Author: Matt Herman

Dark Nights: Death Metal Infinite Hour Exxxtreme! #1 DC Comics Writers: Becky Cloonan, Sam Humphries, Fran Tieri Artists: Denys Cowan, Tyler Kirkham, Rags Morales, Andrew Dalhouse, Arif Prianto, Chris Sotomayor When you think of the word Metal, a few things might come to mind.  You might hear the slasher riffs of Metallica or Black Sabbath.  You might envision rockers pounding their hands back and forth in the air.  You might picture skulls and lightning.  But when I think about the word Metal in relation to the DC Universe, one thing comes to mind…Lobo.  Dark Nights: Death Metal and Lobo are the perfect pairings.  They’re…

Batman #102 DC Comics Writers: James Tynion IV Artists: Carlos D’Anda, Carlo Pagulayan, Danny Miki & David Baron Batman must always be exhausted.  He jumps from roof to roof, battling countless villains that beat him to a near pulp.  But luckily, Batman is a fictional character.  So when it only takes him two issues to recover from spinal paralysis, I can buy into it.  There’s no actual harm done to Batman considering his body is made up of newspaper and ink.  However, Batman #102 not only makes Batman feel exhausted, it makes me feel exhausted. Tynion just wrapped up Joker War in Batman…

Batman #101 DC Comics Writers: James Tynion IV Artists: Guillem March, Tomeu Morey Get ready to study or sleep.  Pull out the oversized sweaters.  Relax by the window with your cat.  Batman is going lo-fi.  Okay, that might sound ridiculous.  But while Batman might not be listening to Joji and cramming for his English exam, “Batman going lo-fi” is an actual quote from the comic.  At first this might sound silly.  But in context, it’s surprisingly interesting. There is this intangible idea of the perfect Batman story.  It’s the kind of story that seems far away, probably because it was…

Dark Nights: Death Metal #4 DC Comics Writers: Scott Snyder Artists: Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia Dark Knights: Metal was a roller coaster.  Every issue was high speed, high octane craziness.  There were twists.  There were turns.  There were even loop-de-loops.  It was a story about fun.  But there’s also another ride at the amusement park, one that’s tucked further away…the Himalaya. The Himalaya is like a merry go’ round on cocaine.  You spin so fast that you instantly lose vision.  The riders on one end slam into the other.  No one knows what’s happening.  The ride operator can barely hear…

Batman (2016) #100 DC Comics Writers: James Tynion IV Artists: Jorge Jimenez, Guillem March, Carlo Pagulayan, Tomeu Morey, and Danny Miki There are few truly landmark moments in modern comics, contrary to the absurd amount of solicits that read “and the universe will never be the same.”  But while companies may push new events and crossovers, nothing beats raw numbers.  We live in a world where most titles drop before their second trade paperback.  So when a series survives until issue twelve, let alone issue one-hundred, it’s cause for celebration.  Batman #100 is a landmark.  And as long as Tynion doesn’t pull…

DC Comics Action Comics #1025 Writers: Brian Michael Bendis Artists: John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Brad Anderson Usually when I absolutely despise a series, I keep reading it anyway.  It’s not that I expect the series to get better anytime soon, my enjoyment just switches from enjoying good moments to laughing at bad ones.  But, Brian Michael Bendis’ Action Comics is different.  I certainly believe it’s a lackluster book, but I keep reading for different reasons.  Despite all of its bad characterization, plot holes, and “Bendis speak”, Action Comics is full of endearing moments and interesting concepts. This leads up to…

Dark Knights – Death Metal Trinity Crisis #1 DC Comics Writers: Scott Snyder Artists: Francis Manapul, Ian Herring One of the most difficult tasks for any writer is deciding what scenes to include and not include in their story.  For an editor (in a film for example), their job is to decide what footage makes the cut and what footage doesn’t add to the story.  For a writer, this job is perhaps even more difficult.  The writer must come up with all of the events in a story in their head and then decide which events make up the story.…

Dark Knights – Death Metal: Multiverse’s End #1 DC Comics Writers: James Tynion IV Artists: Juan Gedeon, Mike Spicer Scott Snyder’s 2018 event, Dark Nights: Metal, was one of my favorite comic events of all time.  Metal succeeded for many different reasons including continuity, scope, action, and strong characterization.  With such amazing success, it’s no wonder DC greenlit a Metal sequel with Snyder and Capullo at the helm.  So when Snyder went back to the drawing board for Metal 2, he had to decide what made Metal work.  And as we see in Death Metal, Snyder chooses to focus on and amplify the absurdity from the original Metal event.  Now I’m all for…

Batman #99 DC Comics Writers: James Tynion IV Artists: Jorge Jimenez, Tomeu Morey It’s finally here, the penultimate issue of James Tynion’s IV’s Joker War.  So far, this story had its ups and its downs.  While Joker War’s core is a wonderful exploration of Batman and Alfred’s relationship, the rest of the story has several different problems.  But ironically in this issue, there aren’t 99 problems, there’s just one. Every story needs a scene to set up the final act.  Usually, it’s a scene between our hero and their allies deciding on the plan to finally thwart their foe.  Think Batman and Lucius Fox…

Batman #98 DC Comics Writers: James Tynion IV Artists: Jorge Jimenez,  The Man Who Laughs.  Death of the Family.  The Killing Joke.  Almost all great Joker stories share one thing in common: they are all stories about Batman and the Joker’s relationship.  So when Tynion’s Joker War kicked off, I expected a similar story.  But so far, Joker War is surprisingly devoid of Joker.  Sure the majority of the story consists of Batman punching clown-faced goons, but the core of the story doesn’t require the Joker at all.  Joker in Joker War could easily be replaced with Ivy or Riddler, or hell, even Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man.  The…