Publisher: DC Comics
Volumes: 3/3 Omnibuses (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Superheroes
Summary: These are short story collections, each story composed of a few chapters each. They mostly all follow a basic formula of Batman and Robin fighting a villain that seems to have impossible powers, but then often there is a gimmick that is exposed as the truth behind their seemingly impossible acts. Batman figures out the trick and counters it to defeat the villains, which then go to jail. That being said, in volumes 2-3 he does fight a few actual mutants, some aliens and such that were somewhat more interesting.
These are direct manga adaptations of 1960’s American Batman comics issues and ran in a Shounen magazine around the same time Adam West’s Batman was on TV.
Review: I like Batman and Manga, so I thought surely I couldn’t go wrong with reading these. Well.... like most Batman readers, I like the modern version of Batman the best, the high tech, brooding anti hero of the series like Batman: The Animated Series, the Justice League cartoons, and some of other animated DCAU movies. And Christopher Nolan’s Batman, of course. Unfortunately for the modern Batman fan there isn’t a lot here to entertain you. It’s more like Adam West’s low tech style Batman, but lacking the campy charm and humor of the old TV show. It’s a straight up no irony type comic where the villains monologue their evil plans and are always stealing gold and jewelry.
The art style isn’t bad, but it’s a very old style, with almost entirely black and white art without mid-tones, in rectangular panels that never overlap. If I were to compare the style, it looks like old 1960’s newspaper style comics. It does have a sort of minimalist charm that grew on me as I read it. That being said this mangaka apparently has a very limited repertoire of faces, so a lot of the characters repeat. After a while it felt like watching a stage play that only has 6 actors to play all the parts. But the stories have very thin plots and very flat characters. They’re all very basic stories where the question is simply, “How is Batman going to stop this villain?” or occasionally “How will Batman get out of this setback?” Recommended: I would recommend these to people who want to see a slightly different take on old 1960’s style Batman. Like if you want to read comics to see how Batman has evolved over the decades then I think this might be interesting to you. Also at the end of each volume contains short notes on the background of the creation of the manga. Not Recommended: Casual Batman fans will probably find this incredibly boring. There’s no Joker, Penguin, Poison Ivy or any of other famous villains here, and Batman isn’t the smart, high tech mastermind like he is in the modern media. Well Clayface does feature in a couple stories in volume 2 and 3, but it was only OK, IMO.
Age Rating: PG: for some mild horror like mutated monsters and what not.
The art style isn’t bad, but it’s a very old style, with almost entirely black and white art without mid-tones, in rectangular panels that never overlap. If I were to compare the style, it looks like old 1960’s newspaper style comics. It does have a sort of minimalist charm that grew on me as I read it. That being said this mangaka apparently has a very limited repertoire of faces, so a lot of the characters repeat. After a while it felt like watching a stage play that only has 6 actors to play all the parts. But the stories have very thin plots and very flat characters. They’re all very basic stories where the question is simply, “How is Batman going to stop this villain?” or occasionally “How will Batman get out of this setback?” Recommended: I would recommend these to people who want to see a slightly different take on old 1960’s style Batman. Like if you want to read comics to see how Batman has evolved over the decades then I think this might be interesting to you. Also at the end of each volume contains short notes on the background of the creation of the manga. Not Recommended: Casual Batman fans will probably find this incredibly boring. There’s no Joker, Penguin, Poison Ivy or any of other famous villains here, and Batman isn’t the smart, high tech mastermind like he is in the modern media. Well Clayface does feature in a couple stories in volume 2 and 3, but it was only OK, IMO.
Age Rating: PG: for some mild horror like mutated monsters and what not.
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