Both the Batman and Detective Comics titles have started a new era with two killer creative teams, and both of these runs have had spectacular beginnings, each one feeling very unique and distinctive from one another, what a great time for Batman comics!

This was fucking amazing! Holy shit, what a killer issue!

First major disapointment in this new run, it doesn't even feel like it was written by the same guy who gave us those first 5 issues.

A great ending to a very good first arc, it's well drawn, it's well written, it's engaging and FUN. The way Peter "solves" the mess he was into here was something i was not expecting, and seeing him being empathethic to Tombstone after everything he put Peter through the last issues really made me smile, it's been a while since we had seen this side of him, it's what always made me so fascinated with this character and why he's my favorite character of all time, he loses a lot, but he gets back up, he messes up a lot, but he always make up for it, he's short tempered, but he's also a kind and empathetic person. Loved it, looking forward to #900! more

I'll say the same thing i've said when i finished the Long Halloween: M.A.S.T.E.R.P.I.E.C.E.!

This is a PERFECT follow up, although it has the same story structure of The Long Haloween(actually is the only story structure that Loeb knows how to use lol) the inclusion of Robin here is gives this a very distinctive feeling from the last series. The mystery is still engagin and intriguing, and the character work is flawless, i loved it!

Between Year One, The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, Batman has an hell of a beginning to his career, and after reading this one i have to agree with what @Daredevil said to me a while ago, those 3 make a perfect trilogy, anyone who is interested in starting reading Batman from his early years could not ask for a better way to start. more

Damn, it feels good to read the main Batman title again, specially with such a great beginning. Chip has a very special way of writting, i love how he's consistently able to create entertaining and engaging stories using overused premises and tropes(look at his Daredevil, that shit is fire!) and with time make it his own thing, and i feel like things will not be different here, put that with the fact that he's partnered with an amazing artist (Jorge Jimenez art is superb), and we have the perfect team that will hopefully deliver awesome stories on the title. more

It gets better and better, what a great book!

RIP Tim Sale, thank you is not enough to express how much your work has meant to me and so many others, forever grateful for the amazing stories you delivered, like this one, the first comic that made me cry, your legacy will live forever.

Zeb Wells you beatiful bastard, this was awesome! Everything i hoped he was going to deliver in Beyond is happening here, and to think this is just the beginning...wow. Also, JrJr action sequences were awesome, which is nothing new, it's JrJr after all. I think my only "problem" so far is that the MJ subplot although shocking at first, is becoming really uninteresting very fast, specially compared to what is happening with Tombstone, but that's just a minor nitpick and it's still too early to have a concrete opinion on this, this is a perfect issue in my book, loved it! more

This is probably the best issue so far. Not a lot happens in terms of progressing the story or even Mark as a character but adds to the universe in an easy way even if it's through exposition. Allen and Mark's fight had me actually laughing which always gets extra points from me. The art here did feel quite flat and even though I know they were I space the fight didn't have much weight to their attacks. I just can't wait for Ottley's art. more

This arc is reminding me that Tombstone can be scary af when you mess with his business, damn. I'm having a lot of fun with this new run, JrJr art here is a little weaker than the previous 2 issues but just as always, his narrative skills are just impecabble, this man is a brilliant storyteller. I love what Zeb is putting Peter through here, he's clearly not at his best mentally and physically so Tombstone basically has him at the palm of his hands.

I honestly have no idea what Peter will do to solve this mess, poor man can never catch a break xD but that's why we love him right? he never catches a break, but he'll always get back up and and try to make things right. more

M.A.S.T.E.R.P.I.E.C.E.

Now on to Dark Victory!

The cover and synopses are a huge disservice to this issue, that's all i'm gonna say about that. A lot of interesting things to talk about this issue but all the discourse will be about the cover, which is unfortunate.

Another fun(REALLY fun), well written and well drawn issue. The humor just like the 1st issue feels so spot on. Tombstone is freaking menacing here, the man is scary af but at the same time he has a side of him that cares about what the people closest to him might think when they see what he will do. Zeb clearly has a lot of love for Gerry Conway and Sal Buscema Spectacular Spider-Man run and is going for that Tombstone brutallity but he's also working with a lot of the stuff that Spencer did in his run.

The only thing that is bothering me here is Peter and Norman's interactions. They are not badly written but it feels so weird seeing Peter this way around Norman, i feel they have too much history that can't just simply be forgotten because Norman was cleansed from his sins. But that's just a minor nitpick, there is still a lot of things that need answers and this will problably be one of them.

