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Of Embassies and Origins - Justice League International Part 2 (Eaglemoss Collection v77)

  Review: Since we are doing a series of reviews focusing on Booster Gold over his nearly 40-year history, we include this one as a collection of some of his earliest appearances, dating to late 1987. That places the original publish date of these tales while his original solo series was still going strong.  This book is a beautiful, glossy hard-cover with smooth and heavy-stock paper inside, although the sometimes-low print reproduction quality leads to blurred and hard to read word balloons on occasion. It is also a rare book here in North America, as Eaglemoss Collections targeted UK fans with this series. At this point in the history of the 1987-rebooted Justice League, they have gained official United Nations recognition and sanction. To ensure their reach truly is global, they rebrand as Justice League International (as does the title of the series!) and they open new headquarters buildings around the world: New York, Paris and Moscow are included here. As this is a product of 19
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Review: Batman - Tales of the Man-Bat

 

Batman Tales of the Man-Bat collection cover

Review:

While he gets the headline, Batman is a minor character in this collection, barely appearing at all until the final couple chapters and the big climax.

This trade paperback brings together two complete limited-series runs of the Man-Bat: the 3-issue 1996 run and the 5-issue 2006 one. It also includes an add-in from Showcase '94 #11, which is from the same creative team as the 1996 series, and sets up that limited-run series.

As befits such a feral, wild, mutated animal creature, the entire book leans heavily toward the Horror genre. The 1996 series, in particular, uses some of the visual and narrative tropes of the horror comics so popular in an earlier era. Chuck Dixon's Man-Bat does not speak, and acts largely on animal instincts. As a result, the storytelling happens through secondary characters or else the narrator's voice, with boxes of text decorating several panels throughout.

Graphical narrative is more powerful when one can show rather than tell, and unfortunately in this 3-issue tale the telling is needed as the showing becomes lost in Flint Henry's distorted and unattractive images. The deformities, coarse and lumpy shapes, wet and twisted facial expressions fit this into the larger horror realm, but are very unpleasant to look at and obscure some of the visual cues to the tale.

In that tale, Man-bat returns to civilization, drawn by a sense of love and loss, overpowering ever so slightly his baser animal instincts. He comes looking for is beloved wife Francine, and gets embroiled in a series of killings perpetrated by a winged predator. Can he survive the police hunters and save Francine from the real killer?

The second series uses darker colors but artist Mike Huddleston employs a more fluid pencil style, making for a more visually pleasant read. Man-Bat has a voice in this story, at least when in the human form of Dr. Kirk Langstrom. But in Jekyll/Hyde fashion he keeps transforming and killing. Batman, however, doubts that he is responsible for all of the deaths attributed to Mat-Bat. How are the villainous Hush and Murmur involved in spreading fear, and for what purposes?

Batman makes himself shockingly vulnerable in his attempts to communicate with Dr. Langstrom, and nearly loses his head for his trouble.

Overall this is a mildly interesting collection of two complete series that turn a violent, feral villain into an antihero. The tales are middling and the art unappealing, making this a historical curiosity and little more. 1.5 capes out of 5.

Description:

Dr. Kirk Langstrom is a genius zoologist attempting to find a cure for deafness by giving humans a bat's sonar sense. By testing his serum on himself he discovers a horrible side effect, turning him into the classic super-villain: Man-Bat!

More feral than ever, the mutated Kirk Langstrom has only one consuming wish--to see his estranged family again. But as a series of brutal murders committed by a winged creature terrorize Gotham's high-rises, S.W.A.T. teams mobilize throughout the city to take down Man-Bat. Gotham's skyline becomes a war zone as the night erupts in a blitzkrieg of bullets, wings and screams, bringing the tortured, increasingly less human Man-Bat into savage conflict with a horrifying new villain, the Roc. But behind the Roc's rampage lie secrets to chill even the blood of Man-Bat...secrets that could cost Langstrom's wife, Francine, her very life.

Collects: SHOWCASE '94 #11, MAN-BAT #1-3 (1996), MAN-BAT #1-5 (2006)
Authors: Chuck Dixon, Bruce Jones
Artists: Flint Henry, Mike Huddleston
Published By: DC Comics
Published When: March 27 2018
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN-10: 9781401275419
ISBN-13: 978-1401275419
Language: English
Pages: 216 pages



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