Comic Mini-Reviews Week of May 30th, 2012

This week...nothing much came out, honestly.

Batman Annual #1 – Shaun has already(somewhat venomously) reviewed Batman Annual #1, so I will just take a moment to jot down a few of my own thoughts on it. First of all, I realize that an annual is a book that exists in the gray area between the worlds of “we have a story to tell” and “hey, let's put out an extra book people will buy” but the Bat-Annual feels completely unnecessary. It's a book labeled a Night of Owls tie-in but has very little to do with the crossover. Aside from a few mentions of Owls and frozen people, there is nothing that implicitly associates the book with the Bat-family's battle with the Court. In fact, the story makes little sense in that context. If you're following Batman, you know that Bruce is a wee-bit too occupied with his own problems to have rooftop showdowns with Mister Freeze. I realize that's a gripe you could have with lots of comic books, but in the midst of a crossover that claims to be taking place in a single “Night” it kind of draws the problem into focus. (I may be taking the single night part too literally, but I still feel like it's a worthy gripe.) Secondly, Batman Annual #1 is a perfect example of why twist endings are not always a good thing. It takes Mister Freeze's status as one of the few “not crazy” Bat-villains and puts him into the already overpopulated category of lunatics. I'm not saying I am married to the idea of Freeze's never-ending quest to save his wife, but it's surely an improvement to having Batman fight another in a long line of nuts people. At this point, the only sane villains I can think of among the Bat-rogues are Ra's al Ghul and Talia. If the Batman Annual had one redeeming value it was that the art was actually pretty good. I had thought that Jason Fabok was just another David Finch but he's actually much closer to Gary Frank. So the art in this issue was actually pretty good.

Batman Beyond Unlimited #4 – The quality of each individual story in Batman Beyond Unlimited might vary pretty heavily but the series remains one of the best deals going. Even if parts of it were cheaper online, the fact remains that for five dollars, you get a ton of content. The definite highlight of the book is Derek Fridolfs and Dustin Nguyen's action packed, fast-paced Justice League Beyond story. It's very existence almost makes up for the lackluster official Justice League book...almost. Of course, the most exciting thing about the entire series is that it gives writers an opportunity to flesh out the stellar DC animated stories like Batman Beyond and Justice League Unlimited into full continuities.

Wolverine and the X-men #11 – I feared that after last month's workshop on “How to write a crossover comic” this month's issue would feel lackluster. Strangely, at first, it did. The opening half of the issue is scene after scene of X-men fighting Avengers and other stuff I couldn't care less about. I like Wolverine and the X-men, but this crossover is a rabbit-hole I would rather not venture down. Anyways, the vast entirety of the issue is about events taking place in AvX. While the second half of the book provides some nice character moments for Wolverine, the fact that it all has to do with an event I am not following makes it ring hollow.