Things apparently will move slowly and this will be another run with a long format of storytelling, and i'm not against it, some of my favorite writers(Hickman, Spencer, Johns) always take their time to build their story, my main concern is if Zeb will be able to tell this the way he wants or if eventually he will be rushed, just like Nick Spencer, and i sincerely hope it doesn't come to that because he has a very cool story here. more

My hype for Zdarsky Batman gets bigger every time i read a new issue of this series, this is great, his voice for every character that appears in this series is near-perfection. We're 6 issues in and none of them felt like a waste of time, Bruce is really going on a journey that is changing his life forever, he's learning and evolving and he still has a long way to go, and there is still time for a lot of things to happen. I don't know how this will end but if we know something about Zdarsky's previous works is that epic moments are a constant presence, specially when getting closer to the finale. more

This arc was pure insanity lol. Still no answers and Cates is clearly just doing enough to let Ottley shine but i would be lying if i say i didn't like it. The absurdity of this is just so big that it makes it impossible for me to not have fun despite some hiccups here and there, at this point they are basically saying "just sit down and enjoy the ride" and that's exactly what i'm gonna do.

This is a review of the Spider-Man story, i didn't read anything from the new Venom run yet but i'm really looking forward to see what Al Ewing, Ram V and Bryan Hitch will do with the new status quo after King in Black.

I used to skip FCBD issues because i always found them really meh, but through the years i started to appreciate them for their honesty in the sense that i kinda know what to expect, a little fun story of about 8 to 10 pages that gives the reader some hints at whats going on in the title at the moment and what is gonna come in the foreseable future, while serving as a good way to bring new readers to this crazy little media that we all love so much.

The humor here is so campy that it feels like it can be a hit or miss depending of the reader, but for me it works, i think Zeb has a great sense of humor for Peter and i think it's a little similar to the way Spencer wrote him at the beggining of his run, which at least for me makes everything feel more consistent. I'm still conflicted about Chasm, i didn't hate the ending of Beyond but i also didn't love it, for me Ben being a villain again is just spinning the wheels at this point and the last two pages here didn't give me much hope, but i really like Zeb and i'm looking forward to reading Dark Web in the coming months.

I've said this in my review of #1 but damn it feels so good to have JrJr back, i know a lot of people don't like him, i know his glory days are already past him, but man even now his style fits so perfectly with the character, i might be biased here because he's my favorite artist of all time but i don't care lol. Although his pencils have been pretty underwhelming in the past couple of years, leaving to the inker and the colorist to do a lot of heavy lifting, i still think his narrative skills are unmatched, and that he can still surprise everyone that has been skepctic with his work in the past few years. Oh, speaking of the inker and colorist, shoutout to Scott Hanna and fellow brazilian Marcio Menyz, they did an amazing job in #1, and did another amazing job here, and i'm sure they will keep it up in the next issues of the main series.

Overall another fun FCBD for our favorite webhead, and one of the must fun FCBD issues i've read in the last few years, although i think no FCBD Spider-Man story will ever top the Spencer and Ottley issue of FCBD 2018, i mean, they had Big Wheel....nuff said!
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This hurt. But only in such a way that can when a character you care about has gone through a change, a loss, a trauma. I'm thankful to Zeb Wells, Jed MacKay, Patrick Gleason and the rest of the Beyond Brain Trust for crafting this story. As much as I have issues with it's execution that did tell a compelling story. It's biggest flaw is that it took too long to tell that story. But that may be more an issue with the current industry and writing for the trade, building out that catalogue to fill more volumes to sell instead of telling that same story in a more truncated and focused experience. All of that is essentially irrelevant as this final issue is the true ending to Ben Reilly and his Beyond story as we know it and that has me devastated.
Ben Reilly has always been one of my favorite Marvel characters. His design, his attitude and his perpetual sense of not belonging and longing for memories, family and friends that aren't his is a very human experience that I feel Peter hasn't seen much of in decades. I wish more than anything that this arc dealt more with Ben and gave him more heroic heights to hit before his tremendous fall into the a Chasm.
Pat Gleason does no wrong with his art. It's also such a difference than his DC outings that at first I was skeptical but it was immediately washed away as his expressions, his body language and emotion is pulled to the front of every character. He's a master artist and woefully underused in this series. It was a blessing having him on this issue.
Overall, Beyond was fairly middling, I'd give it 7/10 but this issue in itself brings out all of the runs best qualities. more

