(Click title to go directly to the review)
Advance Review: THE JUNGLE BOOK HOLIDAY SPECIAL: BAGHEERA’S SECRET #1
INHUMANS VS. X-MEN #0
SAVAGE #1
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #14
GENERATION ZERO #4
INHUMANS VS. X-MEN #0
THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT #3
Raiders of the Long Box: TWENTIETH CENTURY EIGHTBALL!
Opinions Are Like @$$Holes: MY FAVORITE BAT-COVERS!
In stores today!THE JUNGLE BOOK HOLIDAY SPECIAL: BAGHEERA'S SECRET #1
Writer: M. L. MillerArtist: Carlos Granda
Publisher: Zenescope Entertainment
Reviewer: Lyzard
A holiday special? For THE JUNGLE BOOK? You have got to be kidding me. It seemed like a ridiculous concept. Though I hadn’t touched an issue in well over a year, the series (and the rest of the Grimm universe for that matter) never really struck me as the holly jolly type. But even without the Yuletide explicit, this holiday special is somehow still able to invoke that sense of warm tidings that seem to float through the air like snowflakes.
Such as the snowflakes that appear on Kipling island. This is probably meant to appear fantastical, but all the snow in Hawaii currently ruined that image a little. However, ignoring current events, Kipling experience its first winter and the reactions are varied to say the least. You’ve got Chicken Little in the form of a hopping mouse… well hopping around like a “spastic little booger” proclaiming the end of the world. Monkey king Bandar Louis and his adopted human son, Dewan, are using this chaos to their advantage and trying to take over the island. Mowgli is in awe, but Bagheera is too busy trying to calm everyone down to enjoy the snow.
It is the tone of the issue that makes it truly a holiday special. It’s for the most part light-hearted, with plenty of laughs to begin with. There is less danger about than in previous issues and even those moments of terror and conflict are quickly resolved. The issue also focuses upon family, specifically that of Bagheera’s mysterious past. Artist Carlos Granda and colorist Leonardo Paciarotti follow in suit, keeping the colors bold and bright. It would be all too easy to go grey with the frozen setting, but the pages are constantly punched up with warm colors.
From the visuals to the story, THE JUNGLE BOOK 2016 HOLIDAY SPEICAL has all the trappings of Winter Wonderland one-off. Whether it’d be worthwhile getting as a Christmas gift for that friend you want to get into the Zenescope universe, it is hard to say. As previously mentioned, it doesn’t seem to fit entirely with the tone previous works evoked for me. That being said, it is an easy book to follow for those unfamiliar with the series.
Lyzard is Lyz Reblin, a graduate student at Michigan Tech pursuing a doctorate in Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture... which is just a fancy way of saying she plays a lot video games, watches far too many horror films, and then tries to pass it all off as "research."
INHUMANS VS X-MEN #0
Writer: Charles SouleArt: Kenneth Rocafort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man
So the next big Marvel event cross-over is here (yes, I know their last one isn't over yet. See how much we buy these things? First it was every so often, then once a year, then twice a year, now event cross-overs are on the verge of becoming regular series!): INHUMANS VS. X-MEN or IVX. As most of us know, this series is kinda meta, as Disney apparently hates 20th Century Fox's guts and they own everything, non-comicbook, X-Men. So Disney has been trying to replace the X-Men with the Inhumans. How else do you explain a Z-list comic getting expanded to the heights the Inhumans have been for the past few years?
Personally, I like the Inhumans, I always thought they were cool. A secret society of b@d@$$es. Although I'm also a purest, as in I don't care about any of these new (cheaper by the dozen) Inhumans. In some way, they remind me of all the new superheroes DC created during BLOODLINES (remember that? Of course you don't). So I do like the attention they are getting, but not too crazy about how it's being done.
Anyway, this #0 issue is setting us up for the main series. As it explains why there is going to be a fight between the X-Men and the Inhumans: Terrigan mist is floating around the world and creating new Inhumans, while killing Mutants. So Mutants want to stop the mist and Inhumans want it to grow and grow. Once we all found out Cyclops (himself!) was killed by the mist, the X-Men and the Inhuman's had decided to work together to find a solution to the mutant killing aspect of the Terrigan mist. So the Beast and brand new Inhuman Iso are working on it (mind you, what Iso is bringing to the table (based on this issue), I got no idea). Unfortunately, it seems like the Beast has discovered something bad (what you ask? Go buy issue #1) about the mist, as it relates to the Inhumans! After living with the Inhumans for eight months he knows they are not going to take it well. So he reaches out to the X-Men first, supposedly to get them ready for trouble when the Inhumans find out, in issue #1.
