The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 1982
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Conway’s starting to wrap up his big storyline and, again, it’s bumpy. He’s got Vicki Vale rushing off to see Bruce–Bruce who hasn’t thought of Vicki since she first showed up two dozen issues ago (she’s been around as a plot twist)–not to mention Hugo Strange showing up at the end, back from the dead.…
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You know what… I’m not sure I’ve seen a better inker on Newton than Alfredo Alcala. The art this issue is exceptional. It’s so wonderful, it makes up for Conway’s leap off the judgement bridge. The story itself isn’t bad. Batman is putting together all the clues about Rupert Thorne, as Thorne hires Dr. Thirteen…
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With the amazing cover and the Garcia-Lopez art, it’d be impossible not to at least enjoy the issue. It’s just a Batman versus the Joker issue–this time the Joker’s making a monument to himself, angry Gotham was going to make one to Broadway musical stars instead. On some level, I agree… Broadway musical stars? Conway’s…
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Kupperberg writes Batman and Robin like something out of the TV show. They’re celebrities, they go on very public adventures, Robin loiters awkwardly around the Batcave in his tights. The approach is just awkward–it’s like a fifties story stretched over a whole issue so there’s no way it isn’t going to overstay its welcome. In…
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It’s Batman versus the sky pirates! The bad guy’s name is Colonel Blimp. He and his pirates fly around in a tricked out zeppelin. Of course, the issue doesn’t open with the sky pirates. It opens with the Gotham police admitting their beating up ex-commissioner Gordon because he’s investigating election fraud. They make this admission…
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It’s decent, underwhelming issue. In the feature, Batman recovers from his vampire attack–and it’s apparently forgotten Dick was a vampire for a while (he’s fully recovered here, with the explanation being he was hypnotized not converted)–and then gets into a big fight with Deadshot, teaming up with the Human Target posing as Bruce Wayne. The…
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The Batman as a vampire story sort of limps its way to the finish line, with Conway filling the issue with just about everything else he can to pad it out. There’s Gordon investigating something–it has to do with Rupert Thorne, though Gordon doesn’t know it yet. There’s a Human Target cameo (Alfred hired Chance…
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They’re really dragging out the Batman turns into a vampire thing. I think this issue is the fourth or fifth of the story. I guess it’s fine, since it’s Colan and DeZuniga again and I am curious how everything is going to tie together. Conway and Levitz are finally bringing Vicki Vale into Batman’s story,…
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Once again, the Bruce Jones Catwoman story is a lot more interesting than the Batman feature. But I’ll go in printing order and start with the Batman. The art this issue is Gene Colan and Tony DeZuniga; so far, DeZuniga is the best inker for Colan on Batman, especially given the vampires. The whole issue…
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The Batman feature is problematic to say the least. Batman infiltrates a school for criminals as “Matches” Malone (gag) and is quickly found out. He then has to dispatch of the criminals as Batman. Conway and Kupperberg–not sure why Conway needed an assist here, there’s no heavy lifting in this issue–never explain how the criminals…
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It’s Robin versus his vampire girlfriend while Alfred hires the Human Target to trick Vicki Vale and Jim Gordon decides to stop being a mope. Batman barely makes an appearance–he shows up at the beginning to remind the reader he or she needs to pick up the month’s Detective Comics. It’s a weird few pages,…
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Ugh. “Matches” Malone is so goofy. Why hasn’t anyone modernized him…. Otherwise, it’s a decent issue. The Chiaramonte inks are the best so far. It’s not the best Newton, but it’s good. Conway gets a lot of story going–Bruce is in LA investigating a school for criminals, Dick is stalking his ex-girlfriend (who seems to…
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After a lame Man-Bat two-parter, Conway does the story right with this issue. He’s got Colan and Janson on it–there’s a heartbreaking panel of Man-Bat holding his daughter here–and everything is just in perfect sync. It’s so well-done, I can even excuse the part when Bruce changes to Batman to take Man-Bat’s daughter to look…
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I love this issue. It’s heavy-handed to some degree–it’s two would be criminals trying to decide if they want to commit a crime in Gotham City and talking about Batman–and Slifer’s attempts at showing the socioeconomic toils on a population are… pedestrian, but it’s a great Batman story. There are two stories the guys tell…
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What a weak issue. I mean… it’s really weak. It’s competent in a way someone spending sixty cents might not complain, but it’s not good at all. The feature is a Maxie Zeus story. Batman’s hunting him through a snow storm. There’s a scene where Dick and Alfred talk about worrying about him. It’s like…