This was the first issue I had ever read of Thor quite a few years back. The entire reason was because of a YouTube video doing an analysis of the God Butcher arc. It sounded really cool and since then, I loved Jason Aaron's Thor. Rereading this issue was such a treat and I was beyond excited for the omnibus to get printed to I could read it over again.
Esad Ribić's artwork is originally what drew me to the book. I love the water color look, how soft all of the images are with a character known for his strength and stature. Not to say that Ribić can only capture a soft tone, he's a master artist and one of, if not my favorite artist from the 2010s on. I try (unsuccessfully) to jump on any book he does interiors for. He blesses the page with his line work, his use of space is astounding and creates images to great scale that make an imposing figure like Thor seem diminutive.
Aaron's writing here gives you such a great hook. A mystery. A mystery with... Thor? Who is the God Butcher? Why is he butchering gods? How has be lasted for millenia spanning Thor's entire life? Questions that I never thought I would care about in a book about the walking L'Oréal commercial. I never thought I would have cared for Thor before picking up this book. Maybe you didn't either but this story is so beautifully written and drawn I'd be astonished if you didn't walk away as I did, jaw on the floor and rooting for the big dumb champion of Asgard. more

I don't know how i never noticed the parallels this issue has with the 1st one, or how many clues it leaves for the rest of the series, this is something truly impressive, Jeph Loeb is a very inconsistent writer but when he does his best, he swings really high.

I love how Tim Sale can portray Batman in so many ways with his style, we see Batman as a mysterious figure where we only see his eyes and silhouette, we see Batman fully, we see only his eyes, his cape, there is so much dynamism and emotion in his art. Take page 13 to 14 for example, after Mickey implies that Harvey might have Killed Johnny Viti we only see Batman in 3 panels and in all of the panels we only see his silhouette and his eyes. In the 1st panel he doesn't even speak, but we know what he's feeling, we know those words stayed on his mind. Because of that, in the 2nd panel despite saying to Gordon that neither of them should believe that, that they can't believe that, we know he's unsure if they can just rule that possibility out, and at the last panel we have this beautiful close shot of his face, and the combination of the way he's eyes are draw with the dialogue tells us that he has realized(or is starting to) that this might be bigger than they thought, god bless Tim Sale.

Just like the 1st issue and the rest of the series, it's beautifully paced and has a lot big and small advancements in every front happening, i love the way each of them spend Thanks Giving because it tells so much about each of them, Gordon arrives home late, Harvey is with Gilda in the hospital, worried about her and thinking about how the system allowed the guys who tried to kill him bail from prison in less than an hour, and we see Batman doing his patrol, alone in the middle of all of that emptiness of Gotham ceilings, and pondering if there is anything to be grateful for in the coming year.

The moment with Grundy is such a joy to see, i love when Batman has moments like this, as tragic as his story is i love how he is still capable of caring for people, specially to people who just like him are victim of tragedy, his empathy is one of my favorite traits and i would love to see more moments like this in other stories, so many creative teams tend to focus so much on the dark and cold aspects of him(not complaining) but in the middle of all of that sadness there is a man who, despite his traumas and imperfections, at his core is a beacon of hope, of goodness, a fighter, a light shining in the middle of darkness, a darkness that he chooses to be surrounded with, not just by trauma but because it's his choice. It makes me appreciate even more a lot of the stuff Tom King did in his run. Another stellar issue, what a joy it is to always reread this series. more

I felt myself actually verbally rooting for Peter to get up. The pacing for this story gives you the perfect amount of tension to make you believe that the outcome might not be what we inevitably know it will be. There is a beautiful scene with Black Cat falling and we zoom in on a tear of hers falling with her reflection in it. Holding on this for two panels to build that tension until the tear explodes, a web shooting through it to catch her. Masterful visual storytelling by Bagley. Peter is back. more

After finishing Year One almost one month ago, it was time to continue my rereading of Batman's early years, and this one was the next stop. I know there are some great stories in between this and Year One(Shaman, Gothic, The Man Who Laughs and the "official" Year Two by Mike W.Barr), but i still didn't had the opportunity to acquire them, so i just jumped here since i have the definitive edition, and because this feels such an natural sequel to Year One.

I find myself constantly amazed by how much details Loeb and Sale are able to put not just in this issue, but in the whole series, every time i read this story i discover something new. A clue, a foreshadowing, a reference, all of them carefully placed in the amazing Panels by Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb's great sharp dialogue, they don't waste anything, the pacing is just phenomenal, things are always moving forward in a very big or small way. The plot, the character arcs, all of these things have a very natural progression that doesn't make this story feel convoluted, which is an achievement on it's own since we have so many P.O.Vs here.

