REVIEW: Batwing # 1-8

BATWING
Issues #1-8
Story arc: Massacre/The Kingdom Storyline
Writer: Judd Winick
Artists: Ben Oliver, Chriscross & Dustin Nguyen
DC Comics


BACKGROUND:

   Welcome back folks. Been a while since I did a whole storyline. But, let's get down to business. Batwing first appeared as a part of Batman's new Batman Inc venture about a year before the relaunch. Fast forward to around last summer when DC announced the New 52, Batwing was one of the titles that was to be bolstered. And that came with both positive and negative press. Yet, Batwing was just one of the many characters that were going to give diversity alongside Mr. Terrific, Static, Voodoo, Blue Beetle & Batwoman. I just want to point out that the first 2 titles were canceled a few month ago and Voodoo gets her last issue this month. Yet, the other two are going strong.

  So, what is making Batwing a title that keeps going? Part of it may have to do with the Bat-family. The other part of it might be the fact that it is being sold as "the Batman of Africa." But, let's examine the truth behind this title and see if it really  measures up.


LOW DOWN:

  Batwing # 1 opens to ... narration while our hero is fighting the villain in question, Massacre. It looks brutal. The background definitely feels like a different place. Our hero tells us how brutal Massacre with on very little armor in comparison to him. Yet, for the first time, we hear a phrase that will haunt readers and our hero: We Honor Them  All in Blood.

   Wow. What a colorful ... line.

  We go through a flashback of Batwing, where we are outside of the city of Tinasha as Batwing takes down a drug lord known as Blood Tiger. After scaring the crap out of Blood Tiger with some narration from Batwing being told by Batman to be theatrical in order to instill fear into the hearts of criminals; we go to an investigation being done by Tinasha officer Kia Okuru and our hero's civilian identity, David Zavimbe. Earlier, David left a clue while in his Batwing gear. David subtlety tests Officer Okuru who finds the wallet. Back in Batwing's lair, The Haven, he and his Alfred, known as Matu Ba, connect with the Bat Computer and figure out the identity of Massacre's first victim . . . a hero known as Earth Strike; a hero in African's super hero team known as The Kingdom.

 We find out that the Kingdom has disappeared and David goes back in civvies to his police job ... only to be met with a machete stabbed through his back to his chest after walking in a room full of severed heads and bodies. YAY. I like Tinasha.

  It seems as if Massacre came to leave a message to the Tinasha police. And he did. While David was dealing with his recent impalement, Officer Okuru brought reinforcements ...only for her to get hurt and the rest of the reinforcements to be killed by Massacre. Boy ... the guy is living up to his name.

We find that Massacre left little survivors among the police and has decided to attack  . .. an ELEMENTARY School. Okay. You know, I know we want to show how dark and gritty this new city in Africa is but DAMN! Of course, this is two weeks after Massacre' s glorious first confrontation with the Tinasha PD.

  David figures out that Massacre is gonna attack an elementary school as Massacre attacks one . .. mostly,a teacher in one. But this teacher actually happens to be former member of the Kingdom, Thunder Fall. The electric Thunder Fall takes on Massacre ... only to lose an arm in the process. GEEZ!

 Batwing, against Matu Ba's wishes . . . okay, okay ... Batwing shots Matu with a sedative, knocking him out . . .goes and joins the battle against Massacre. Batwing is able to fend off Massacre but the damage is done. Thunder Fall succumes to blood loss, dying. Yet, before he dies, he is about to tell Batwing that they should not be forgiven for what they did.

  As the mystery gets deeper about The Kingdom and Massacre, we get a look back at David's childhood ... as a child soldier for a warlord named Keita. Both David and his younger brother Issac were the two best child soldiers of General Keita's army. They would kill who he asked to kill ... except women and children. And they would not hesitate to beat up older soldiers. They were the Dragonflies and they were vicious. Yet, their moral stand against Keita lead to their defection ... and Keita seemingly killing Issac after beating him up  and throwing him off a cliff side.

  For his trouble, young David kidnaps Keita, ties him up near an enemy camp and let's them known Keita is there.

Ah ... the joys of youth.

After that ... we find that Massacre kills another member of the Kingdom, off panel and it is now time ... for a fundraiser. It seems that there is a fundraiser at The Kingdom's former headquarters, known as The Citadel. The Kingdom's old pilot and weapons mechanic, Josiah Kone. And wow ...  he's at the Citadel, alongside Bruce Wayne who have transformed The Kingdom's old headquarters into a museum. Yet, Massacre ... with help this time, is able to destroy   The Citadel and kidnap a group of people with him.

