Comics Picks of the Week 11.09.2013

DC’s Villain’s Month went ahead full-steam last week with a ton of new releases. And on the other side of things with Marvel, their X-Men: Battle of the Atom event also continued apace with the release of X-Men #5. My reading is still all primarily DC, thanks to Villain’s Month because there are just so many comics to read. I’m attempting to change things around but its going to be slow. Just a comic or two here obviously doesn’t work and I intend to grab some graphic novels at the least.

We shall see what happens when it happens.

In the meantime, here’s another edition of this new feature. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Batman and Robin #23.1 by Peter J. Tomasi (Comics Review)

Batman and Robin is not a comic that I’ve followed from the beginning, except for reading the first arc at some point late last year. And I wasn’t really taken with it in any way, largely because I found Damian Wayne to be incredibly arrogant and a bit of a jerk as well. Plus, the story just wasn’t all that exciting. So I’ve held off on reading any further issues till now. Damian’s death earlier this year, in the pages of Grant Morrison’s Batman, Incorporated made me want to go read the relevant issues however, largely because the first issue of Batman and Robin after that fateful Batman, Inc issue was a silent-issue, no dialogue at all. I saw the previews for it and the silent emotions that were packed into it amazed me, and even made me cry. Only that issue and Batman #17, which ends on a similar note, have gotten me so emotional across all the Batman titles I’ve been reading it in the New 52.

And now we have the Villain’s Month issues, the first one featuring one of Batman’s best-conceptualised villains, Two-Face. I’ve been a fan of the character for ages, ever since I first saw him in Batman: The Animated Series, and I was highly anticipating this issue last week. I didn’t get a chance to read it then, but I was able to get to it last night finally, and I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed with it.