Review: JSA All-Stars: Glory Days trade paperback (DC Comics)

Writer Matt Sturges's JSA All-Stars: Glory Days both confirms and rejects my assertion, after reading the previous volume Constellations, that JSA All-Stars is really just a new iteration of the classic Infinity, Inc. team. Plot-wise, there isn't much remarkable in Glory Days, but fans of the team's roots will find a bit to enjoy nonetheless.

[Contains spoilers]

It isn't just that members of the JSA All-Stars team reminisce about their Infinity, Inc. days. It's isn't just that the book cameos another former Infinity, Inc. member, or that it picks up the threads of an Infinity, Inc. story. It's about the time that members of the JSA All-Stars actually drive by the old Infinity, Inc. headquarters and stop to take a look that it becomes impossible to deny how much the ghosts of that former team drive this book. Sturges begins the "Glory Days" story in Infinity, Inc.'s home base, Los Angeles as the team helps out former Infinity, Inc. supporting cast member Chief Bracken; this leads Infinitors Hourman and Atom Smasher to joke about the old days, all in the first six pages of the story. The connections grow exponentially from there.

The stated message of "Glory Days," however, is that one can't regain the past. A group of telepathic children transformed into gods remain these gods in the end; the All-Stars can stop their rampage, but can't turn back the changes of time. Just so, the old Infinity, Inc. headquarters has been condemned and is demolished in the end; to defeat the gods, the All-Stars have to let go of an element of their past, including Atom Smasher acknowledging that Infinity, Inc. is "history."

To take Glory Days at face value, perhaps Sturges does mean to bury the connections between the All-Stars and Infinity, Inc. Between Atom Smasher letting his past go, the final image of the demolition of the old headquarters, and Infinitor Brainwave turning down membership in the All-Stars, there's no knowing wink at the end of the book that suggests an ironic valuation of the past; rather, Sturges seems to suggest, the past is past. Perhaps this benefits Sturges; if despite having four former Infinitors in lead roles in All-Stars (making this the Justice Society equivalent of Cyborg leading the Infinite Crisis-era Teen Titans), Sturges meant to separate his All-Stars from Infinity, Inc., then making those ties explicit and subsequently putting them to rest might be the way to do it.

I can't, however, entirely believe it. It would seem to me there's plenty of potential in Sturges's Infinity, Inc. sequel, including guest-appearances by the newly resurrected Jade (who gets a mention in this book) and her brother Obsidian, another appearance by Brainwave, maybe more about Fury and Silver Scarab (the modern Justice Society's long-time Dr. Fate) who died toward the end of the JSA title. Much as I'd like to evaluate Glory Days on its own merits, whether Sturges is serious about jettisoning this book's Infinity connections could best be determined by the amount of Infinity material in the book that followed; sadly, DC cancelled the JSA All-Stars: The Puzzle Men trade and solicits for the subsequent issues reveal few clues.

Sturges sandwiches the four-issue "Glory Days" between a single issue spotlighting the character Damage, and two issues on the character Cyclone. Damage, one of my favorite teen heroes from the 1990s, gained a heavy dose of attitude under writer Geoff Johns; I've long been torn between happiness that Johns used the character and disappointment at what an angst-ridden grouch he made Damage. Damage's romance with Judomaster never quite made sense (he liked her, it seemed, for her body, and why she responded to him I'm not sure); in the memorial issue, Sturges both forwards their relationship a bit and tweaks things such that the usually-mute Judomaster can talk about it. These are obvious narrative devices both, but I liked that Sturges gave Damage some due respect and even revealed the characters' face, and all-in-all I was satisfied.

The Cyclone issues ("Yon Twelve-Winded Sky," with art by JLA's Howard Porter) were interesting, though I wished for just a little bit more. Sturges does well with a heavy science-fiction vibe in the story, both in fascinating presentations of nanobytes and cloning in regards to Cyclone, and his blink-and-you'll-miss-it cut scenes as the All-Stars fight in an alien revolution (I was reminded, if you can believe it, of the New Titans's "Siege of the Zi Charam*"). But I've understood for a while that Cyclone Maxine Hunkel was actually a robot -- maybe I misunderstood something Red Tornado said once -- and I was hoping we'd get into her origins in depth in this story. Instead, "Twelve" puts everything essentially back where it started; it is a good enough story to "end" JSA All-Stars, at least for collections fans, but didn't quite live up to my (perhaps erroneous) expectations.