  Batwing manages to corner and stop Massacre, saving the people and Josiah from certain death. Yet, as Batwing continues to dive into the mystery behind  The Kingdom ... he learns of their greatest shame and secret.


 SPOILER ALERT

 The Kingdom allowed for a genocidal maniac to team up with a group of warlords to fight the peoples army ... and let them kill each other. The maniac, General Okuro, was exiled from Africa, led by the Kingdom themselves.


  It is from this one event which lead to the break up of the Kingdom and the events that are currently happen with Massacre. Batwing and Batman track down the remaining members of The Kingdom to Gotham City and ...

 I will stop here.


BREAK DOWN:

Art:

   We have 3 very distinct art styles here. Very distinct and very different. Dustin Nguyen's issues were good and really captured the grit of Gotham and the mood for the story during those last two issues of this first storyline. It was a dark tone with a fast pace and the art conveyed the urgency really well.  The emotional parts were a 50 50. The major reveal of Massacre was done extremely  well but his benefactor being revealed seemed to lack the energy that the previous reveal had.

   Chriscross had done the pencils on issue #4 and I loved it. Going into David's past for the first time really needed to be vivid, painful, colorful and gruesome all at once. Chriscross succeeded with that. The tormented, blood-soaked history of David and his brother Issac with General Keita was rendered in a beautifully grizzy fashion. The backgrounds where vivid, the colors were vibrant. Everything fit where it was supposed to fit. It was a strong issue.

  Ben Oliver has some mind-numbingly beautiful art. Oliver penciled most of the issues of this story and they look amazing. His fusion of realistic and comic book art really makes the book a pleasure to the eyes. The characters are distinct in the way they move and look. The one flaw to Mr. Oliver's art ... which may not be his fault ... was the lack of backgrounds. There are times where no backgrounds are fine. Yet, with this being a launch title and introducing us to a brand new original locale, we didn't see much of it.

  There were some backgrounds that were just well done as we saw small areas around Tinasha. Yet, there were others that were just very plain. The citadel looked very majestic but then there were a lot of panels with nothing but Batwing, or Bruce Wayne or just people. I think the lack of backgrounds hurt the book a little bit.


 Writing:

   Judd Winnick gives his A game in this book as we are introduced to a brand new character. Batwing is very multi-faceted and it makes him such a compelling and different character than from  Batman that it makes you want to watch him more. He knows he has blood on his hands. He knows there is a lot of corruption and down right gruesome things that occur in Tinasha every day.

  Officer  Okuru and Matu make solid first impressions. Both characters are likable and give strong connections to our main hero. Matu's past is shrouded in mystery which leaves a lot to open with him. And the interesting dynamic between David and Okuru make their interactions interesting.

  The story is a strong start for Batwing. My only problem is how the story ends in Gotham. While I give the writer points to help set up Night of Owl's crossover issue (issue #9) after this story, it just seemed like the Bat Family  didn't trust Batwing to handle the situation. While it is nice that they helped each other, this is supposed to be David's first  foray and I saw Batman in 4 out of the first 8 issues. That's half. Sales strategy or not, not a great first impression on our hero. Otherwise, Winick wrote a very effective and wonderful character that I hope we see thrive in the years to come.


Final Verdict:

   Batwing's first outing was full of adventure, mystery, philosophical debates and gave us a taste of the world of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and it great city, Tinasha. Though, I feel we didn't see enough of Tinasha and there was too much Batman in these first 8 issues, the story and characters were really great. You read these books and feel invested on David and his crusade. A strong first outing for the Batman of Africa, Batwing.


I give this story a 3.5 out of 5. While the problems are a fair size, the storyline and art will keep you interested. Kudos to the creative team.

NEWS EDITION #24 - DC CREATIVE TEAM SHUFFLE, TOP COW'S PILOT SEASON WINNER CROWN AND THE END OF INCORRUPTIBLE & IRREDEEMABLE

Welcome Ladies & Gentlemen to another edition of CBC NEWS!


MORE OF THE DC CREATIVE SHUFFLE

by Frankie Rodriguez

    The more things change . .. the more change comes about it seems. With all the recent looks at sales from DC and Marvel Comics since the New 52 came out, DC has been determined to make sure that they and their readers are not complacent. 2 weeks ago, Hector Ramirez reported about the 6 titles that will be ending in April and their 6 replacements premiering in May. Yet, DC is still making more changes with certain titles, hoping that the new creative teams will have readers staying and bring in new ones.