Now, we all know superhero-on-superhero violence to usually based on silly ideas, just look as CIVIL WAR II or AVX. So I have to give points to Soule (and I assume Jeff Lemire, who will help in writing the main series) for coming up with a concept that makes a reasonable amount of sense. Inhumans see the Terrigan as their birthright and the X-Men see it as genocide. Of course anyone sane would side with the X-Men- but people do wacky things over 'birthrights'. So I buy it. Mind you, whatever the Beast discovered is going to really make or break the logic of the series.
Oh, one last very important plot point: Emma Frost is out of her mind. As we also learned in THE DEATH OF X, she has been walking around creating a mind projection of Cyclops still alive. This is why no one knew he was killed by the mist. But, while everyone knows he was killed by the mist, she is starting to believe her own B.S. and whole heartedly believes Black Bolt killed him personally. So she has been working these passed eight months to get any mutant she can get ready for a war with the Inhumans, whether a cure is found or not. I gotta say I'm not crazy (ya get it) about this plot-point, as everyone should be able to see how crazy this person is, and not follow them into battle. But again, we need our hero-on-hero violence to sell books, no matter how ill conceived.
Artwork wise, Kenneth Rocafort does a really nice job of it. It's mostly a lot of standing around and talking, but his style is interesting enough to sell even those scenes. FYI- Leinil Francis Yu will be the series regular artist.
So this could turn out pretty good. I haven't read a lot of Soule (there's a joke in there somewhere), but I'm fans of Lemire and Yu. Could this be the first good cross-over of 2016? A lot to ask, but then the bar is pretty low.
SAVAGE #1
Writer: B. Clay MooreArtists: Lewis Larosa and Clayton Henry
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment
Reviewer: Humphrey Lee
I’m not exactly sure why my brain locked into this line of thinking, but the subject of this review, the brand new series SAVAGE from Valiant Comics, represents both an advance toward their diversifying their line beyond what they relaunched with five years ago, and yet one of the more “traditional” characters the line has had in totality. The first part of that is self-explanatory; if you look at what Valiant looks like today compared to its first couple years, things are shifting at least halfway so far. Mainstays like BLOODSHOT and X-O MANOWAR and ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG are still around, but gone is UNITY and SHADOWMAN with NINJAK and RAI rising in their place, and HARBINGER has given way to IMPERIUM, which gave way to GENERATION ZERO and FAITH in her own book. And now we have SAVAGE which to give the Cliff’s Notes, is the feral bastard child of Tarzan, stranded on an island as a child due to a plane crash and growing up in a world lost to time where the fierce teenager instead of swinging with gorillas is instead fighting off dinosaurs for his dinner. Like I was saying earlier, when you have a universe starring an ultimate killing machine that is basically a corpse held together by nanites, a time displaced Visigoth in an alien battle armor, and a 41ist century cybernetic defender of a continent floating in our orbit, “Tarzan with dinosaurs” seems downright tame. As the title of the book denotes, though, tame it is anything but…
Much as that introduction to this piece and the first couple pages of SAVAGE hint at it, the hot dinosaur action is mostly on the backburner. This is first and foremost an origin story and really it’s more a character breakdown of baby KJ Sauvage and his parents, fading soccer star Kevin and publicist wife Ronnie, as they crash into this giant lizard habitat on a flight to the States. The bulk of the issue really is playing up the relationship of Ronnie and Kevin, which you can tell is strained given all the balls they are juggling. They’re dealing with young KJ, the decline in Kevin’s GQ rating and his ego taking the hit, and you can tell that in general they’re a couple that still loves each other but that frustrations of the life they’re used to shifting so dramatically has swept that love to the fringes. After the plane takes a dive and we’re now in a survival tale, obviously, how these two manage to pull together to ensure their lives and young KJ takes priority, though to what end that will balance the page count with showing an actual grown up KJ (we assume) fighting off some cold-blooded killing machines as was the first couple pages of this issue. That stuff is all well and good, but right now the actual continued existence of the Sauvages in their flashback is the real star of the book.