There and elsewhere, it's true not much happens in Glory Days. The memorial issue is mostly reflective, "Twelve" doesn't change much, and "Glory Days" is not really about the All-Stars -- they have to face their pasts, sure, but the bad guys have no real ties to the All-Stars specifically, unlike in Constellations. Indeed, Sturges never quite explains how the Paradorian dictator actually turns the telepathic children into gods, for instance; the plot here is less important than the characters' interactions. There's nothing wrong with that, per se -- at times it's even welcome -- but if you don't have a soft spot for these particular characters' "glory days," you may very well feel like JSA All-Stars: Glory Days doesn't do enough to distinguish itself.

In the end, between Constellations and Glory Days, I enjoyed the two volumes of JSA All-Stars more than I thought I would, and the series has certainly cemented my appreciation for Matt Sturges -- an obvious Infinity, Inc. fan, to this extent, is not to be overlooked. Had I to choose between JSA All-Stars and other similarly cancelled series for resurrection, like Doom Patrol and REBELS, I think I'd still side with Doom Patrol, but JSA All-Stars has plenty going for it, too.

[Includes original covers. Printed on glossy paper.]

Later this week ... Collected Editions's Best Trades of 2011 List, and the Green Lanterns go to war. Be here!

* I miss Jarras Minion. Does anyone else miss Jarras Minion?

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Review: Batman: The Black Mirror hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

With issue #881, DC Comics's own stalwart "gray lady," Detective Comics, closes its doors after almost seventy-five years. By all accounts, writer Scott Snyder ends Detective on a high note with Batman: The Black Mirror (in contrast to the end of its sister title in Batman: Eye of the Beholder). Black Mirror is a stout, involved collection worthy of its praise.

Perhaps the great point of debate, then, is where exactly Synder excels in Black Mirror. Is it in convincingly depicting Gotham City as a character with its own presence? In creating a story that succeeds in taking Batman and his allies back to their earliest days despite that this Batman is Dick Grayson and not Bruce Wayne? Or is it in presenting a slow-building horror story populated with the kind of twenty-first century villains that act as a signpost for where the Batman titles need to go in DC's New 52 continuity? All of this is the case, to be sure, and more.

[Contains spoilers from this point forward]

Perhaps the greatest delight for me in reading Black Mirror was to discover -- and I was rather surprised to find this hadn't been spoiled for me some time before -- that Snyder out-and-out suggests that Commissioner Gordon knows Batman's identity (at least Batman Dick Grayson's identity) in this story. Wherever one stands in the "Gordon knowing" debate, it's quite appropriate that Synder should "go there" here in the final pages of Detective Comics.

I'm of two minds whether Bruce Wayne deserved a cameo in these pages or not. Gordon's pointed "thank you" to Dick at the end of this book is a strong moment (on par with Barry Allen's "You're welcome, Bruce" at the end of Flashpoint [yeah, I'm still digging it]), something a long time coming and right for Detective's closing pages, though it would seem better spoken to Bruce. Black Mirror is Dick Grayson and Commissioner Gordon's story, however, and Bruce's presence might have overshadowed that; Black Mirror is in part about Gordon coming to see Dick as a man and not a boy, and Bruce's absence (resurrected, though overseas) reinforces Dick's new role, that he and Gordon are "on their own."

In considering the Dick/Gordon relationship, Snyder creates whole cloth here a portion of the Batman mythos effectively erased by 1986's Crisis on Infinite Earths and only shown in bits and pieces since -- that is, Dick Grayson's tenure as Robin. We have seen (a couple times) new takes on the death of Dick's parents and his debut as Robin, but what about the rest? Didn't Dick Grayson go to high school? Have friends?

Snyder illuminates a kind of "Gotham High" period, where Dick went to school with Barbara Gordon and thought her brother James, Jr., was kind of weird (we can imagine Dick's Smallville-esque freak-of-the-week adventures). On just the sixth page, after Synder puts the words in the characters' mouths, it seemed so obvious as if it had been there all along -- of course Dick and Barbara went to prom together, and of course a disapproving Commissioner Gordon drove them. And so unfolds a complete history of the Waynes and the Gordons, a kind of Gotham City Capulets and Montagues, bringing to light that missing time between Batman: Year One and when Dick Grayson left the Batcave.