   So what else is changing? Prepare for the breakdown.

 Batwing's sales have been doing extremely well. Yet, there will be an artistic change as of issue #9. Ben Oliver's last issue of Batwing will be issue #7; tying Gotham City into his current Massacre storyline while also setting up a crossover for the Bat-books dealing with the Court of Owls, called "Night of Owls", that has been prominent in Batman. And while issue #8 will have a fill in artist, Marcus To, who was regular artist on Red Robin Pre-New 52 & artist on the Huntress miniseries, will be taking over art chores. To nearly everyone's delight (and to some's disdain) Judd  Winnick is still writing the book.

Marcus To commented on his approach to his new job:


Actually, at first, when I was approached to draw the book, it took me a second to think about my approach to this book, because he is a different character from the traditional Batman look. So I had to think, how am I going to do this? Ben Oliver did such a great job on launching the title. So I looked at the art and thought to myself, how can I put my own spin on this?

I think readers are going to see a different aspect of my art. That's the great challenge of this job, figuring out how I want certain angles to look, how I want his armor to look, but how to keep it in the vein of Batman. Just like you said, you can use the silhouettes that Batman has, with the wings and the symbol and the ears and everything, to really pull it together, and associate the Batman look with Batwing. . . we're actually starting my run in Gotham, which is where my attention is concentrated right now. But Batwing will be back in Africa soon, and I've talked to Judd about some ideas we have. He's sending me a movie that has a style that's related to the story he wants to write next. So we're communicating about the direction the book is going and where we want to take it visually.

But once we get back to Africa, and once I know what the location is for the next story, I do intend to use references to do my best to make it accurate and pay respect to what is real.

 Meanwhile, Rob Liefield was slated to take over 3 books after finishing Hawk & Dove with #8. Which 3 books? Rob Liefield will be co-plotting both The Savage Hawkman and Grifter. His co-writer on Hawkman is none other than Mark Poulton, who currently also writes Avengelyne over in Image Comics. And former Deathstroke artist Joe Bennet will move to take over art duties on The Savage Hawkman.

 Co-writing Grifter is writer Frank Tieri , who recently wrote Marvel vs Capcom 3, with Stormwatch's very first artist Scott Clark will stay on as artist. And finally, Liefield will be taking over the Deathstroke book, handling both writing and art chores on the book.

 Over in Batman: Dark Knight, Gregg Hurwitz takes over completely as full writer while David Finch steps down from writing chores to just draw the Batman book.

 Peter Milligan steps down as writer for Justice League Dark yet he ends up taking another popular team book; Stormwatch. The writer decided to jump over after 2 fill in issues by Paul Jenkins and seems to be enjoying the book and making it fit into the DC Universe.

Peter Milligan joins regular artist Miguel Sepulveda as the new creative team as of issue #9 this May. And while he did confirm that he will keep the roster as is for the time being with 1 possible edition, Milligan teased his direction for the book:

I want to dig deeper not only into the characters themselves but also the history and meaning of Stormwatch. The strange strategies they’ve employed to do what they do and remain covert.
Before I start throwing people off of the team I want to get deeper into them. However, we will have an appearance of a character who was around long before this team was formed who throws a different light on the life of a Stormwatch agent.


My first story deals with an intruder on earth from the planet Ysmault — he’s red and he’s got a lot of rage — and also a former Stormwatch member. We’ll also get deeper into the mind of Midnighter.

And finally, fan favorite writer of the one of DC's highest selling titles, Animal Man writer Jeff Lemire, will be taking over for Milligan on Justice League Dark. Calling the title his dream gig, Lemire is more than happy to dive into several of his favorite characters: Deadman, Shade - the Changing Man, Zatanna & John Constantine. He promises to bring a true connection to the Justice League to answer why they have the name with a few other surprises: 

One of the things I’m anxious to explore is just why the name “Justice League” is in the title of this book. I want to explore and create new connections between this team of mystical misfits and Geoff and Jim’s big guns in the Justice League. On that note, Geoff and I have had many discussions on how to link our two books and make the Justice League franchises connect in new and unexpected ways.

With that, Lemire also promises two new members, one guy and one girl to this already seemingly stacked mystical team and plans to have John Constantine emerge as the leader of this group. Mike Janin will stay on as artist for the book.

