In September 2011, DC Comics relaunched their entire line of comics with new #1s.  They called them “The New 52.”  The title that I was the most excited about was “Batman,” written by Scott Snyder and drawn by Greg Capullo.  Fast forward to now, and the first collections of the relaunch are hitting the shelf.

Batman Vol. 1 begins with an unexpected and kinetic team-up between Batman and the Joker as they battle their way out of Arkham Asylum.  It only gets better from there.  Bruce Wayne fends off an attack from an assassin, dubbed the Talon, and discovers that it was sent by a mysterious group that has silently  controlled Gotham for generations–Court of Owls.  The Court’s existence, which Bruce has doubted his entire life, shakes him to his core and makes him question how well he knows the city that he has been trying to protect.

Snyder is a better writer than comic fans deserve.  He makes the story accessible while effortlessly blending new elements into the Bat-mythology.  His writing is clever and natural, and he nails Batman’s voice.  Capullo blew me away too.  I only knew him as a “Spawn” artist before (I know, gross), but he has already shaken that negative association in my mind.  His art is gritty and detailed, and he is perfectly suited for the horror elements that creep into the story.

This is easily the best Batman comic that is currently being published, but it also makes a strong opening argument that it’s going to be the best Batman run ever.

The first graphic novel to be a contender for the CBC “Canada Reads” competition, Essex County compiles three novels by Jeff Lemire, telling the tale of three generations of the LeBeuf family living in  a farming community in Ontario, Canada.  Love, grief, filial estrangement and reconciliation, buried family secrets; and of course, the integral sport of hockey find their way to the reader through emotions conveyed in spare yet rich drawings of black & white.  Unlike the descriptive power of the novel or the visual display of film, a good graphic novel provides a little of both, leaving enough room for the reader to enter and pace the story to their own heart. This is a good graphic novel.

Siege ends several Marvel Comics story arcs that date back to 2006, including the Civil War, the death of Captain America, the whole Asgard moving to Oklahoma thing, and the Dark Avengers, put together by the Green Goblin.  A few characters seem to have bitten the dust as well, tho death is always provisional in comics.  Ares, God of War in particular goes out with a splash, and it’s hard to see much future for the Sentry.  Story arcs like these tend to move kind of slowly, so it’s a little startling here to see so many changes made at once.

The Sentry btw has one of my favorite origin stories, told in New Avengers. At some point in the past  supervillain Mastermind has wiped out everyone’s memories of the Sentry including the Sentry’s own.  So no one knows he exists, but  there are comic books about him, and from these the Avengers deduce that he existed, and still does.  Clever, no?

Marvel seems to be turning their backs on the kind of company wide mega-story they’ve been selling the last several years.  They’ve branded their new approach “The Heroic Age,” meaning that if you pick up a Spider-Man, you’ll get a Spider-Man story, not an installment in some other storyline.  While this may curtail the ambitions of their story-telling, it should solve the problem of finding a sensible sequence to read their bigger stories in.  It also looks like they’ll be focusing on characters with movie franchises.

Neutralize Clint Barton

Eliminate Daredevil

Kill Namor

Kill Frank Castle

Kill Nick Fury

Neutralize Bruce Banner

Control the world

Kill Spider-Man

Things are desperate, as usual, in the Marvel universe.   Norman Osbourn, having thwarted the Skrulls most recent invasion of earth by shooting their queen on national TV, has been given dictatorial powers over national security.  He’s replaced S.H.I.E.L.D. with his own H.A.M.M.E.R.  He’s replaced the real Avengers with his own band of  psychopaths, loonies, monsters, and imposters.  He’s made the to-do list above.  What else could you expect?  He’s the Green freakin Goblin, for Stan Lee’s sake.

The List shows Osborn’s progress in crossing items off the list above, and if you haven’t visited Marvel for a while, it’s a nice place to catch up on some old favorites.  It’s a single volume in a coherent order, which is a nice change.  Finding the right chronology for Marvel’s other recent events (Civil War, Secret War, Secret Invasion) has been just about impossible, so that characters you know are dead from another book, pop up again in another book read out of order.  Death’s always provisional in comics, of course, and characters are beginning to make ironic comments about how many times they’ve died.

The downside of this volume is that it repeats some material we own in other titles (Spider-Man, Avengers).  A small price to pay.