CW Cooke Comic Reviews

Do I like it? A whole lot. It takes a bit of getting used to at first, but Michel Fiffe gives each character a defined voice. Do I love it? Not yet. It has some growing on me to do. I will say, once I figured out the premise and the plan and the idea that was being presented, I liked it a lot more than when I started reading and just didn't know what to expect.

Really this is just a teaser book. Is it good? Sure it's good. You come to expect that from this cast of creators (Scott Snyder & James Tynion IV/Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs). Spoilers abound: Harper Row has suited up as Bluebird, there's a new Oracle-esque figure in the cave (apparently a female based on the body shape), Catwoman has suited down to just plain Selina and the boss of bosses, and Stephanie Brown makes her first New 52 appearance as"well"Spoiler. That's pretty much it. Is it good? Yeah, it's still pretty good. Just an appetizer though, and it seems a bit like No Man's Land, Contagion, Knightfall, and countless other Batman crossovers.

Still, it was a paint-by-numbers story. Everything fit into place at the end. No big surprises. No shocks. No shock and awe and nothing really out of the ordinary. The story itself did the job it meant to do, telling a different kind of Batman's different kind of origin. And the artwork by Robson Rocha (possibly the best name in comics this side of Francesco Francavilla) gets the job done too. At time it flourishes and other times it just tells a clean story.

Once it starts to pick-up, one it starts to get good, it gets over with. Pretty much immediately. And then we get a one page ad for Inhuman #1 by Soule and Joe Madureira and that's that. Harumph.

From the cover by Alexis Ziritt to the opening credits page designed by Scott Newman all the way to the final page, this is a beautiful book. Jerry Gaylord knocks the art out of the park. And Eric? Eric M. Esquivel is pure rock and roll. His version of Loki is fresh and new.

Wow, nothing more to say really except: GO AND BUY THIS BOOK! Go. Now. You'd do better to spend $3 on this than some dumpy chocolates that won't be appreciated. Hell, I got a digital copy and a physical copy. Tastes better than heart-shaped candy. Promise!

One thing is for certain: This is a truly beautiful book. Owen Gieni (Manifest Destiny) on colors, Leila Del Duca (Deadskins) on art, and Ed Brisson (Sheltered) on letters sure know how to make things pretty. And Joe Keatinge (Glory) is just doing work above most others these days. So what is this? Yet another in a long line of crazy wonderful Image Comics, with flourishes of Indiana Jones and Jonny Quest " all through the eyes of a young girl trying to find her place in the world.

That's what this is telling you. What's old is new is old is new again. A remake/reboot/remix/sequel of all the others that have come before it, I'm not sure what else is coming next. I'm not sure what to expect from the rest of the series but I hope it's more than this. Si Spurrier is a talented writer (one of our Top 10 Writers of the 2013), so I hope it's not a rehash of the millionth fight with Stryfe or the billionth fight with Apocalypse.