 With all these changes, DC hopes to keep readers. Will this work? I am sure it will to some extent but there will be a lot of competition. While all this is happening, Marvel will be knee deep into Avengers vs X-Men event, Extreme Studios relaunch will be in full steam with all 5 titles will have debuted and Valiant Entertainment returns with X-O Manowar debuting during the first week of May. The gauntlet has been thrown and we will see if these changes will help or hurt DC's books.


WINNER OF TOP COW'S PILOT SEASON WINNER IS . . .
by Frankie Rodriguez 

  Over the last few years, Top Cow has used the pilot season , a contest with several different one-shots where the fans choose the winner, in order to set up new miniseries with concepts and ideas you may not see anywhere else. This year, there were 8 different one-shots of all kinds but only one emerged as the winner. And the 2011 Top Cow Pilot Season Winner is The Beauty.

   The Beauty was created by writer Jeremy Haun and artist Jason Hurley. The Beauty is about a sexually transmitted disease that has people become nearly irresistibly attractive. So much so, there are scary consequences and implications because of this STD. It is up to two detectives to stop the people who are infected by it.

Jeremy Haun talked about the upcoming series:

Now that we've won we're going to be able to finish the story. I'm really excited to do that. It's exciting to be co-writing and drawing something like this. The process is surprisingly fast and a hell of a lot of fun. The trick of it is going to be balancing work on The Beauty with my regular art duties on The Darkness monthly book. Luckily, they're both books that I absolutely love. It also doesn't hurt that I just love to work. As crazy as it may seem, drawing two books is kind of my idea of fun.

And while artist Jason Hurley added: 

Winning Pilot Season is easily the biggest moment of my career so far, and I couldn't be happier. It was a hard-fought battle, but thanks to all of the fans of The Beauty, we came out on top. I can't wait to get back to work on the book. We've got a lot of exciting stuff planned for the future of The Beauty, and since we've won Pilot Season, we'll be able to share all of that with our fans. More than anything, I just want to send a huge thank you out to all of our family, friends, and fans for their support throughout the entire voting process. It's thanks to them that we're able to continue The Beauty.

The Beauty is set to debut later this year. 

IRREDEEMABLE & INCORRUPTIBLE SAY GOODBYE 
by Frankie Rodriguez 

   As recently stated by writer and creator Mark Waid, he is ending his cult following books: Irredeemable and Incorruptible. The BOOM! Studios comics have been hit with fans since shortly after their release and have won multiple awards and grabbed fans. Waid stated that while he knows he has dealt with all the darkness within him, he felt that it was time to end both series.

Okay, really, truly — I’m just stretched thin right now both personally and professionally, and I live in mortal fear that I’m going to overstay my welcome on these books. Moreover, I feel that Max Damage’s character arc is reaching its end in Incorruptible. And in Irredeemable, I’ve long known what the end of that series is, and lately, it’s as if all the characters are moving into position for it whether I want them to or not. So let’s go out big and grand, I say.
 
The final arcs of Incorruptible will be played out from issues #27 to #30. Meanwhile, Irreedeemable's storyline will reach its climax in issue # 34-#30.  Fans will miss these series but everyone can understand. Between all that Waid has been doing in Marvel along, the man needs a breather.



FAN REVIEW OF SUPERGIRL 

By Brickie Bowman 

it's not much but I have read the first 3 DC 52 Supergirls and so far I am impressed with the story thus far for one she not some sniveling teen but a confidant young adult she hasn't quite got the hang of her power here on earth but she has a good teacher after she beat the crap out of him for a minute.  
 
I did notice that as with Kal El in his book the take a interest in the costume and it is just as indestructable as they are and that goes back to the original story that his cloth that his cape was his baby blanket he was wrapped in when he got to earth.
 

it       It was well drawn. The artist did his homework on the character to give the right look for her. She is s a young adult and the art is also close to the look for Action Comics and Superman which is good so if the stories cross the art won't throw you off. 

 I like the the look she has in this and the writing would hold you if they keep this style going but if they change the formula it will fail add all that.

I like the ideal that she already has some people trying to capture her and had her for a moment but she got away and she is also dealing with the fact that Krypton is no more but if this story keeps going like it has so far the book 4 and 5 should keep me roped in I have always like her but this to me is a better portrail of her in the DCU and should go a long way.This Supergirl is a better version in my point of view. She is more sure of herself than the teenage one and more assertive. She is a serious minded person that is wanting to learn why Krypton is gone.

 
 
 
I give it thus far it's 4 out of 5 Superman Shields. 


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