Snyder Batman

Batgirl 13-16

Death of the Family tie-in.  Ed Benes levels up here, as he finds an extra gear in his art.  Is it because he’s inking his own work?

Reminds me a little of the classic Chun Li/Vega fight...

Sadly, Benes doesn’t stick around for the whole arc, and the story by Gail Simone is cookie cutter Joker stuff.  She even fails to use James Gordon Jr (I’d completely forgotten he showed up here) to any kind of scary effect.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Batman and Robin 15-16

Pat Gleason draws an amazing Joker.  In fact, these two issues are all about the creepy, gross, squishy ambience that he infuses into the art.  

All the insects are so ick.

Scaaary.

That Joker facemask is so brilliant in design.

God, was this the line that started it all?

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Batman 13-17

Death of the Family.  This is the arc that made me want to review my comics.  I’m hard pressed to come up with another story that has such a huge discrepancy in the quality of the beginning and end.  Up to the last issue, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo give a master class in how to tell an honest to goodness horror story.  Faceless Joker is fricking terrifying.  This really feels like it could be The Last Joker Story, the one where Joker finally pulls out all the stop and imposes his sadistic insanity on the Bat-Family, finishing what he started in The Killing Joke.

That is how you make an entrance to a story.

This one is nightmare fuel.  One of my favorites.

"Dancing for days."  It evokes so much horror.

It's the chanting that elevates it to the next tier of effectiveness.

I wish they could have kept this.

And this.  So much potential just thrown away.

Even part way through the final issue, I was hoping that there was some way their faces were actually removed.  But this isn’t a Black Label title, and after all of that setup, the net result of all of Joker’s machinations is that...the Bat-Family stops talking to Bruce for a while.  Whee.  Even worse, Snyder forces the readers to once again ask why Batman hasn’t killed the Joker, and his answer is no more convincing than any other of the failed explanations that have been foisted on us in the past.

Joker's right about the slippery slope being BS.

Yeah, I don't buy it.

This could have been one of the all time classics, but at the end, I’ll only remember it as one of the all time disappointments.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good (Disliked the last issue)

Batman 21-24

I stopped buying the Snyder/Capullo Batman after that, but I picked up the next two trades for super cheap (free?  I can’t remember).  I honestly don’t remember reading either of them, this might be a first read-through for me.  

Snyder’s New 52 take on Batman: Year One is surprisingly good.  This story of Bruce starting out in his crime fighting endeavors, taking on the Red Hood Gang, and coming to terms with an Alfred who’s skeptical of his quest is a super fun read.  It’s an entertaining, completely different take on Frank Miller’s classic, though he can’t keep himself from straying too far from the path in one famous scene:

The original.

Miller added the "Father."

Snyder stretches it to three pages.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good