Inasmuch as Black Mirror is rooted in Frank Miller's Year One -- fittingly, bringing the modern Batman era full circle -- Synder seems to take pains not to make Year One required reading here. Though Snyder, with artists Jock and Francesco Francavilla, revisits more than once the bridge where readers last saw baby James, Jr., be knocked over the side and caught by Batman Bruce Wayne, Snyder resists the urge to actually reference the scene, leaving the story accessible to new and experienced readers alike.

In keeping with Snyder's theme of Gotham as a corrupting influence, that Black Mirror comes full circle from Year One is not necessarily a positive. Batman's first victory, saving James, is in fact a tragedy given the monster that James has become. Batman could have no sooner let James die, but the reader intuits that the fall off the bridge, or even some way that Batman caught James, might have caused James's psychopathy. Over the course of the story, Synder implicates all of the characters in the way that James turned out, but Bruce was there at the beginning, perhaps the trigger of it all.

I had heard talk of Snyder using Gotham as a "character" in this book and I was skeptical; I don't cotton much to the idea of Gotham as a supernatural "being," and we've seen a "walls have hypnotic suggestions" kind of plot recently in Batman RIP. Synder offers suggestion after suggestion, however, of the potential evil inherit in Gotham -- from the decades-old secret society devoted to evil artifacts, to how Gotham is built such that the corners of the city are hidden from the sky, to the implication that all the baby food in Gotham might be poisoned, and how Snyder references tragedy after tragedy: the deaths of Dick Grayson's parents, Robin Jason Todd, Gordon's wife Sarah Essen, and Barbara Gordon's crippling by the Joker, among others.

Black Mirror is a horror story, to be sure -- possibly the scariest Batman story I've read, and one whose horror wouldn't have worked if it was the experienced Bruce Wayne in the cowl and not Dick Grayson -- and in example after example, Snyder wears down the reader. I believed in James's theory of the destructive "Gotham moment" by the end; very possibly I "get" Gotham City in a way hundreds of Batman stories didn't make so vivid before now.


We've recently heard news of Snyder's forthcoming "Court of Owls" crossover in the DC New 52 Batman titles; I've not yet seen Snyder's new villains like the Talon, but I hope they're commensurate with those Snyder created here. Short of the Joker, none of Batman's established rogues appear here -- rather we have James (without even a villainous codename), the Dealer, Tiger Shark, and Roadrunner. If these villains are costumed, it's only barely; instead they're auctioneers, businessmen, modern pirates, a kind of outlandish and yet sedate foe that suggests to me a more modern Batman.

Superman is always going to fight giant robots, but for the New 52 to keep attracting new readers, I think this is the direction Snyder and others have to take Batman -- not necessarily fighting fanciful villains like the Riddler, but rather those easier to imagine as a threat just around the corner, like James, Jr.  Just as Synder is not leaving the DC Universe, Black Mirror is an end but also a beginning of things to come, if DC so chooses.  I hope they do.

At the same time, it's equally surprising to me that neither Jock nor Francavilla are drawing titles in the New 52; Francavilla's rounded edges perfectly evoke David Mazzucchelli's Year One pencils without copying outright, while Jock appears quite at home not only in the book's most gruesome moments but also as Batman swings above the city. I did have a little trouble with Jock's civilian Dick Grayson, who in his polo shirts more resembled Bruce Wayne (further, I thought Synder made a rare mischaracterization of Dick in employing him at a science lab; granted Dick was trained by the Dark Knight, but I don't often recall him depicted as a forensics expert), but these are small hiccups in an otherwise stellar volume.

I'm sure you know by now, but Batman: The Black Mirror is indeed, as you've heard just about everywhere, one of those rare collections you hope for, a satisfying, cohesive story from beginning to end. Collecting eleven issues (some oversized), Black Mirror is an example to me of a collection done almost right, something you buy that takes a while to read and that you can really sink your teeth into.  Snyder, to an extent, makes it seem effortless; for a long time to come, no doubt, we'll be saying that books are good, but they're no Black Mirror.

[Contains original covers, sketchbook section, promotional art, sample script. Printed on glossy paper.]

