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Batman, Inc. #1

Grant Morrison’s “Batman, Inc.” series gets a brand new Number One, though as far as any of us can tell, the old “Batman, Inc.” storyline continues on the same course it was on before. Batman and Robin (Bruce and Damian Wayne this time) chase a goat-masked gunman into a slaughterhouse — and promptly find themselves in the middle of an ambush as more masked thugs attack. And by the end of the fight, it’s revealed that Leviathan, the shadowy global crime organization, has targeted Damian for assassination. While Leviathan works on cementing its hold over Gotham, all the heroes who seemingly died in the last issue — Batwing, the Outsiders, the Hood, Gaucho, and more — meet and reveal that they’re now part of Batman’s secret army. But can Batman save Robin from death? Or are there just too many assassins gunning for him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great writing by Morrison, great art by Chris Burnham. Lightning-fast action, outstanding twists and turns. Great dialogue for the squabbling Dynamic Duo. And it’s great that, with the pre-Reboot Outsiders we see here, this story is still set in the original, proper DC Universe.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that this panel was my very favorite in any comic in the last month:

And as others have noted, this definitely means that Grant Morrison was a fan of the “Tiny Titans” series.

So yeah, definitely adding this one to my pull list.

Justice League Dark #9

I didn’t enjoy the first issue of this, but I decided to give it another shot. Jeff Lemire is the comic’s new writer, and while I haven’t yet decided whether I like *all* his stuff, I’ve got enough good impressions of him to try this comic again.

So Steve Trevor, special liaison for the Justice League, calls on John Constantine with a special mission — find out what Felix Faust is up to and retrieve the magical item he’s using to empower himself, and in exchange, Constantine will get ten minutes in the Black Room — a secret repository for powerful magical items — to take whatever he can carry. So Constantine puts together a team — Zatanna, Andrew Bennett from “I, Vampire,” Deadman, and Black Orchid — and they go out to bust up Faust and his cult. But will the new “Justice League Dark” be ready for the item Felix Faust is hiding?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting much from it, but it was far more entertaining, readable, and engaging than what I saw of the first issue of the series. I’m more than willing to pick up some future issues, so I think that’s enough for me to judge it a success.

The Amazing Spider-Man #686

Dr. Octopus’s satellites are going to burn the Earth to a cinder, and they’ve already started on Silver Sable’s homeland of Symkaria — but wait, it’s all an illusion created by the special effects wizardry of Mysterio! While the Chameleon masquerades as Doc Ock to battle the Wall-Crawler, the real Otto discovers the deceit and takes over Chameleon’s remote-control disguise so he can fight Spidey himself. Luckily, the suit is just a cheap imitation and can’t stand up ti Spidey, Silver Sable, and the Black Widow — and Spidey manages to make a deal with Mysterio to get him to join the good guys, at least temporarily. So the Sinister Six has been depleted down to just Doc Ock and the Rhino — unless Octavius has managed to acquire some new, unexpected minions…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent story all around — writing, art, dialogue, humor, action, plot twists, and just overall braininess. There has not been a single bad issue of this storyarc, and that’s pretty impressive.

Today’s Cool Links:

• The loony One Million Mom group (which doesn’t include anywhere near one million mothers — just 47,000 homophobic, faux-Christian bigots) has already gotten its butt kicked by Ellen DeGeneres and Archie Andrews and is now going to get its butt whupped by Northstar and a DC hero to be named later.
• Greg Rucka keeps giving great interviews. Here he is talking about why he writes strong female characters.
• Snell digs up every jungle prince and princess he can find.