Christine Manzione Comic Reviews

Arkham Manor #1proved to be an entertaining pick-up this week and I will absolutely be following the series. From the beginning, seeing the transformation of Wayne Manor into a prison and to the end, a great twist on how Bruce plans to enter the ranks of Gotham's captives.

Catwoman worked so well for me"- in a stark contrast to Harley's fruity color palette, Sonia (Witchblade) Oback's gritty, muted tones lend themselves well to the severity of Selina Kyle's pressing matter of keeping the peace between warring gangs

I just constantly found myself cracking up the entire time, whether it was Harley taking out ex-boyfriend anger at a burlesque show or sending Ed to a psychiatric hospital (well yeah, she of all people could do that) and it was a blast to continue the story. Fantastic character art and coloring added to the awesomeness, with John Timms (Deadpool) and Paul Mounts (once again!) creating a crazy, dark carnival-esque atmosphere that suits the story damn-near-perfectly.

Having a writing style mesh with ink and color so effortlessly is a hard feat that Harley's dark humor pulls off with grace-" it makes the read that much more immersive.

For what my two cents are worth, Peter (X-Factor) David's plot is well set-up in this first issue, with the potential for some interesting locales and events to take place thanks to the added element of time-travel (please get on a dinosaur). Miguel is cheeky, and comes off a bit too Peter Parker-ish; not necessarily a bad thing when you're a fan of Parker, but it's a new character and it would be refreshing to see a slight variation in personality. I just want to see Doc Brown somewhere now.

While it gains points for being a suitable comic for all ages, that simplicity brings it down as well. The art didn't do it for me and the blurb at the beginning did not elaborate enough on backstory, so I was questioning names of who was fighting and who was on who's side. At only six issues you can't really expect a novel's worth of character development, but just a little bit more (I mean, why can't Usagi tell Jotaro he's his father? Is it because he's a bunny and she's a panda?). It would have been appreciated.