Done "almost" right, you say? Yes. Because as perfect as Black Mirror is, I still fervently wish DC had stripped out the issue credits that appear at random intervals, sometimes at the beginning of a story and sometimes at the end (so, sometimes one right after another). We know who wrote and drew the book -- it says so at the very beginning -- and these incessant credits, like never-ending station identifications, are the worst kind of interruption from outside the story. Black Mirror could read as a graphic novel -- it's so close -- if not for the issue credits. DC, if you're listening, think about it, please. For me?

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Review: Batman: Eye of the Beholder hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

It's hard not to imbue Batman: Eye of the Beholder with some kind of greater meaning (for me, at least) given that it's the final originally-numbered Batman comics collection before the DC Comics New 52 relaunch. Not that writer Tony Daniel is necessarily writing it as such; it's unclear how aware Daniel was of the DC Relaunch when he wrote these issues, and DC omits from this collection the actual "final" Batman issue written by Fabian Nicieza.

Eye of the Beholder is adventuresome, though not necessarily Daniel's strongest work; as a Batman finale, there's a bit one can read into this book, but overall in that aspect the book doesn't really measure up.

[Contains spoiiers]

Depending on your point of view, Tony Daniel either has a great sense of Batman continuity, or his Batman stories are mired in re-treading old material. The "Eye of the Beholder" storyline picks up from the much-maligned Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul crossover, while "Pieces" is even more enmeshed in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Batman: The Long Halloween and Dark Victory than Daniel's previous Batman: Life and Death was. This works for "Eye," creating something interesting from the preceding story's ashes, but "Pieces" revises Loeb's work in ways better left alone.

The four-part "Eye of the Beholder," Daniel tackles some of the Asian-influenced elements of the Batman mythos, using both the Sensei villain and the 1970s martial arts mystery man I-Ching. The story is of a kind that works especially well for the young Dick Grayson Batman: a mysterious woman approaches Dick both in his civilian Wayne Enterprises identity and as Batman, and Dick must help her retrieve a powerful artifact while balancing his mistrust for the femme fatale.

It's simple enough, though Daniel adds some elements of mystery and -- I noticed in Life After Death as well -- seems especially skilled at leaving hints in both the dialogue and the art that allow the reader to try to solve the puzzle alongside the Dark Knight. I also appreciated that Daniel's art seems to have continued to evolve between the last volume and here, gaining a more pencilled, sketchy look that I thought was unique and enjoyed.

"Pieces" didn't work as well for me. Gilda Dent, Two-Face's estranged wife as of Long Halloween returns, working against Two-Face in a relationship with gangster Mario Falcone; later it seems Dent is only fooling Falcone to protect Two-Face. It's all a bit of a stretch, including the unlikely partnership between Falcone and Dent given that Dent catalyzed the downfall of the Falcone family; the story plays on Halloween but doesn't seem entirely faithful to it.

Daniel's writing and dialogue are good, but when he enters Long Halloween territory, even having the characters quote lines from the earlier book, Daniel seems to stomp around where Loeb danced gracefully. Gilda Dent is no longer the mysterious killer in the shadows, but now a kind of whiny figure still inexplicably wearing gangster fashions. Guest-artist Steve Scott's work lacks the detail of Daniel's earlier work (and some judgement, as when Scott unnecessarily depicts one thug vomiting on another) and certainly the subtlety of Sale's noir original. Combined, this makes "Pieces" a clunky follow-up to the originals, and fans of Long Halloween and Dark Victory who would come here hoping for more about their favored characters would likely be disappointed.

"Eye" itself is cute, but doesn't hold a candle to Daniel's Life After Death. This is in part because, whereas some of Life After Death's draw was the unexpected presence of the Falcones, here Gilda's reveal is fairly obvious. Eye, as a whole, is not as snappy a mystery as Life; Eye's villain, the Sensei, is a kind of outlandish figure versus the spookier Black Mask before. I also liked that Life was a Gotham City story, dealing with Commssioner Gordon and the Wayne Foundation and Arkham Asylum, whereas Eye is more self-contained. In all, my hope is that Daniel returns to Life After Death's form when he takes over the new Detective Comics (and the reviews I've heard so far are positive). The "Eye" story didn't disappoint, but neither did it feel there was as much at stake for the characters.

