There are many incarnations of Batman and we all have our favorites. Usually the particular look or variation of Batman that we consider ‘definitive’ is the first one that we encountered. For many that would be the Jim Aparo version that graced the page of comic books for many years. In the late 80’s and early 90’s Norm Breyfogle defined Batman. Today, Greg Capullo is the artist on Batman and doing a damned fine job of it.
But is there a DEFINITIVE Batman artist? CBR.cpm wants to know and their poll gives readers a number of options. (please visit CBR.com to vote)
WHO DO YOU FEEL IS THE DEFINITIVE BATMAN ARTIST?
Bob Kane
Dick Sprang
Neal Adams
Jim Aparo
Frank Miller
David Mazzuchelli
Norm Breyfogle
Bruce Timm
Jim Lee
Greg Capullo
Personally I love the Mazzuchelli version of Batman, but as it only appeared in one story, Batman: Year One I question his inclusion. Likewise, Frank Miller left his mark on Batman but in a very limited number of issues. Bruce Timm is definitely a popular choice and with good reason as he spearheaded what could be considered one of the most important renditions of the dark knight ever.
As of now, Neal Adams and Jim Aparo are both leading with Frank Miller, Bob Kane and Dick Sprang trailing. I wonder why Carmine Infantino (who drastically redesigned Batman in the 60’s, Bill Finger who practically created the entire rogue’s gallery and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez whose art graced almost every single bit of merchandising for decades are missing from this list as they defined the character’s look for their respective periods.
What is your opinion? Who is your favorite Batman artist?
Before I give this review a bit of background information is necessary. The Brave and the Bold started out as showcase type book for DC Comics. It eventually became a team-up title for different superheroes and finally from issue 74 to its final issue, 200, a Batman only team-up title, cashing in on the success of the mid 60’s prime-time TV show. The regular writer of the title was the late Bob Haney. I have only read some of the early issues and they were rather silly. Maybe Haney was trying to imitate the ‘camp’ style of the Batman TV show. As of this issue the TV series was canceled and a new editor came on the title. Most importantly this issue was the first story drawn by Neal Adams. Adams is famous for bringing his detailed photo-realistic style to comic books. His artwork tries to bring back the dark creature of the night that Batman was back in the late 30’s and early 40’s.
Adam’s run with Haney would only last eight issues, and this issue is probably the best written of them. It also features the character of Deadman, whom Adams was also working on then in Strange Adventures. The story is a well plotted murder mystery. It is impressive how much plot Bob Haney could condense in 23-24 pages. Most writers today would need three to four issues to tell a story like this.
As the story starts we see a man being followed down an alley and shot dead by an unseen criminal. Batman and Commissioner Gordon are on the scene and so is a man who owns all of Gotham’s newspapers. It seems this murder is related to a mystery man who is trying to take over all of the mobs in Gotham. Both Gordon and Batman have theories on who this mysterious crime boss could be, and are trying to discover his identity before he can take control of Gotham’s organized crime. Observing all of this, unknown to everyone else, is Deadman who came to Gotham to see if Batman could help him find his killer. These two plots eventually intersect but to tell me would ruin story for those who haven’t read it. It is worth reading.
Lost Classic
The story indirectly ties in to Batman’s origin. This character has never appeared again as far I am aware. Even Len Wein’s Untold Legend of Batman limited series that tried to put all of the bits of the Silver Age Batman’s origins together did not mention him. Wein worked with Adams himself on Batman prior to writing this so it is all the more odd. Maybe this is because Brave and the Bold was a team-up title and rarely crossed over into continuity with the core titles. It is hard to say. This was the first full length Adams story also and the origin sub-plot gets forgotten in the main story.
The story was well received when it came out. Haney even won a Alley Award for best full length comic book issue. Yet for some reason outside of Neal Adam’s Deadman, or Brave and the Bold collections it is rarely reprinted. In fact according to comic book database, the only other time it has been collected is a issue of Super Team-Up Family 2 from 1975. It was not chosen for either the 1989 Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told or the later versions of this same collection in 2005 and 2007. A collection that I believe it should have been chosen for. Why an issue that was so well regarded by fans in its day is rarely collected or mentioned today is a paradox.
Appendix
The most recent reprints of Track of the Hook have been in Batman Illustrated Neal Adams Vol1 and Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold vol1. The latter is DC’s version of Marvel’s essentials series (in black and white).
