While each story opens up with a brief biography of the writers and artists and how their comic careers started, along with the foreign titles they are known for, it is rather unfortunate and disappointing we don't hear from them in short essays why they chose to be part of the anthology or what Batman means to them. The closest it comes is the 'My Bat-Man' story from Russian writers Kirill Kutuzov and Egor Prutov with artist Natalia Zaidova, which seems autobiographical in parts as a young writer and artist become obsessed with Batman based on nothing but a silly piece of merchandise, carrying that interest well into adulthood before discovering he's actually real. Likewise, the only bonus material is two pages of character design sketches for the China and Japan stories. Batman: The Worldwould have benefitted greatly from more insight from the actual creators and where their love for Batman began. Read Full Review

I was surprised this was as good as it was. However, I don't have the will to go through each story. My favorite story was the Russian one. My least favorite story was probably the Chinese one. The idea of private enterprises taking over a street of small shops in China being somehow against the norm, as though that's not currently happening through their state capitalist measures is funny, I guess. The Japanese story had a very cool Batman design. The United States story was weirdly written, but the art was great. As an American, I'm offended Azzarelo is representing my country. I won't explain why.

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Mout - Sep 28, 2021

did you like the brazilian one?

Psycamorean - Sep 28, 2021

Ah shit, you know what? I kinda wrote my reviews in a hurry, because I'm very behind on comics, but I actually really enjoyed the Brazilian one despite not mentioning it. It felt politically relevant, without being overbearing. It had this sense of chaos that I feel could only come from how crazy things in Brazil have been getting. I'm not Brazilian, but I think it'd be something that'd speak to anyone living there.

Mout - Sep 28, 2021

I'm not exactly an anthology fan, so it will take me some time to read this(and the only motivator is the brazilian story)

Mout - Sep 28, 2021

Funny story, I had a discussion with the colorist from this story on twitter, she accused a big comics channel(and publisher) for not crediting her on a Instagram post for sexist reasons, but the official DC credits did not mention her at that time, crazy.

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I was interested in this even though I'm not a big fan of anthologies but, man, was I surprised of this. This is the first DC enterprise in the last months I actually think has served them pretty well. They should try to search for writers in other parts because American writers are lately very one-note and the likes of Ridley or Tynion didn't help the character. European writers were very good, I have to say, I really, really liked their stories in particular. So I'm going to take every story and make a short review for each:

1.USA 9.5. Azzarello did a good job here introducing the book and the art from Bermejo was great, very good voice for Batman
2.France 9.5 Not a fan of the art but the story was a nice one and it played very funny on French stereotypes.
3.Spain 10 I'm not usually one who likes a story where there's very little dialogue but the art here was very good in its storytelling, I was really surprised of this one.
4.Italy 9.5 This one has a weird structure and I lost my interest halfway but at the end you get a sense of satisfaction.
5.Germany 6.5 This one I didn't like that much, I didn't want (yet) another cheap story about environmentalism but at least one of the characters is pretty crazy so that's in line with the Gretas of the world lol
6.Czech Republic 10 This one was awesome. Americans lately have been shying away from condemning communism with stupid people actually embracing an ideology responsible for the murder of tens of millions of people. That won't fly in Central and Eastern Europe where people have actually lived under such regimes and where they have experimented what that was like. Spoiler: It's fucking horrible. And this is shown here in spades. Anyone who embraces Communism or thinks "it wasn't that bad", read this story. It may have a Batman setup but the writer definitely tries to speak of what a total nightmare it was.
7.Russia 10 This was honestly awesome, as well. It was such a sweet story and it embraced a lot of the history of the times and comics and Batman and it ended on a very great note.
8.Turkey 6.5 This would've been better if the writer didn't try every page to tell us how great Turkey is and how it is the cradle of civilizations at least 10 times, if Erdogan would've written this he would've shut up about it but not this guy, no.
9.Poland 7 Another good story but the art didn't help at all, it was pretty bad.
10.Mexico 6 Ok story, good art
11.Brazil 3 This one bored me out of my mind, it embraced a lot of weird tropes and I wanted it to end a lot sooner. I expected better.
12.South Korea 8 Pretty good story with nice twists and decent art
13.China 2 Childish art, boring story and a little bit of Chinese propaganda that wasn't really necessary
14.Japan 4 By far the biggest disappointment, I expected from a manga story a much better quality level, not this.

So overall I loved this, I wouldn't mind seeing DC giving more chances to writers around the world, especially Europeans because they did a great job here, maybe go a little bit to the East, see what those people can say about the character. Either way, congratulations, this was a good effort. more