Batman: The Monster Men #1

A very unique piece to be added within Batman’s massive collection, Batman and the Monster Men does succeed on not only gaining a readers interest with it’s up most artwork and storytelling, but also manages to draw you into the comic as your alongside with Batman’s very first encounter with a new threat that he had to face within his career as a costumed vigilante.

Written by a very-well known writer Matt Wagner, not only was it his storytelling that managed to shine this dark event into the light, but also served as the artist for the comic as well. Another trait of something very rare within a comic is seeing a comic’s artwork and storytelling coming from the same man. Of course this would serve as a bad outcome when writers or artists attempt to multi-task themselves, but for Wagner’s Batman and the Monster Men, I would say that he did managed to succeed with both tasks pretty well.

Monster Men and the funny looking Hugo Strange

Of course one who would think of Batman, there would hardly be a challenge that would have the Dark Knight believe that he himself couldn’t face. For these mutated genetic monsters of Hugo Strange’s horrible creation, I can’t help but realize that these monsters served as a final ingredient for Wagner’s story. It’s quite obvious how Wagner managed to increase the amount of excitement within a building storyline between Batman, Hugo Strange, and crime boss Sal Maroni by adding a batch of blood-thirsty monsters into a three way tango and also with Batman’s first love interest as the victim who’s threatened to be added into Wagner’s cocktail of old school carnage.

Of course the title is of the Monster Men, but the story itself is mostly about Batman, Hugo, and Julie Madison finding themselves in an intense situation with one of Gothams worst crime bosses during the time.

As I also try to focus on gaining some interest on Hugo’s character and gain some hype for what’s to be expected with the upcoming Arkham Asylum, his involvement within this story alone doesn’t fail in any way. For Hugo Strange’s involvement was in fact one character that was extremely important and very unique indeed. I liked how Wagner managed to display him as a man who’s obsessed and desperate for his delusional goals to where you see a part of him paying the Arkham Asylum staff for the mentally ill who possibly would be missed nor traced so that he could use them for his inhumane experiments and prove his abnormal theories of obtaining human perfection.

Even though there was a feeling of absolute perfection with this story, I can’t help but feel that Wagner went way overboard with trying to have everybody shine into the spotlight. Besides that alone, I would fairly give this collection a 4 ½ star rating and highly recommend any DC and comic reader to give Batman and the Monster Men a shot.

For more of a short inside look, check out my unspoiled video review. Thankyou for reading and watching and be sure to try and add this into your comic collection when getting the chance.