories, the Joker was only a killer in the very, very earliest tales. In fact, in one story, "The Crazy Crime Clown", the Joker has to feign insanity to be admitted to an asylum. That doesn't make the current interpretation of the character wrong, but it means Denny O'Neil and company have to take responsibility for the level of violence in their stories, instead of passing it off onto some imagined "tradition".

Cover price: $18.95 CDN./$14.95 USA
 

Batman: Hong Kong

Rating: * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
   For my review at www.ugo.com, go here.

Batman: Hush (parts 1 and 2)

Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
see my review (plus an interview with Jeph Loeb) here.

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