It’s the humanity of this situation and how it is handled that really is the star of this book. What writer B. Clay Moore does really well with this debut issue is take some very identifiable couples squabbling and play it out to feature film level dramatics. Even though it’s got a 1%er problems backdrop, the squabbling is still identifiable from an existential grind sense. Using the extreme circumstances of the crash as a bonding point, Moore shows a lot of heart and outreach by the characters toward each other to rekindle their relationship and it really is pretty touching. Kevin almost immediately puts his flippancy away and looks to scavenge what they need to survive – though some of his “fuck it all” attitude remains given his drive to save what booze he can from their plane wreckage, which is both amusing but shows the character has a long way to go - and Ronnie’s protectiveness kicks into overdrive. It’s a nicely played out rebonding situation, that goes to fucking 11 when giant goddamn carnivorous lizards crash the party.
The other real star of this book next to the healing union is the art. SAVAGE is tag teamed by an amazing crew of Lewis Laroca, who loves to draw him the shit out of some dinosaurs in the present day arc of KJ racing through the jungle for supplies, and then Valiant journeyman Clayton Henry doing the flashback. Both have great eyes for detail, both really make you feel the manic tension of the situations each party is sucked into. I’m not sure what the balance of this story is going to be for the remaining three issues of this mini-series but either way this duo is an embarrassment of riches for the book. They wrap up a package that turned out to be really tight, though admittedly there is a little bit of apprehension about how “typical” this book could end up being in the remaining three issues as far as it going to the young KJ getting a couple more years of growing up with his parents before losing one or both and living on his own in his feral world. From an execution standpoint, it looks like Moore’s got the chops going to make the character moments and interactions hit just right, but hopefully he’s got something unique or twisty up his sleeve beyond “Parents die, KJ becomes Tarzan mashes with Turok.” And no matter what the story becomes, we also know it’s going to have outstanding art to follow the every bit of the savage adventure. Here’s to hoping that that this already very strong addition to the Valiant universe finds that next level to become a breakout star.
Humphrey Lee has been an avid comic book reader going on fifteen years now and a contributor to Ain't It Cool comics for quite a few as well. In fact, reading comics is about all he does in his free time and where all the money from his day job wages goes to - funding his comic book habit so he can talk about them to you, our loyal readers (lucky you). He's a bit of a social networking whore, so you can find him all over the Interwebs on sites like Twitter, The MySpaces, Facebookand a blog where he also mostly talks about comics with his free time because he hasn't the slightest semblance of a life. Sad but true, and he gladly encourages you to add, read, and comment as you will.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #14
Writer: Brian M. BendisArtist: Kevin Maguire
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man
It's been a while since I've read a GOTG comic, but with Spider-Man on the cover, I thought I'd check it out. Marvel's number one scribe Brian Michael Bendis is still writing the misfits of the universe, with famed penciler Kevin Maguire handles the art chores. And did you know his pencils are so tight, he doesn't even need an inker?
Right off the bat, I'm a little lost with this issue. It starts with the nice, “What happened last time page” and then process to tell a story that has nothing to do with “What happened last time”. I think this is a flash back story, but Venom is in the story and there is no mention of this being a flash back story- Sooooo yeah, that's all weird.
So what was the plot? Well the Skrulls have kidnapped Spider-Man, pre-billionaire Spider-Man, so yeah, it's a flash back, right? Anyway, they dangle him as bait for the Guardians (thankfully a girl at the Glonthorp Bistro and Brewpub was there to translate the video message, or else this issue would have had a completely different plot). Everyone goes willingly into the trap, because Flash (Venom) Thompson demands they help Spider-Man. Though it's a specific trap for Flash (Venom) Thompson, as they want his symbiote. In the typical way chaos ensues, the Super-Skrull shows up, trickery is a foot, and Flash gives his heart felt feelings about Web-head.
Overall this is was fun, even if the whole thing felt like BMB was trying his best to 'ape' Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and (again) Kevin Maguire's JUSTICE LEAGUE days. And while I'll say he did much better than most writers do (attempting that), it's still not as good.