Though I'm down on Daniel's use of Long Halloween and Dark Victory here, one could (if you tilt your head and squint) see it as bringing Dick Grayson's story full circle at the end of the Batman title. Dark Victory (depending on the day's continuity) was Dick's first outing as Robin; his final adventure in the Batman title ties in to that story. Daniel does not make as much of this as he could -- Two-Face and Dick Grayson specifically share a long history that Daniel completely ignores -- but there's at least a bit of symmetry to be imagined.

Further, I took note of Catgirl Kitrina Falcone's letter to Batman Dick Grayson at the end of this book. Kitrinia's never quite fulfilled a purpose in Daniel's two Batman books; rather I imagine Daniel ran out of time to delve into Kitrina (equally puzzling is the daughter Enigma that the Riddler introduces one issue, then kills the next). But there is a certain irony in Dick Grayson trying to dissuade Kitrina from a life of crimefighting -- it is advice that Dick himself never took. It seems as though, in the beginning of Kitrina's letter, that Dick has succeeded in dissuading Kitrina from following his own path -- Dick has unmade, in a sense, his own creation -- but in the end, Kitrina promises to return better than before.

Dick has not, as a matter of fact, succeeded at all; rather the heroism of Batman in his second iteration has now inspired a third generation, "Batman and Robin will never die" and all that. I don't actually think Tony Daniel meant Catgirl as a metaphor for the survival of these "old DC Universe" characters now heading off to limbo, but as they say, it's nice to think so.

[Includes original covers]

Batman: Eye of the Beholder, at least the first story, is enjoyable work by Tony Daniel, neither the worst Batman's ever been nor the best, though it is a particularly apt Dick Grayson story. Long Halloween purists may want to steer clear, however; I was excited when Daniel ventured into Loeb's territory in the last book, but some things may be very well better left alone.

Coming up next -- it's received rave reviews, and now you're going to get the Collected Editions take on Batman: The Black Mirror. See you then!

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Review: Chase trade paperback (DC Comics)

The Chase series has long been at the top of my and many other trade-waiters lists of comics for which we'd like to see collections, making the new collection -- to coincide with writer and artist J. H. Williams's use of the character in the Batwoman series -- both welcome and somewhat miraculous. I never thought I'd see this collection, and especially not complete with Cameron Chase's Batman premiere issue and some of her Secret Files appearances; it's a good day for collected comics fans.

To read the Chase trade paperback, however (and this is why we can't have nice things), is to be reminded that Chase was indeed a series cancelled suddenly, more so than Stars and STRIPE or Manhunter or Aztek or any of a number of other similar cult hits. The book asks considerably more questions than it answers and begins down a number of paths it never concludes. The Chase collection is almost (but not entirely) as complete as one might hope, but from the reader's perspective still feels incomplete.

[Contains spoilers]

There's much that's appealing about Chase and that speaks to its perennial popularity despite lasting only ten issues. First, there is the character and concept itself. Chase is one of a rare breed of superhero comics that manages to effectively work in the superhero genre without actually starring a superhero (Gotham Central, one of Chase's spiritual successors, is another). Department of Extranormal Operations agent Cameron Chase investigates metahumans (sometimes helping, sometimes hunting) and the concept of the character melds just as well into the "freak of the week" story that starts Chase's first issue as it does into an espionage tale guest-starring the Suicide Squad and a police procedural helping the Gotham police fight super-powered drug dealers.

There's a grittiness to Williams's pencils throughout the book that takes the shine off even the most gaudy of superheroes (like Booster Gold and the Dan Jurgens-era Teen Titans) and makes them all seem more realistic. If Gotham Central was Law and Order set in the DC Universe, this is a fine conflation of the DCU and CSI or one of its ilk.

Indeed, there's much in Chase that will seem to echo (but in fact pre-dates) the best elements of DC Comics's cult hits. Chase shares Gotham Central's realism (and some of its supporting characters); Williams's work, acclaimed on its own, will remind readers of Tony Harris's Starman pages especially when Williams encloses Gotham in art-deco frames. The series boasts a motley supporting cast of Chase's friends and family, all non-powered, similar to those in Marc Andreyko's Manhunter (and it seems obvious, now, that Andreyko would bring Chase and friends into his title).

Co-writer Dan Curtis Johnson and Williams are obviously writing their own rules in these pages. Often Williams draws static images alongside large swaths of text, most notably when Chase reveals to her sister Terry the circumstances of their superhero father's death at the hands of a supervillain. The story halts twice for related Starman-esque "Times Past" tales of Chase's life before the DEO (Williams is to be credited for drawing the frame stories of these, even when a guest-artist handles the rest); these seemed to be heading toward a larger story that would pay off for long-time readers.

