Now that all four ongoing Batman series have released their first two issues I feel it is interesting to look back on them and size them up. Which ones have been doing well? Maybe all of them? None? I will be giving each series an award or a demerit. It may be pertinent to know that I have only recently begun reading Batman comics with the advent of the New 52. Spoilers may follow but I tried to keep them light.

Most Disappointing: Detective Comics

The first book seemed to set up something great. It was a #1, and thus the story following and characterizing the Joker seemed appropriate. I thought it was well done, but it seemed to hint at something particularly exciting happening next issue.

But nothing very much seemed to happen in #2. I've noticed this can seem to be a problem in many comic books. There's a limited amount of space to tell a story and, depending on the style utilized, the amount of information gleaned from events can seem small. But almost everything in the book seemed more like a vehicle for getting us to Part 3. As such, I have hopes that said #3 will be good, as they've had 2 books now to set it up. I still can't help but feel there could have been a way to get us there in a more intriguing fashion.

Most Dynamic: Batman and Robin

Harhar. But no, really. This is one of my favorite series in the New 52 as a whole, and it's because of the relationship between Bruce and Damian. Both of them are intent on being heroes but Damian's approach tends to clash with Bruce's. They're both aware of this but it seems difficult for either of them to tell if they should approach the problem as responsible heroes or as a father and son. Both issues explore this idea. Combine it with an interesting and dangerous villain as well as some pretty great action and you've got a very cool series.

Best Mystery: Batman

As Batman is supposed to be kind of a great detective, it seems pertinent we get at least one series with some really intriguing stuff going on with Bruce, Gotham politics, and secrets. That is what we get here. There are appearances from the Bat-family but they do not feel intrusive. I feel like with all these other heroes running around that look up to him and feel, in fact, like they are part of a family, it's important that they show up pseudo-frequently. This series has been managing to do this while keeping the focus squarely on Batman.

The action has been great here as well. It's impressive how the series has delivered such intense action sequences and yet been able to keep prodding the mystery along at a satisfactory pace. This issue 2 probably did the best job of setting up its #3. I am excited to see what happens next in regards to Batman, the secondary cast and Gotham as a whole.

Most Improved: Batman: The Dark Knight

The first book in this series was probably my least favorite of the Batman #1's. It felt okay, but it probably did the worst job of making us care about either Bruce Wayne or Batman. The way Bruce's face was drawn also seemed a bit weird to me, though the art was generally great otherwise.

With the advent of issue 2, the plot feels like it's finally up and running. The story here established itself as more violent than the other Batman books, and I think it's safe to say we can expect more gruesome action in the future. The way the problem Bats is dealing with is shown to have effects on the other heroes of Gotham felt like it did a good job of establishing a sense of urgency without feeling like an in-your-face crossover. All-in-all it did a much better job of establishing an identity for the series than the first book did.

And Here We Are!

I tried to distill my thoughts on the different series into a paragraph or two. Perhaps they'll be helpful to somebody who wants to read some Batman but can't read it all. Any questions, comments or suggestions are welcome!

Maybe you'll see me with a similar blog in another month!

I grew up watching the 90s Spider-Man and X-Men animated series. They may well have been my first exposure to the very concept of superheroes. As I recall, however, I was too busy reading Sonic the Hedgehog to be very interested in the comics themselves.

Regardless, as I grew older I remained interested in superhero-related goings-on, and was especially excited when the X-Men and Spider-Man movies came out. Even without reading the comics, through hearsay and the internet, I became fascinated with the way the Marvel universe reacted to current events and evolved over time.

This is kind of a really long way of saying "Though I haven't read them a whole lot, I've always thought comics were cool."

Somehow, last Tuesday, I ventured out and found a comic shop. Now, that's not entirely accurate, I already knew it was there. But I actually went inside with the intention of possibly buying a comic. I looked over the books and was quickly overwhelmed. There was a lot of stuff, Marvel and otherwise, that I'd never heard of, and I knew just enough about alternate-universes to be confused about most of the subtitles. I was drawn to the X-Men books, and knew that Uncanny X-Men was the main storyline, but after I saw the series just called X-Men I had to ask the clerk a question.

Me:"(Some babbling)...Is this Uncanny, or...?"

While I'm still a bit confused about where chronologically "X-Men" actually takes place in the grand scheme of things, I give that guy a gold medal, because he pointed me right where I wanted to be. He explained the changes that were coming up in the way Uncanny was being published, and recommended I pick up what they had of Schism, issues 3 and 4.

They were great. All the familiar characters in a weirdly not-how-I-left-it universe were just awesome to see. The story drew me in and though I pretty much knew what was going on, I felt the urge to track down Schism 1 and 2 as well. Cue an extraordinarily fun hunt which took me to another very cool but somewhat distant comic shop, and I decided this was something I'd like to keep doing for a while. I want to keep dropping by comic shops and seeing what's new. I'm excited for the upcoming changes to the X-Men. I'm excited to have at least half a clue what's going on with them.

And after a long time of occasionally glancing this way from the sidelines over at Giant Bomb, I'm excited to delve into Comic Vine.