Hello and welcome once again to the World of Bats, the Batman Book Club! This week we’re finishing up celebrating our One Year Anniversary with another big anniversary issue and a story-arc that follows, with “Gothtopia,” written by John Layman (of Chew fame) and Jason Fabok (who’s this little artist guy who’s been doing this one Batman story you might have heard of, Batman: The Three Jokers?).
DC Entertainment presents a mega-sized celebratory issue featuring an all-star roster of Batman creators past and present! Don’t miss a modern-day retelling of the Dark Knight’s origin by the incredible team of writer Brad Meltzer and artist Bryan Hitch. Plus, all-new stories by Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy, Peter J. Tomasi and Guillem March, Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen, Gregg Hurwitz and Neal Adams, new art by legendary Batman writer/artist Frank Miller and more! Also in this issue, John Layman and Jason Fabok kick off the new storyline ‘GOTHTOPIA’! It’s a bright, shiny, happy place where dreams come true…as long as you don’t look at things too closely.
Since there are now a lot of great Batman-related Book Clubs, I want to start giving them a shout-out! So if you’re looking for more Batman stuff to read:
Over at the Dick Grayson Fan Club, they’re at the tail end of the first part of the deep dive of the 2016 title “Grayson”!
Over at the Renegade Robins Club, chronicling two of my favorite problematic faves Damian Wayne and Jason Todd, they’re exploring the second arc of Red Hood & The Outlaws, “The Starfire,” the second half of “Batman Incorporated,” and continuing their several month deep dive into the infamous Countdown to Final Crisis!
Over at Harley’s Crew, discussion is up for two different stories: the classic “The Batman Adventures: Mad Love,” and the first four issues of the New 52 Suicide Squad!
And if you’re STILL not Harley’d out, the DCU Book Club is also showing her adventures in the first five issues of Suicide Squad Rebirth, “The Black Vault!”
There is also a Batman: Cataclysm & No Man’s Land Read Along going on!
She was already leaning toward a redemption arc before Flashpoint, but she is practically an antihero by this point, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I gotta admit something…I hadn’t fully read this when I wrote this up to do for the club.
Just finished it today – I liked it. It’s an interesting hook, kind of reminds me of a mix of B:TAS episodes Perchance to Dream and Dreams in Darkness. In terms of writing, it’s solid, with a great handle and usage of continuity, much like John Layman’s previous arcs on the book. On one hand, it’s all good qualities that makes his run a solid one for the books, but on the other, considering some of the wilder, out there concepts in his most famous creator-owned book, Chew, I kind of felt like I was expecting more punch in these books. Maybe if he had more free reign, he could do something really cool with the character.
Art wise is great, though the sudden art change is very abrupt. I get why (from the looks of it, Fabok was taken off of Detective to work on the first four issues of the Batman Eternal weekly series), and Aaron Lopresti is a great artist, love his run with Gail Simone on Wonder Woman. But going from Jason Fabok, who’s basically this generation’s Jim Lee, to Lopresti is a pretty big jump. Kind of makes me wish that Fabok had more of a one-shot story and Lopresti did all of Gothtopia.
Yeah – while the idea of Selina being a sort-of Robin kind of rubbed me the wrong way, them being together was fun to see, even if it was taken away almost as quickly as it came along. I think that’s part of what I liked about King’s run, where they finally got rid of the “will they won’t they” dynamic and just decided they will.
Totally agreed, he doesn’t get nearly as many big starring arcs as he should.
Oh yeah, that was a great one by Francisco Francavilla – great mood, and the fact that he was able to do that story in just two pages is legit insane.