Buy Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold - Vol. 1
Buy Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold - Vol. 2
For many children of the 1970’s, Neal Adams equals comic books. His dynamic all-action style almost immediately grabs readers by the neck, demanding attention. It was no wonder that alongside Gil ‘Sugar’ Kane, Adams’ art graced the covers of near countless comics, entrancing boys nationwide.
Occasionally, the artwork inside these covers matched the covers and lads were treated to an actual Neal Adams story! Just imagine! While some other comic artists leaned toward a more moody or character-centric approach to comic art, Adams treated every scene like a big budget action film. Along with Roy Thomas and Tom Palmer, Adams breathed new life into the ailing X-Men series with his distinctive line work that never left room for a breath between panels. Cars were never driven idly, they were careened madly across the page. Explosions were bigger than life and riddled each issue under his pen. Throughout recent years DC Comics has gone to great lengths to collect Green Arrow/Green Lantern stories in addition to the legendary Batman comics. However, this week comic fans are in for something special as DC releases a special hardcover collection of rarities including OUR ARMY AT WAR #182, 183 and 186, STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #134 and 144, DETECTIVE COMICS #369, TEEN TITANS #20-22, ACTION COMICS #425, SUPERMAN #254, WEIRD WAR TALES #12 and 13 and more!
For the aging comic reader dissatisfied with modern comics this collection, entitled DC Universe Illustrated by Neal Adams, is something special. For the younger comic readers amongst us, this is an ideal opportunity to see what all the excitement is about and why Neal Adams remains one of the masters of the sequential art.
While the original Green Lantern debuted in 1940, it is fair to say that the Silver Age Green Lantern of 1959 is an entirely different character. Created by Bill Finger and cartoonist Martin Nodell, the original ring slinger was an engineer who sculpted his ring and power battery from a meteorite that struck a train. Much like the other heroes of the time, he was more of a fantasy character, his ring exhibiting a strange emerald flame as it worked its magic.After the successful revamping of the Flash, word came down from Julius Schwartz that the Silver Age was upon us. In short order, the other former super heroes of WWII were given a modernization. Chief amongst them was Green Lantern.
In comic book history, artist Gil Kane is known for many of his works, but writer John Broome is most commonly known for Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern. The character was designed after Paul Newman and meant to be an homage to EE Doc Smith’s Lenseman novels. The series was a full-on science fiction super hero comic. Test pilot Hal Jordan was given his power ring by a dying red-skinned spaceman named Abin Sur and directed to use its power to uphold justice. The ring was capable of creating anything that the bearer could imagine and was only ineffectual against that which is yellow. As Green Lantern, Jordan fought everything from common thugs to robots to evil from the ant-matter universe of Qward.
Much like The Flash and Hawkman, Green Lantern was a campy comic book series built on thrills and wild storylines that sent the reader through a series of double takes month after month.
In time, GL became a founding member of the Justice League of America alongside The Flash, Batman, Aquaman, Superman, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman. His series saw many developments, but chief amongst them was the revelation that Jordan was one of a Corps of Green Lanterns that protected the entire galaxy from evil. Headed by the blue-skinned Guardians of the Galaxy, the Corps was made up of bizarre aliens all incredibly designed with the non-stop imagination of Gil Kane.
Hal Jordan appeared in his own cartoon series for a short time in 1966 where his trusty mechanic Pieface was replaced with a Venutian named Kiro… explain that!
Green Lantern was also a member of the Super Friends during their long fight with the Legion of Doom. Voiced by famed actor of the stage Sir Lawrence Olivier (or not), the character was shown to be on the same power level as Superman.
During the 1970’s, the title was altered into a team book by Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams and Dick Giordano.
Dubbed Green Lantern / Green Arrow, the series followed a conservative Hal Jordan on the road with loud-mouthed liberal Green Arrow ‘in search of the American Dream.’
The alteration brought a large and vocal readership to the title and remains a major mark in comic book history.
Stories delved into issues such as racism, over-population and corrupt business practices that the duo encountered while driving across the country in a pickup truck with a humanized Guardian who was just as eager to see every Stuckies on Route 66 that he could.
Two replacement Green Lanterns were also introduced, Guy Gardner and John Stewart (after Gardner fell into a coma).
Guy was initially a well-meaning human who appeared to be for all intents and purposes, similar to Hal Jordan. It wasn’t until he was awoken from his coma that his mind became skewed into the personality that comic book fans know and love.
He was introduced in 1985 after the continuity changing series Crisis on Infinite Earths as theGreen Lantern and took Hal’s place in the Justice League where he butted heads with team leader Batman until Guy was knocked out cold… with just one punch from the caped crusader.