Artwork wise, what's not to love, it's Kevin Maguire? The guy draws everything well. If I want to nitpick, there were a few confusing panels. They just got a bit too busy and I wasn't sure how to follow the action. But his characters, action, backgrounds, faces and storytelling is still some of the best in the business.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #14, is decent enough to please, but how it figures into the current storylines, got no idea.
On a side note, how awesome was that teaser trailer?
GENERATION ZERO #4
Writer: Fred Van LenteArtist: Francis Portela
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment
Reviewer: Masked Man
Do you like the X-Men? Do you like the Teen Titans? Well then for goodness sakes, why haven't you tried GENERATION ZERO?! Ok, the name is weak, it's almost like a title from the 90's that had to have 'extreme' jammed into it- oui! But I'm telling you, this is a good read.
Ok, what is Generation Zero? Well as we all know, super powered people in the Valiant Universe are called psiots (basically saying they are all some sort of mind over matter powers). Well a sinister corporate (gee, I hate those) took a bunch of little kid psiots and turned them into a black ops murder inc. Of course the kids are now on their own, trying to find their way in the world, doing good and battle everything connected to the sinister corporation.
This issue has them in a small town, known for incredible tech. Along with the new found fame and riches for the town, a high school girl (Keisha)'s boyfriend has been killed. Generation Zero moves in to check it all out. First, they had to deal with local wacko high school girl, Adele. Taking care of her, they move on to main focus, the new tech in town. When they discover the tech is actually from the future, the overly armed local police show up to get Generation Zero out of town. Just how bad will things get? Find out next issue.
I gotta say, I'm not much of a fan of teen heroes. As kid I never cared about Robin, he was just in Batman's way. But Van Lente is doing a pretty bang up job with this. It has all the typical stuff you'd expect from a 'we are more powerful than we known, we are not weapons, we will not be used for evil' type story- with a good dose of humor. Which makes a lot of that overly dramatic stuff (it's not that overly dramatic though) more palatable. As the characters debate, when you said “take care of”, did you mean kill or no? In the human sub-plot category, Keisha has an autistic little brother. Van Lente does a great job giving us his perspective on things (mostly Keisha), and it's all pretty hilarious (no they are not making fun of autistic people, Keisha is the butt of all the jokes- but I guess that means they are making fun of black teenage girls, so fine get offended). His plot line also ties nicely into the main plot so it's entertaining and not a waste of time subplot (like that stuff we had to sit through in seasons of 24).
This takes me to the artwork by Francis Portela, which is overall solid stuff. It's very clean and maybe a little odd, but seriously, the guy can draw. The thing I enjoy the most, is seeing through Keisha's brother's eye. I gives you a great perspective on how someone with autism sees the world.
Bottom line, there is no reason anyone can't pick up this book and enjoy it.
INHUMANS VS X-MEN #0
Writer: Charles SouleArtist: Kenneth Rocafort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Rock-Me Amodeo
“I love it when a plan comes together,” John “Hannibal” Smith used to say, in a more innocent time. It’s still true for me, and I especially love watching all the parts of a plan come together. The major players, so far, are Hank McCoy and Emma Frost, with bit performances by Magneto and Medusa. It’s been months since the death of Scott Summers, and Emma Frost is following the path of madness, or at least wacky revenge, implied at the end of DEATH OF X.
A word about that, in the spirit of transparency: in my mind, Scott Summers was the best, most interesting, most fully developed mutant of all time. He was a character so complex, yet so without guile, that not one by TWO telepaths fell head-over-heals in love with him. A character so driven and resourceful, he was respected and feared even though his most obvious power was simply to shoot a “ray gun,” as the old-timers might say, from his eyes instead of a handheld device. And now he’s dead, not so much because he finally had a fight he couldn’t win, but more so, I think, because his story was told. And while I grieve the fact that we will never see his like again, not even with Young Cyclops, I respect the integrity of somebody’s decision to close that book.
