Batman: The Brave and the Bold is a celebration of DC's history, both in the style and quality of storytelling. These talented individuals have delivered four insanely engaging tales in this first issue, expertly showcasing a variety of new and familiar characters to readers. Most importantly, this book was just fun. I truly appreciated each of the chapters in this first outing, as each story felt like it needed to be told. Each and every page turn added to my overall excitement. Read Full Review

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #1 is a stunning collection of stories that showcase some of the best elements of the DC Universe. The wide gambit of storytelling and artistic sensibilities on display speak to the past, present, and future of the publisher, while making clear there are strong voices telling interesting stories with characters new and old. Read Full Review

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #1 is a solid start to the series featuring a nice mix of stories that are fun and feature some great art. Why “Batman” is in the title is a bit of a headscratcher, especially if it features far more than just Batman and his family. Overall though, it's a great read and one that's a definite buy. It's a rate anthology where every story is top notch and something to get even if they were on their own. Read Full Review

Overall, The Winning Card is a delightful yet terrifying story by Tom King that takes readers into the early days of Batman’s career and shows just how menacing The Joker truly is while laying the groundwork for what may be one of the best Batman and Joker stories we’ve ever seen brought to life by twisted noir like art that only Mitch Gerads could deliver. Read Full Review

Batman: The Brave & The Bold #1 is a refreshing look at, not just Batman, but other characters around him or in his sphere. You have your classic tale from King and Gerards, your Bat-adjacent story with Ravager and the new Stormwatch from Brisson and Spokes, his best friend Superman's story from Cantwell and Rodrguez, and an exciting alternate Batman from Mora. Read Full Review

Overall, this is a fantastic start from four excellent creative teams. Read Full Review

Dan Mora writes and illustrates a beautiful, bold and entertaining story with a take on the Dark Knight that absolutely got my attention. Read Full Review

Overall, The Brave and The Bold #1 makes a strong case for itself as an artistic showcase with room for the many mysteries inside to grow into something more compelling. Read Full Review

Batman: The Brave and The Bold #1 assembles four short chapters centering on Batman and his allies from alternate times and alternate realities. The collection has a little something for everyone, but Dan Mora's B&W short is the best of the bunch. Read Full Review

I didnt sign on to read Batman: The Brave and the Bold for Stormwatch or Superman. I signed up for Batman stories. And the only true Batman story was the first one by King that simply wasnt the greatest. I thought wed be getting Batman team-ups but sadly thats not the comic. If you liked Batman: Urban Legends, then you love this style and storytelling. Otherwise, I think this series is probably a hard pass. Im sure King fans will love the opener, however, is that small single story worth the cover price just to get the rest of the stories involved? Probably not. Let me know what you think, have a great week, and God Bless! Read Full Review

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #1 is a mostly really solid collection of distinct stories, ranging from suspenseful thriller to action packed team-up. Not all of them work, but for the ones that do it's a wide array of first chapters that show a lot of potential. Read Full Review

It's not a bad collection, but the most notable story is very hit-and-miss, and the backup stories aren't are all that memorable, with the Stormwatch story missing some key characters to sell me on the team instead using the issue to recreate the concept of StormWatch yet again. Read Full Review

Only read the Batman story, and it was one of the creepiest things I've ever read.

When I heard that Tom King was doing a take on the first Batman/Joker encounter I immediately lost interest in reading this. I’m not a fan of King’s Batman run and I am so drained on “the first Joker story”. That’s why I was surprised with how much I enjoyed that story.

Other than that the big reason to read this is the Superman story in here, which works really well if you’re also reading the Williamson run.

I’m intrigued to see where the future Batman story goes, and the StormWatch is serviceable if a bit generic and predictable.

The Tom King/Mitch Gerads Joker story is good. Joker is written in a much creepier manner than King usually writes him. In other stories, Joker typically plays the role of gay bestie to Catwoman. And there's nothing wrong with being a gay bestie, I recommend being both, but it doesn't work for a mass murdering psychopath. It just feels really off for all the characters involved. Luckily, there's no Catwoman here. I do have a couple of nitpicks. Gerads' art is mostly great but he really struggles with children, it turns out. The other big nitpick is the sheer amount of grawlixes in this story. I don't want to read dialogue where every sentence has a slur in it that I have to create in my head to fit the context of the rest of the sentence. It is obnoxious. It'd be better if the story were uncensored, but DC won't even allow the word "ass" in their books anymore. But even if it were uncensored, it'd still be kind of annoying. What person talks like that? The entire monologue where this criticism is spawning from is... not a great monologue to begin with. I think the type of character King was portraying was over-the-top. Not that people like that don't exist, but at some point it takes me out of the story when I know how these types would say it, and it's not that way. But those are just nitpicks, I like the vibes of the story.

The StormWatch story was super boring, and I have nothing to say about it.

The Superman story was a bit slow, but the art carried it and I hope it goes somewhere great.

The Black & White story was fine. It didn't need to exist.

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A mixed bag…

Tom King’s story is predictably a “let’s see if I can out-Moore Alan Moore.” Killing Joke is by-far Moore’s worst work. He admits it. Alex Ross agrees. The saving grace is Brian Bolland’s art. Brisson’s story is instantly forgettable.

The winners are Cantwell’s Superman and Mora’s future Batman.

Tom King/Gerads story was amazing, the Cantwell/Rodriguez story was amazing, the Mora one was good, but I could care less for Ed Brisson's work. Jeff Spokes art was very good, but wasted on a mundane script.

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hesfkshgf - May 18, 2023 (edited)

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I find it funny how DC always ignores whatever kind of development Rose has had.

Pricey book but what you do get is fantastic artwork from mitch gerads and Dan mora for his black and white story and some interesting lil one shots, not all of them hit the right spot but it not bad and Dan moras first work as a writer is good.

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hesfkshgf - May 16, 2023

only one of these stories is a one-shot - the Dan Mora black and white story

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AKA Urban Legends 2. StormWatch was the most interesting and Mora's story has fantastic art as always but I'm all set with more Tom King Batman stories.

Batman-
More decompressed garbage from Tom King. Terrible visual storytelling. Dull repeating art. Edgy trash Tom King ending. Keep these idiots away from Batman.
Stormwatch-
More shoving Ghost-maker down our throats. Hate the panel layouts. Art is too zoomed in.
Superman-
Does no one understand visual storytelling anymore? Why must the art be so zoomed in close?
Heroes of Tomorrow-
Not up to Dan Mora's usual standard of storytelling. He needs the guidance of working with a writer.

I don't see this series lasting very long.