Champion City Comics: Scott Snyder

Friday, November 18, 2011

BATMAN #3 REVIEW

Writer: Scott Snyder

Artist: Greg Capullo

The Court of the Owls is gunning for Bruce Wayne, and Batman rushes to find answers. The issue begins with Bruce’s great-great-grandfather, Alan Wayne, running through the streets screaming hysterically about owls roosting in his house. When he’s stopped by the police he falls down an open manhole cover and dies. In the present day, Batman begins to think that he might have been wrong about The Court of the Owls. Visiting mayoral candidate and friend, Lincoln March, in the hospital it occurs to Bruce how the masked assassin got into his tower without being seen. Batman gives a short monologue about buildings that don’t have a 13th floor and how they technically do, but there’s nothing there; it’s an empty space. He has Alfred call up a list of buildings built through a fund his great-great-grandfather set up and, upon visiting all of them, he finds nests built into each building with portraits of The Court going back to at least 1919. In the last nest Batman gets caught in an explosion with a masked owl man watching from a distance and we are teased with a TO BE CONTINUED.

First and foremost, The Court creeps me the hell out. Their masks in the pictures (coupled with the elaborate dress of who I can only assume is the leader) are KKK enough to be unsettling. That aside, it works with the way Scott Snyder is taking things. We have a shadowy society that undercuts Gotham City, and has been doing it for hundreds of years.

People who have read a number of my critiques of Batman related titles probably know how much I disliked the way Batman was getting before the New 52, omnipotent, omniscient, and just generally uninteresting. The thing that continues to draw me about this comic is that Batman has turned back into a man. In the second issue he takes no less than three knives to his major muscle clusters, restricting his movement. And more importantly, he’s WRONG about the Court of Owls. Scott Snyder is creating a world where there are things Batman doesn’t know and I think that’s really exciting.

The art by Greg Capullo continues to be good, and I have to give him credit for unnerving me with owl costumes.

Overall a great issue to a great series, and one that I don’t anticipat missing for a long long time.

5 out of 5

BATMAN #2 REVIEW

BATMAN #1 REVIEW

Michael Knoll is a contributing writer at Champion City Comics

Posted by TonyDoug Wright at 8:23 AM

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Monday, November 7, 2011

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #20 REVIEW

Writer: Scott Snyder

Art: Jordi Bernet

American Vampire is badass. It’s common knowledge to most comic folks, even to those that hand out Eisners. American Vampire won for Best New Series you know, and deservedly so: Scott Snyder’s take on vamps takes the bloodsuckers back to their original, animalistic roots in a DC Vertigo series that’s both horrific and superheroic at the same time. If you haven’t, play catch up like I did with the two trades that cover the first two volumes, they won’t waste your time. A third is purportedly on the way.

Here with Issue # 20, Snyder keeps his story going and I’ll fess up: I haven’t been into the last few months of the series, at least the monthlies, so I have to piece together the story. The regular ongoing features vampire cuss Skinner Sweet and the lovely protagonist Pearl Jones, who last I saw were in cahoots against a deadly European cadre of vamps in a young Las Vegas.

This issue marks the second in an arc entitled “The Beast in the Cave,” a departure from Pearl’s story and it’s about— well, the title kinda spills the beans, don’t it? A young Native American girl jumps at the chance to leave her dreary life as a wife-slave and go all Sacajawea-like through the western frontier with a couple of mysterious hunters. That’s all I can say and still keep this spoiler free but know that Skinner’s pre-vamped self does make a cameo, although it has no real after effect on the rest of the story.

The quality from page one all the way to the end from Snyder is no surprise. Where I have to dock the book some points is in the art department: maybe I’m too used to series artist Rafael Albuquerque’s work, but sit-in artist Jordi Bernet’s pencils look too odd to go with the normal vibe of this comic. It just seems out of place, like they belong on some other type book. I dunno, not for me I guess.

Still, it’s a book (and a title) worthy of a pickup next time you’re at your local shop.

Verdict: 5 stars for the writing, 3 stars for the art

Brian Cee Williams is a contributing writer at Champion City Comics

Posted by TonyDoug Wright at 8:04 AM