Tom King and Mitch Gerads come together for a four-part miniseries featuring our Frequent Villain #1, The Joker, in Brave and Bold #1. It’s a comic of several stories and many pages for its $8.00.
There is something unsettlingly stark and grim about this one, its ‘mundane’ horrors are successful in getting under our skin.
The other Batman story here is a black-and-white one, written and illustrated by Dan Mora. It has that ‘short story in an anthology’ feel, that ‘slice of life in the big city’ feel. But it is strangely paced, with large panels of Batman “posing” tending to dominate the drama, while much of the actual plot occurs in the moments between Batman’s preening and stretching.
In other stories, Director Bones and his covert StormWatch team get their feet wet and their feathers ruffled in a global black ops misadventure. Writer is Halifax-based Ed Brisson, illustrator Jeff Spokes.
And journalist Clark Kent is looking for his next big scoop, (no pressure here, Clark, just save the paper from bankruptcy, lol) so golly, things get mysteriously “retro” all of a sudden, and Superman tears off to solve the mystery of a puzzlingly compelling Retro-Decoder-Ring. Holy landlines! Writer is Christopher Cantwell, art by Javier Rodríguez.
As with all ‘continued next issue’ collections, some stories are solid, some are tepid, and some are just heating up nicely. But altogether, this first issue is could just be your cup of broth!
Oh, in this issue, the artists coloured their own pages. Letterers include: Clayton Cowles, Saida Temofonte, Simon Bowland, Tom Napolitano.
DC Comics, Brave and Bold #1, $7.99 for 66 pages of story content. Teen
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