COMIC BINGE: Batman & Robin, Vol. 6 & Justice League, Vol. 6
Nick “The Dick” in the house! This week on Comic Binge, I touch base with a couple of the longer running titles of New 52, but should they still be running? The first book this week was a loaner from a friend so I got it a little earlier than normal, had I been waiting to get it from the library. This was Batman & Robin, Vol. 6: The Hunt for Robin, and it was a continuation of the greatness from the previous volume. Now, it’s so hard not to spoil the big story of the previous volume, and talk about this newest volume. While I really don’t give a shit to spoil anyone, I know how big this particular event was, and I’d hate to ruin the epicness of the issue for you. I knew what happened, but I remained in the dark about Batman & Robin‘s pinnacle issue for one reason alone. I knew it was going to be an emotional one, and I wanted to feel that on the first read, and I did. Now, this new volume finds Batman after Ra’s al Ghul for stealing what he believes should belong to him. I can see both sides, but goddamnit Batman wants to have all that he has ever held dear in his life, or so we think. The book opens in a dark, murky ocean, filled with dead bodies and plenty of mystery. The book doesn’t tackle into too much action, because we’re still emotionally hung over from the big event. However, this book is excellent, from the art down to the storytelling. Someone has picked up on the formula of what made the Batman book by Snyder so great. It’s emotion, and good storytelling, excellent writing, suitable art, dark atmospheres that bring out the extra Batsy-ness. I loved this volume, and I would highly recommend it. But, DO NOT PICK UP THIS VOLUME UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE PREVIOUS VOLUME! I cannot stress this enough, but for those who have read it, I’m sure you will understand.
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 9 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 8 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 8 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 9 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 9 / 10 )
Next up this week was Justice League, Vol. 6: Injustice League. This book has essentially been a long time coming, as the Injustice League as sort of made slight appearances elsewhere before this. I was pretty excited about this one because not only has the New 52 Justice League been pretty great, so have its surrounding titles from the first wave of this new movement. The art in Justice League is one of its strong suits, and I didn’t quite feel like it was to maximum capacity in this book. Also, the story wasn’t nearly as great as I’d hoped it would have been. Honestly, I can’t hardly even remember what the story was about nearly a few days after completing the volume. It was decent, but not memorable. If you’re looking for villain team-ups, look elsewhere. One would hope that such a strong title at the beginning would continue to remain strong, especially after a great previous volume. However, we may be seeing the decline in some of the stronger titles because their stories are no longer there to tell, as most of them have ended and rebooted in a way. Aquaman just did this recently with their fifth volume, without rubbing out what happened before it, they were able to do sort of a soft reset that really resembled Aquaman‘s first volume in the New 52. While I won’t turn you away from Injustice League, but I would certainly recommend making sure it’s the book you want before you pick it up. Because of event books such as Forever Evil, it can make this book a tough pick up from where we left off. If it were up to me, I would go ahead and just stop at the fifth volume and move on to other titles from there. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a proper Injustice League spin-off come from this book, or another, possibly Batman-laced new story for the Justice League to deal with? Either way, after this week, we’ve got plenty of new stuff to review your way. So stay tuned to Binge and we’ll see you next week!
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 5 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 7 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 7 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 5 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 6 / 10 )