Batman: The Dark Knight #1

"Fear is a cannibal that feeds upon itself. It lives in every dark shadow -- waits around every corner. It can be in two places at once...on the path ahead, yet somehow always behind you. Fear hides in every decision, questioning your every move. And it's your fault. You're the one who gives it life. You are the parent of your own fear."

Deep thoughts, courtesy of Batman's narration boxes. Those poetic and mind-blowing ruminations, combined with images of Batman jumping out of an airplane, make up the first three pages of this comic. Out of a total of twenty pages. I get that David Finch is both drawing and plotting this comic. I know that artists-as-writers are a mixed bag at best. But he has a co-writer and editors here. How the fuck did someone not point out that he was wasting 15% of the first issue on total fucking filler bullshit?

So a couple pages later, we see Bruce Wayne making a speech to some rich assholes, using that same text from before. Doesn't anyone wonder why a goddamn CEO is lecturing them about fear. At the reception following the speech, a Gotham City cop confronts Bruce about his financing of Batman. The cop insists that Bruce MUST have an ally in the department that helps facilitate all this. Hey, Lieutenant fuckface, look for the cop who shines a giant frigging bat-shaped spotlight in the sky. Jesus, this guy won't be getting promoted soon.

Following that dramatic/developmentally disabled scene. Batman goes to stop a breakout at Arkham Asylum. What's that you say, last week's issue of "Batman"featured that exact same plot? That can't be correct, let me double-check. Oh wait, it did. Again, Finch and his co-writer may've crafted a story we've seen a million times, but they're just freelancers. There are editors whose fucking job is to make sure dumb shit like this isn't happening. I've seen better structure and leadership at Libertarian relay races.

But the homage to bad writing doesn't stop there. The last page is Batman confronting a gigantic and musclebound Two-Face. Two-Face tells Batman "You can call me One-Face now." Now, it's possible I suffered a debilitating stroke while reading this comic. But unless that happened, it looks to me like Two-Face still has two fucking faces.

Buy Again: No, "fear is questioning my every move", and I fear I can't buy a comic this bad again.

New Reader Friendly: Well enough, it requires only basic bat-knowledge going in.

Grifter #1

If you've ever wanted to read a comic where a military man in full regalia has a soul patch, this is the comic for you. If that isn't your particular fetish, this comic may not have much to offer you.

So Grifter (we don't find out that the main character's goddamn name is Grifter until 9 pages in) is a con man or something, except we never see him get paid, nor do we see him pull any cons. This is kind of like reading a Superman movie where Superman never punches anyone and acts like a mopey wanker instead of an adult. Man, hope they never make a movie like that.

Anyways, Grifter gets kidnapped by a weird jellyfish thing in a tank. The jellyfish seems to have restrained Grifter, but Grifter just gets up. That's why I never hire jellyfish to help me in any of my kidnapping schemes. Grifter flees and ends up on an airplane, but the jellyfish starts talking to him telepathically or through the humans the jellyfish mentally controls or maybe this comic makes no sense. Grifter jumps out of the airplane after murdering a couple people (hey kids, comics!) and hides in a graveyard and puts on a homemade mask. As I mentioned, the jellyfish thing can talk to him telepathically, what the fuck use is wearing a mask gonna serve? "Oh hey, jellyfish creature, I know you're talking to me inside my goddamn head, but you've got the wrong guy, I swear, the guy you want doesn't have a cool mask."

So the writing (courtesy of a guy named Nathan Edmondson, who I've never heard of) on this comic sucks. The plot is hopelessly lost in a sea of crap, the dialogue is generic and there are no characters to speak of. The art's not bad, but nothing of note. If you want to read an actual good (well, actually GREAT) comic with Grifter in it, do check out the Wildcats 3.0 series from a few years back.

Buy again? Nay, frost giant.

New reader friendly: Nah, I hear new readers like stories that make sense.