There have been several good novels featuring Superman, but Batman seems to be a much harder nut to crack when you take him out of the visual environment. The latest effort, Wayne of Gotham, tries to expand the Batman mythos by digging into the Wayne/Gotham backstory. But Tracy Hickman falls flat in his attempt to add depth to Bruce Wayne. The story is a rehash of previous Batman stories(most notably the The First Batman – which has Thomas Wayne dressed up in a proto Batman costume and being forced to help out gangster Lew Moxon) with not much interesting added. Let’s take a look at where this went wrong.
Category Archives: Batman
Batman: Death by Design by Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor
One of the seminal book on art deco is The Metropolis of Tomorrow by Hugh Ferriss. Ferriss took the skyscraper and made it an art form as well as inspiring a legion of designers and architects. One of those inspired by the book was designer/writer Chip Kidd. He took Ferriss’ ideas, threw in a dash of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and created (along with artist Dave Taylor) a Batman story set in this art decoish universe, Batman: Death by Design. The art and the look of the story are amazing, the concept is brilliant and the execution misses the mark. Not in the art, but in the mediocre story. But it is a gorgeous book to look at. Let’s see what went wrong.
The Dark Knight Rises review
As you can tell, I’m about a week (or two) behind in reviewing movies. As I get older, it gets harder to co-ordinate seeing movies with friends on opening weekends. So I finally pulled my friend out of packing for his move so that we could see The Dark Knight Rises. Overall I kind of liked it, but not as much as The Dark Knight (and I disliked Batman Begins). But I had a number of problems with the film. So let’s check it out. WARNING: Spoilers ahoy.
Batman Earth One
After the disastrous book that was Superman Earth One (my review), I was reluctant to read Batman Earth One, but then I read some very positive reviews. And Geoff Johns does a much better job with Batman, than Straczynski did with Superman. It’s not a perfect but, but a decent one. So, let’s check out what’s going on with Batman.
Batman Arkham City review
I loved the original Arkham Asylum game(my review). To me, it was the first game that really demonstrated what could be done with Batman. And now the developers have gone and made it bigger and better in Arkham City. They’ve left in the best parts of the game and improved a bunch of other pieces. It’s a fun, exciting game on a much bigger scale than the original game and still as much fun. Let’s check out what’s different.
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Superheroes for Kids Week: Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Superheroes for Kids Week: DC Superheroes
DC Superheroes is the brand for a set of chapter books about our favorite DC Superheroes. They are perfect for kids who are past the Level 1,2, 3 learning to read books. They are 50-60 page (5-6 chapters) chapter books with a single hero (Batman or Superman) and a villain. It has a bigger cast of characters than the Ralph Cosentino books with Alfred, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen taking part in the stories.
Superheroes for Kids Week: Ralph Cosentino
Ralph Cosentino is a kids artist who was hired by DC Comics to do books for young kids about their top heroes. The first one he did was Batman: The Story of the Dark Knight
Batman: Arkham Asylum the video game review
So I got Batman: Arkham Asylum