Still, the passing of such a monumental character can’t happen without significant consequences, so here we are, in a beautiful Rocafort-rendered book with Soule channeling some of my other favorite characters as if he’s been writing them for a decade. This is some of the best Beast I’ve read in a while, and Emma is also on point – snarky, obtuse and just a little cray-cray. It’s a shame that so many classic X-men don’t really have personalities anymore (not in this book per se, but in general), like Storm or Magik; they often become little more than exposition-spouting automatons. This especially makes me appreciate the loving care with which Soule has rendered most of them here. And Medusa… I really can’t stand the way she’s normally portrayed as an arrogant reactionary, so I appreciate Soule writing her with a modicum of empathy and respect. Maybe he can even make Gorgon likeable, instead of him being just a hot-headed, fight-provoking plot device. I swear, if he loses his cool ONE MORE TIME just so we can have a poorly developed fight scene…
One nitpick: it kinda jumped out to me that I could count five different women sporting thigh-high boots/leggings. And don’t get me started on warriors who wear high-heels. Not Rocafort’s fault, but maybe it’s time to render some of these folks in slightly less objectifying garb? Crap, if even Psylocke seems to have ditched hers, perhaps at least Magik could become less booty-licious?
In summary: beautiful, stunning artwork. An intricate and layered plot. Fantastic characterizations. Can’t wait to see what happens next. But please don’t take our Emma away: she’s all we have left of the late, great Scott Summers. R.I.P.
Rock Me is Dante Amodeo. Online, you can find him at www.GuyVsMan.com where he likes to explore the differences between actual grown-ass men and this current crop of slacker, live-off-their-girlfriends, can't-keep-a-job, responsibility-dodging GUYS that are overtaking the world like societal kudzu... and the women who are letting them get away with it. Or e-mail him Rock-Me Amodeohere
THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT #3
Writer: Mike WolferArtist: Giancarlo Caracuzzo
Publisher: American Mythology
Reviewer: Masked Man
As you may know about me, anything having to do with fantasy action / adventure and I'm all over it. So when I heard Mike Wolfer, who is more known for horror (working on LADY DEATH, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and FRIDAY THE 13TH comics), was doing some Edgar Rice Burroughs, I had to check it out.
Right off the bat, the concept Wolfer creates for ERB's Caspak world, is pretty interesting. Instead of Caspak being a 'land that time forgot', it's actually a land out of time. As descendants of the original story, looking for the hidden arctic land, find the original characters all still mulling around there! In this way Wolfer can write and adaption and sequel at the same time. Pretty clever I think.
In this issue, the German's continue to abuse the native cave people, while creating gasoline for their U-boat. Once gassed up, they plan to escape Caspak and get back to fighting WWI. They also have the mini-subs of our modern cast, lead by Abby Tyler. Original lead, Bowen Tyler, forms a plan to steal the subs back, as they have figured out the time issues on Caspak. They want to return to open seas as soon as possible, find out what the date is and see if anyone can return to their own time. As it happens in tales like this, their plan almost goes completely in the crapper. With several characters on both sides seemingly losing their lives and the tunnel to the outer world has been destroyed. This apparently, traps everyone on Caspak forever.
So yeah, this a fun tale, loaded with lots dinosaur action. Not Eisner bound, but fun. Now the bad news, Caracuzzo's art. If the guy spent more than an hour on each page, you sure can't tell. Everything just looks like a rather unappealing rough sketch. I gotta say, it's really depressing. Looking online, you can see he's talented, so I can only guess he just doesn't care about this book. Flavia Caracuzzo (his wife) does the colors, and it's about as bare-boned as the pencils. Mind you, she does have nice palette. But I suppose putting serious effort into coloring those pencils would be pointless.
Bottomline, I'm a guy who can handle weak art, if the story is good. If you can't, steer clear, as the art is more of a reason to not buy the book than anything else. I suspect the upcoming THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT annual, will be far more worth it, as Mike Wolfer will be drawing as well as writing (Wolfer does the covers here).
TWENTIETH CENTURY EIGHTBALL!
Reviewer: Masked ManI'm doing a bit of a sideways shuffle here, so feel free to scream at me for cheating.
A few weeks back I pulled a Daniel Clowes panel from EIGHTBALL for another article. I actually got it from TWENTIETH CENTURY EIGHTBALL, the 2002 reprint 'best of EIGHTBALL'. It's been a while since I read it, and going though it then reminded me how awesome EIGHTBALL was. So instead of show casing all the varied EIGHTBALL issues, I'm just going to cover the tradeback. Yeah, I'm fudging the rules of the 'Long Box', but as 'greatest hit albums' go, this is one, if not the best!