Bruce, Gordon and Harvey of course take the center stage as they form an alliance to take Gotham out of the hands of the mafia family's. We see Gordon's incorruptible spirit in so many great lines like "I'll let you bend the rules, but we can't break them. Otherwise, how are we different from him?" and how he try his best to see a future for him and his family in Gotham despite everything pointing to the contrary, we see Harvey's life outside of his job with Gilda, and we see that he is a good man with a lot of good intentions that is slowly starting to feel frustrated that he can't make things right following the rules, and of course we have Bruce, that is realizing that even him can't take this fight alone, he can't always fight in all fronts and he needs other players by his side, just like he says: "I trust Harvey Dent. I trust Jim Gordon.". Besides that, which should already by itself make a very convoluted mess, we also have Catwoman and the Mafia Families having a constant presence here, and again, none of them are wasted or feel out of place, they are moving forward in the story just like the main trio, and all of that is only in the 1st issue....wow. Also, it's just great seeing that it doesn't matter how much this or Year One are used as a inspirations in adaptations like the Dark Knight Trilogy or Matt Reeve's The Batman, they manage to take different aspects of the story to make each adaptation feel something unique. While both tackled the mafia families, TDK focused a lot on the trio taking down the bad seeds of Gotham, and The Batman focused more on Catwoman, the murder mystery and on more personal stakes regarding the Wayne family relationship with the city, which is only a testament to how much space Batman has for different interpretations, even in classic materials.

A killer 1rst issue that lets you grasping for the next chapter(without even considering the ending), can't imagine how people who were reading this at the time of release were feeling. A classic beginning to a classic story.

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I'm shocked that I was this excited to see Peter back in the suit. I've thought the idea of taking him off the table for a while to do some actual character growth would be a good idea so he isn't swinging in circles. I still feel that way but Beyond has kind of burned me out on itself. I don't care at all about Beyond Corp. They are clearly having a hard time giving Ben a story that couldn't be summed up in 5 issues. Having Pete back in the driver's seat at least gives this series a lead to sail to end and his confrontation with the Goblin Queen is bombastic, tragic and BAGLEY. more

For those who don't know me, I REALLY dislike JRJR's artwork. At least since he left ASM on his old run with JMS. I think he regressed really hard with age. So when I say that this is the best work I've seen him do in years, I mean it. That being said, I think it's more to the credit of his colorist and inker. He still suffers from a lot of the same issues I've always had with him. His style of shading only using parallel lines, not even cross hatching is lazy and doesn't convey depth, his faces are very samey and blocky. Peter isn't distinct enough from almost any other character most times for Romita Jr. What generally benefits him is that Peter is the focal point of the stories he draws for. Which is kind of a no brainer because yes this is a Spider-Man book. This is THE Spider-Man title so of course it should be. But going back to the JMS run and his time on that, it was a very inward facing story where the most character growth was between Peter, Mary Jane, and Aunt May whom are all the focal points of this story (save for Tombstone).

I was skeptical of this run. Not because of Wells but solely because of JRJR. His work in the last 10+ years has been so lackluster I automatically attributed it to this issue. I was surprised that I really enjoyed what was told here. I haven't read a lot of the discourse going on with this issue yet and I know there were a lot of leaks to other issues but I am ignoring those and only basing my review on this issue's merits. It's grounded, it's a fresh start, it's Peter at his lowest. It's a story we've all seen before and to that end, I am disappointed. It is beyond frustrating that Peter can never move forward. It's beyond infuriating that Peter and Mary Jane seem to break up every year or two. It says less about the writers and more about that it just becomes a toxic relationship and I'd rather people don't broach the subject ever again.

In spite of all of that, I'm willing to give this a shot. For a while. I loved the JMS run and this seems to be drawing inspiration from that specifically which was for better or worse, a deconstruction of Peter and his relationships and a character study of each. Peter and Mary Jane were debating divorce, Peter and May had tension because of Peter's secrets, Peter was without a job and each was resolved in a satisfying way that I wish had lasted longer. Peter and MJ should be married. We all know it. But the ending gave us quite a large wrench thrown into that possibility. Peter should be a teacher but he's still persona non grata in almost all of New York. Peter and May should be closer and it's up to Peter, not May to repair their relationship. I've seen all of those before and I have hope that I'll see it again. more