John Stewart, by contrast, was a headstrong and defiant character fitting into the notion of the ‘angry Black man’ commonly found in comic books of the 1970’s. When Jordan decided to finally split from the Corps once and for all, Stewart’s role shifted from back-up to primary Green Lantern for his sector.
Stewart’s time as Green Lantern in the comic book series was brief and often overshadowed by Hal Jordan’s continuing soap opera.
John Stewart finally got the recognition he deserved when he was chosen by Bruce Timm to be their primary Green Lantern in the Justice League cartoon series over Hal Jordan (probably due to many factors including DC Editorial’s reluctance to let Timm and company use certain characters). As such, Stewart became exposed to an audience that never even heard of Green Lantern.
After Crisis settled down, DC returned Hal Jordan to his series where he became a going gray tough guy. After his home town of Coast City was destroyed, Jordan went mental and took on the entire Green Lantern Corps, taking their rings as he left their corpses to rot in space before becoming the villain Parallax.
The last surviving Guardian chose Kyle Rayner as the new Green Lantern, much to the chagrin to many a faithful reader.
Due to the transformation of Jordan into a mustache-twirling villain, many fans felt betrayed and refused to accept Rayner as the new guy, despite several stories that depicted him as the ‘last Green Lantern.’
Eventually, Parallax sacrificed himself to restart the sun and re-appeared as the Spectre. If fans of Hal Jordan were angry before, they were now furious.
Two years ago, Jordan returned to his status as the greatest Green Lantern of them all in the miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth. Writer Geoff Johns, known for untangling the sordid and confusing threads of continuity that plagued Hawkman, made sense of Jordan’s bizarre journey and firmly set him back in his rightful place.
Alongside the monthly Green Lantern Corps starring Guy Gardner and occasionally John Stewart, the Green Lantern series is currently a top seller for DC Comics.
Most recently, Jordan’s most evil foe Sinestro returned from the anti-matter universe of Qward with an entire legion of yellow power ring bearing aliens (including an evil cyborg Superman, evil Superboy and an anti-matter giant) set on destroying the entire Green Lantern Corps. The storyline, entitled Sinestro Corps War, has been running throughout both Green Lantern titles and will conclude in a few months.
There are few character such as Green Lantern that have had such wild shifts in popularity. While he was the character that could not survive cancellation at one point, he is now the come back kid of comics, his series having re-earned the acceptance of Green Lantern fans and newcomers to the character alike.
One thing I never really understood was the what the big deal over a power ring was. I mean you only have to look online to see how to make your own power ring.
WHO DO YOU FEEL IS THE DEFINITIVE BATMAN ARTIST?
Throughout recent years DC Comics has gone to great lengths to collect Green Arrow/Green Lantern stories in addition to the legendary Batman comics. However, this week comic fans are in for something special as DC releases a special hardcover collection of rarities including OUR ARMY AT WAR #182, 183 and 186, STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #134 and 144, DETECTIVE COMICS #369, TEEN TITANS #20-22, ACTION COMICS #425, SUPERMAN #254, WEIRD WAR TALES #12 and 13 and more!
While the original Green Lantern debuted in 1940, it is fair to say that the Silver Age Green Lantern of 1959 is an entirely different character. Created by Bill Finger and cartoonist Martin Nodell, the original ring slinger was an engineer who sculpted his ring and power battery from a meteorite that struck a train. Much like the other heroes of the time, he was more of a fantasy character, his ring exhibiting a strange emerald flame as it worked its magic.After the successful revamping of the Flash, word came down from Julius Schwartz that the Silver Age was upon us. In short order, the other former super heroes of WWII were given a modernization. Chief amongst them was Green Lantern.
During the 1970’s, the title was altered into a team book by Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams and Dick Giordano.
Guy was initially a well-meaning human who appeared to be for all intents and purposes, similar to Hal Jordan. It wasn’t until he was awoken from his coma that his mind became skewed into the personality that comic book fans know and love.
John Stewart, by contrast, was a headstrong and defiant character fitting into the notion of the ‘angry Black man’ commonly found in comic books of the 1970’s. When Jordan decided to finally split from the Corps once and for all, Stewart’s role shifted from back-up to primary Green Lantern for his sector.
The last surviving Guardian chose Kyle Rayner as the new Green Lantern, much to the chagrin to many a faithful reader.
The Daily P.O.P. 