Something to remember, we all know Stan Lee has the most movies based on his comicbook writing (talking about different concepts, not just 12 Batman movies). Mark Millar comes in second, and believe it or not, but little old Daniel Clowes, the man who loves to draw utility belts (watch the SIMPSONS to understand that one), is third on that list. GHOST WORLD (2001), ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (2006) and the soon to be released WILSON (2017) are all films based on his work. While GHOST WORLD and WILSON were graphic novels, ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL comes from the highly inventive and highly amusing anthology series, EIGHTBALL (Note: after the graphic novel came out, GHOST WORLD was serialized in issues of EIGHTBALL).
EIGHTBALL was almost a side project for Clowes, as he would knock out only one or two issues a year. In 15 years, he only put out 23 issue, only 18 of which had original content. Heck, this compilation came out before the series officially ended! And back to front, this compilation is awesome. Yes, you can enjoy more 'tracks' hunting down the individual issues, but Clowes does touch-up stuff, color stuff and add some new stuff in this volume. Which makes it well worth it, even if you have all 23 issues.
As I said, EIGHTBALL was an anthology, with most stories lasting around three pages (as Clowes would say, the industry calls 'em, filler page, i.e. crap). Sometimes characters would return in another strip, sometimes they wouldn't. Either way, TWENTIETH CENTURY EIGHTBALL has some of the best ones, although it starts off with two new ones: “Little Enid”, Enid, from GHOST WORLD fame, as a little girl and “20th Century Eight Ball” which is just a simply awesome telling of how this compilation came to be. Clowes brilliantly works in the UPC bar-code, title, copy right, and dedication all into the strip- too cool. Then he jumps around with 38 features, most from the first six years of EIGHTBALL. Things like:
“Art School Confidential”, Clowes lays out the brutal truth about going to art school. Anyone who has ever gone to art school (like myself) will double over with laugh at this!
“Ink Studs”, what if comicbook artists were 'rock stars'? Well they should be!
“Needledick the Bugfucker” Just a sad look into someone's frustrated life. Which pretty much sums up everything Clowes does.
“Why I Hate Christians” an atheist tries to break down Christians, while being pestered by the devil.
“Ugly Girls” Learn about true beauty, the power of the brain washing media and how nobody gets what they truly want.
“Squirrelgirl and Candy Pants”, which is like a much dumber and hardcore version of Enid and Becky from GHOST WORLD.
All in all, it's just great insight with a heaping spoon full of humor, plus some great drawing skill. Seriously, Daniel Clowes is a frick'n talent artist. He might not be drawing epic wide screen adventures, but his clean, to the point panels in a wide range of styles is always impressive. Next time you read something of his, take a second look at his art. It's easy to not even notice his art, as the stories are so well written and his panels are so unassuming.
Which leads to the clear indication of how good he is- he makes it all look easy! If you've spent any amount of time learning to draw, you know the simpler the drawing is, the harder it was to draw! Because the less detail you have, the more important each line you do have becomes! If they aren't prefect, everyone will know. But you don't need me telling you what an awesome artist his is, for he's won a ton of Eisner and Harvey Awards.
I'll end by saying Fantagraphics needs to make a 'coffee table' book out of TWENTIETH CENTURY EIGHTBALL. Because it's a prefect book to leave on your coffee table. Pick it up from time to time, show it to friends, and let your mind wander around in Daniel Clowes'.
MY FAVORITE BATMAN COVERS!!!
By Masked ManEveryone loves top ten lists right? Well as I was trolling around the internet the other day, I thought I'd make my own pointless list: My favorite Batman covers! To be clear of the 'rules', it's not a list of icon covers, and it's not covers with Batman on it, it's BATMAN COMICS covers only. That make sense? So if you are wondering where cover #X is, stop and check to see if it was a DETECTIVE COMICS cover. Same with the first appearance of X cover. If I don't like the cover, it's not here, even if the rest of the world considers it iconic. Also these are not ranked against each other, as they are listed by issue number. Ok, let's look at some cool art now!