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How did DC let this one get to the printers? Chiaramonte’s inks are a complete disaster. Maybe Newton was in a rush and Chiaramonte had to cover a lot but… it doesn’t even look like Newton here. The story’s got some interesting parts, not the “Batman is missing” parts (Two-Face has kidnapped him and is…
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The cover villain is Two-Face but apparently he’s got a girl sidekick who’s the one who’s really after Batman. Presumably we’ll find out her story next issue. The most interesting–I was just reading some comic creators on Twitter say critics use the word “interesting” to mean “bad,” which is ludicrous, but anyway–the most interesting thing…
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Colan and Janson are back in sync, which is good because Conway’s overwriting the dialogue again. It’s like he can’t decide if Batman is supposed to think or talk his plans for athletic feats. This time I was actually wondering if Batman was talking to the villain, since his expository dialogue to himself comes in…
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Where to start…. Colan’s pencils must have been really hurried here, because it’s all inks. Except it doesn’t even look like strong Janson inks. The weak art is quite a shock given the artists. The story is generally solid. Batman and Robin go after a new criminal mastermind, Dick and Bruce both have romances developing,…
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Conway finds the right mix of Batman and Bruce Wayne antics for this issue. Robin’s in it too, which means there’s even less page time for Batman–Conway gives Dick his own subplots to deal with. It’s too soon to tell how they’ll tie into Bruce’s subplots, which here are concern for Jim Gordon’s career, the…
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Oh, neat, Colan and Janson are a regular team? My only complaint about the synthesis is some of the close-up panels–sometimes they’ve got all the Colan detail to faces, sometimes they don’t. The story is solid enough except Conway has one thing he never explains–Batman keeps showing up to haunt Poison Ivy and no one…
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There are two Mad Hatters? I’m now incredibly confused. According to this issue, there was an original Mad Hatter and then a replacement and then the original came back. At least in the eighties. The Mad Hatter story–which gets the cover–is sort of a fake A plot, since the issue mostly concentrates on the Gotham…
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Yuck. Conway’s Detective is so good and his Batman is so bad. And he’s even got Gene Colan and Klaus Janson on the art here. With Janson’s inks, Colan doesn’t exactly look like himself. Everything’s a lot sharper, a lot more defined. It’s a good looking issue, but I don’t know if there’s a single…
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There are some real problems this issue–Goodwin’s got to adapt the stuff without Deckard (who in his adaptation isn’t just not a replicant, but is also a lot more the Deckard from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and it’s just a mess. The way Goodwin structures it–the noir with Deckard and Rachel–it just doesn’t…
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After the first few pages, I think I decided Blade Runner is best comic adaptation of a movie I’ve ever read. Goodwin has a fairly complex and lengthy story to adapt here (especially since the film is confusing, especially the version Goodwin would have been adapting) and he comes up with a genius way to…
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Tardi jumps around quite a bit in It Was the War of the Trenches, but does follow a general sort of narrative progression. Though the stories–it was originally serialized, with some delay, in anthologies–all feature their own characters and situations, they move forward in time. Even when Tardi resets at one point, the subsequent vignettes…
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I’d never read the Rocketeer. Back when I first learned about it, in 1990 or 1991, it was because Comics Scene had a feature on the movie. And I loved the movie (still do) but it never translated to me reading the comics. For a time, they were hard to find, but probably not back…
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It’s easier to stomach Tron if you think about it as a video track to Wendy Carlos’s score. While there’s some technical innovation (shooting actors on green screen, now a norm, got some of its starts with Tron, not to mention the endless CG–except in Tron, at least it was for effect and not some…
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Q is sort of ripe for a remake. Not because this version has shoddy special effects–while the film’s still effective with them, they look like something out of the 1925 Lost World–but because there are three great roles in the film and nearly a fourth. Michael Moriarty’s top-billed and definitely gives the film’s most sensational…
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John Milius takes Conan the Barbarian very seriously. The occasional use of slow motion and the endlessness of Basil Poledouris’s cheesy score signal Milius’s dedication. So do the long and frequent sequences of shirtless Arnold Schwarzenegger playing with big swords. At the beginning of the film, when it’s the prologue and Milius strange approach actually…
The Stop Button 