Unfortunately, Chase's ten issues don't give the writers time to delve too deeply into the characters. There's an undercurrent of trouble between Chase and fiance Peter that never bubbles to the surface, and Chase's own power-dampening superpowers, hinted at in almost every issue, are never directly examined. Instead, the book is at its strongest mainly as Chase negotiates her love-hate relationship with superheroes (loving her father, hating that his superheroic life brought about his death). Particularly effective is Chase and Terry's aforementioned issue-long talk in Chase #6 (and their iconic rescue, not by superheroes, but by "civilian" firefighters), and Batman's admonition, not long after, that Chase cease hunting heroes solely in revenge for her father (even as Batman recognizes the irony of the statement himself).

These are all engaging stories, sharp and well-written. It's unfortunate, however, that the "main" Chase series itself ends in a nonsensical "Times Past" story where Chase and friends free Green Lantern's cousin Airwave from imprisonment inside an ATM. Had another regular Chase issue followed, the use of Airwave might've been a cute piece of nostalgia, but instead it disappoints. The DC One Million crossover issue that follows, set in the future, picks up a bit of the slack, suggesting in the end that Chase's powers and growing sympathy for the superheroes lead her to become the DEO's next director. But neither issue is quite as strong as Chase #8, in which she almost unmasks Batman, and that might have been the better for the series to end on.

While I again credit DC for including the subsequent short Chase stories that Johnson and Williams wrote for variety of DC's Secret Files titles over the years, they also make a poor end to the Chase collection from a reader's perspective. The book includes the DCU Villains Secret Files story written by Johnson and Williams, in which Chase barely appears, but omits the DCU Heroes Secret Files story, more focused on Chase, but apparently written only by Johnson. (I would note, as a sign of the times, that the Villains story notably includes a meeting between three fan-favorites: Chase, Resurrection Man, and Hitman.)

The shorts, as part of character-specific Secret Files, often dwell on minutia unrelated to Chase; there's also a significant part that refers to Chase's guest-appearance in the (criminally uncollected) John Ostrander Martian Manhunter series, which won't make much sense to casual readers. The final pages vaguely suggest corruption in the DEO, but this never fully manifests in the story. The book ends and it feels like something's missing.

At the same time, the shorts find unlikely footing for a moment in two dramatic stories both before and after a DEO mission to investigate Gorilla Grodd goes horribly wrong. Joker's Last Laugh might not have been much of a crossover, but the Secret Files story in which a DEO agent deals with post-traumatic stress is stellar, another highlight of the collection.

Over the years, the legend of Chase grew in my mind, such that in reading this book I was surprised to find not much more than the beginnings of a series here. I think the Chase collection has been so in demand in part because the DEO, not Chase, is Johnson and Williams's lasting contribution here; this FBI-like agency that was not villainous like the Suicide Squad or geo-political like Checkmate became ubiquitous in the DC Universe, such that it's hard to believe it stemmed from a cancelled series. The reoccurring Secret Files feature most certainly helped, such that it wasn't long before the DEO had interacted with every corner of the DC Universe.

It's also important that Chase has finally received a collection because in Chase, readers encounter a female protagonist who neither fights crime in a bathing suit nor a costume with a revealing window. Williams's images never sexualize Chase where the plot doesn't warrant it. Given DC's difficulties on this end of late, the release of a Chase collection in line with more tempered depictions in Manhunter, the Renee Montoya Question stories, and others, is a positive step on DC's part.

I would mention, to close, that while the story inside Chase may be worth its collection, the production value of the collection isn't quite worth the story. At 352 pages, Chase is a hefty collection, and so many pages packed between these paperback covers made my book curl almost immediately. Some Collected Editions readers won't be happy to know the book is printed on thinner "newsprint"-type paper, either. I know full well that the market probably would not have supported a glossy hardcover Chase edition, but I worry this book won't hold up against multiple readings.

[Includes original covers for full issues. Printed on newsprint paper.]

It's a Batman week next week, including the Collected Editions review of Batman: The Black Mirror. You haven't read the review until you've read the Collected Editions review -- don't miss it!

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