First up is #1, while it might be icon, it's also just a b@d@$$ picture of Batman and Robin by Bob Kane himself. Kane was always a rough and a bit of an amateur artist, but when things clicked for him they clicked well. And more than any other superhero, Batman can look great with a little 'grit' in the pencil line, as the cover shows.
#20, my favorite Batman artist of the early years is Dick Sprang. I just love how he turned Batman into a graphic image, yet still made him an appealing figure. This is a great 4th wall breaking cover too. And for you icon nerds, it's the first cover with the Batmobile on it (FYI, Sprang would copy this cover style in #25, swapping the Batmobile with a non-Batcycle motorcycle).
#175, one of the many Batman just got the cr@p kicked out of him covers. Aside from being a very cool image, it does a great job selling the story as well. Admit it, you want to know what the hell happened to Batman don't you. (Spoiler: hard light holograms) The cover is drawn by Carmine Infantino, who created the 'new' Batman look (now Batman gets a new look every other month). Infantino is probably more famous for drawing the Flash, but in the mid 60's he was 'the' Batman artist. In fact, when Filmation produced their two Batman animated series (1969 & 1977), they used Infantino's art as the guide.
#194, another great Carmine Infantino cover, as the villain BlockBuster lives up to his name! At this time, 1967, Infantino's work was so popular, he was nearly DC's answer to Jack Kirby. As any cover he drew or designed sold better than any other for DC, so DC had him draw as many as he could!
#244 can you say Neal Adams. In terms of realism, Neal Adams hitting comics in the 1960's like Alex Ross hit in the 1990's. No one back then could touch Adams' level of detail and sophistication. If this work was new today, it would still fly! Just about all his covers were great. But this Ra's Al Ghul cover is just awesome, on so many levels.
#343, this is a great Batman in jeopardy cover by Gene Colan. Colan did a ton of work in his days, known as the comicbook artist who some how managed to make his pencils look like paintings. So much raw energy, often over taking form, yet still managing to be convincing forms. While this cover doesn't showcase that too much, it does showcase Colan's power of image. Just 'bam', Batman, big and bold and beautiful.
#351, vampire Batman, it's just a combo and an image that works, over and over again. But this cover by Ernie Colon just nails it, in all it's superhero comic glory. Ernie Colon always had great cover designs, although his own personal style was very light and stylish. Here, king of the Batman inkers Dick Giodano just stamps the hell out of Colon pencils, Batman!
#366, this one does fall into the icon category, as Walter Simonson just nails Batman and Joker in his early, awesome artistic style. The piece of art is so amazing, look where the title is. As the story goes Simonson screwed up on the layout, but editor Len Wein encourage him to go bold with it, and there you have it. Simonson was still a few years away from his icon graphic style that would rule THOR. But his earlier work is just as brilliant, if you ask me.
#374, I have a lot of favorite Batman artist, from Kane to Finch. But perhaps my all time fav is Don Newton. His Batman is probably the most athletic Batman ever. And I'm not talking muscle bound, as many lessor artist make him. Newton's Batman look just as fast as he was powerful. This cover of him blasting through the traditional picture window, his body in shadow, like the dark knight animal he is- just awesome. That says all you need to know about who and what Batman is.
#417, this cover is just a beauty (eh). Mind you, I don't think the scale quite works, as those people on the street are probably too big to fit in the buildings- but the piece is still gorgeous anyway. Drawn by Mike Zeck, who is one of those artist's artist. His work transformed over the years from very standard looking to a unique and amazing style that made everyone sit up and take note of.
Now, are you as surprised as I am to see not one single cover from the past 29 years making it on my list? Mind you, there has been a ton of good stuff, but nothing that seems as original and strong as those 10. I almost put David Finch's #700 on the list, but on second look, I feel he was borrowing too much from #374. Overall, I find most modern covers overly busy or overly artsy, if I can be such a snob. IMHO, I like big bold clear imagery, drawn with master draftsmanship. So either way, you can't deny the awesomeness of these ten covers.
Before I leave you, I'll give you the goofiest Batman cover ever. You thought aliens, funky costumes and gorillas were weird!?How about #115 by Sheldon Moldoff- he trapped Batman in a frick'n Coke bottle!?!
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
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