Going old school with Batman!

X here with something a little bit old, and a little bit new. You see, after my marathon weekend where I posted 16 new reviews between Friday and Sunday(wow, that's a lot even for me!) I've just about finished off my new comic pile. Sure, I have a few books in there still(an issue of Weird Worlds, an issue of Uncanny X-Men, a few Wolverine: The Best There Is comics, etc), but nothing I'm really jumping out of my skin to read. So instead of reading/reviewing something I just wouldn't have my heart in, I've decided to combine two of my old, abandoned blog ideas, the vaunted Retro-Review, along with the beloved Picto-Review... You know, I REALLY suck at coming up with names for things... “Retro-Review” and “Picto-Review”... *shakes head* Anywho, I wound up reading three old issues of Batman recently and figured they'd be a blast to review. Oddly enough they all feature the DREADED Crazy-Quilt as their lead villain... That sounds like the kind of name I'd come up with actually... Well, instead of gibber-jabbering about it, let's get to the comics! Oh, before I get started, a quick note... I'm not going to bother giving any of these comics a score. I'll just say that I enjoyed them all and leave it at that.

Batman #316(Oct. 1979).

We get underway with Batman and Robin(at this point, still Dick Grayson, even though he was LONG overdue for a costume change...) catching up to some feeb who set a fire in a hospital. The feeb immediately surrenders, and Bats and Robin take the arsonist to Commissioner Gordon, who's aimlessly wandering around the smoky hospital.
Damn that crusty old Commish!

From there Crazy-Quilt breaks into STAR Labs and steals a prototype laser intensifier. Batman and Robin happen to stumble across the scene and end up getting schooled by Crazy-Quilt... Really?!
Um, if you're not that crazy, why would you name yourself CRAZY-Quilt? Why not Slightly-Deranged-Quilt, or Mildly-Unhinged-Quilt?

Having escaped from the rather inept Dynamic Duo, Crazy-Quilt continues his crime-spree by kidnapping some doctor from his home.
“You may call me--Crazy-Quilt!” “The only thing I'm calling is the police!” Oh burn!!!

Naturally, Crazy-Quilt tells the doctor his life story, because that's what any comic book super-villain SHOULD do! He was a painter-turned-crime boss(there's something you don't see very often...) who was nearly blinded when a rival gangster shot at him. Thanks to the bullet, all Crazy-Quilt sees is very bright lights, thus concluding one of the more bizarre villain origins EVER! With the help of the doctor, the laser intensifier and the hospital that was torched earlier, Crazy-Quilt plans on getting his eyesight back. Upon learning that the doctor had mysteriously disappeared, Batman figures out that he was kidnapped by Crazy-Quilt and taken to the hospital so Crazy-Quilt could use the laser intensifier to restore his vision... Wow, he figured all that out just by some random doctor being kidnapped?! Bats and Robin head to the hospital where Crazy-Quilt is being operated on and run afoul some of Crazy-Quilt's traps...
Oh no! It's the spinning lights of Eternal Damnation!!!!!

Needless to say, the Dynamic Duo manage to pass Crazy-Quilt's light based traps(it was a spinning light! How could they NOT get passed it?!?) and enter the room just as the surgery ends, and yes, it was a success. This causes another fight between the Dynamic Duo and Crazy-Quilt, which leads to Dick BLINDING Crazy-Quilt and Batman gently smacking Crazy-Quilt upside the head.
Sure, blind the poor guy again... What a dick...

Needless to say, Crazy-Quilt doesn't take kindly to the whole re-blinding thing, and begins firing wildly around the room, hitting nobody and emptying his guns. Now no longer a threat, Crazy-Quilt is crestfallen(yes, crestfallen!) over this turn of events, because, in the overly dramatic words of the Batman, “Crazy-Quilt is blind, Robin--And this time... It's FOREVER!!”
That's right, FOREVER!!!!!!!!

Batman #368(Feb. 1984).

Yeah baby, we've entered the Jason Todd era! Jason has just helped Bruce take down Poison Ivy, and the two are trying to figure out a name for the fledgling hero.
Yes the title of this story is, “A Revenge of Rainbows”... And?

Eventually Dick Grayson arrives... Dick Grayson and a mysterious box!!! Sorry, I must still be channeling the Batman from that last issue I read... While that scene plays out, a mad scientist helps restore Crazy-Quilt's eyesight... Well, kind of. It seems that the mad scientist has drilled holes into Crazy-Quilt's head(hence the “mad” attached to scientist) and has rigged Crazy-Quilt's helmet to bypass his “dead eyes”, allowing Crazy-Quilt to see via his helmet. Crazy-Quilt repays the mad scientist by killing him... Yeah sure, kill the ONE guy who was able to cure your blindness... Methinks they should call him Stupid-Quilt! ZING!
That poster disturbs me to no end for some reason... Dick sure did show A LOT of leg, didn't he?

Back with Bats, Dick and Jason, Dick reveals the contents of the box, a used Robin costume... Yuck. Dick has decided to FINALLY move on from being Robin, and Jason happily pulls on the Robin costume officially for the first time.
“And minutes later, Jason Todd looks great.” You KNOW that's what Bats was thinking while licking his lips...

With that, Dick leaves, and Bats tells his new Robin that from this point forward he'd be adding to the Robin legacy. In other words, try not to toss crooks off balconies or get blown up by the Joker! Oh wait... Anyway, Bats and Robin head out into the night and take a bite out of crime... Wait, shouldn't Bats at least... I don't know, TRAIN with the kid a little bit first?! By the end of the night, the two are officially an item again. Hey, don't look at me, Vicki Vale said it!
Kiss him... Kiss him...

The next day, Jason begins to realize the enormity of the legacy he was taking up and gets a visit from Bats...
I... I don't even have anything witty to say about that panel... That's just... I mean... Goddammit Bruce! That's just plain creepy!!!

After what I shudder to think about happening in the Batcave, the Dynamic Duo head out into the Gotham night... Dammit, that last panel is really disturbing! *sigh* Pull it together X... Anyway, Crazy-Quilt has learned that Bats and Robin were an... ugh... item again and decides to take out his vengeance on Robin for the whole “blinding him forever” thing. Out on patrol with Robin, Bats spots Crazy-Quilt's tri-colored lights shining off in the distance and fearing for his latest boy toy's safety, tells Robin to stay put while he investigated. Unfortunately for Bats, Crazy-Quilt had anticipated that Bats would do that(wait, how?!?) and beats Jason up with a garbage can lid?!
Okay, I get that he was blind for most issue #316, but are you seriously telling me that Crazy-Quilt can't tell the difference between the presumably 13-ish Jason for the almost 20 year old Dick Grayson? Hell, the voice alone should be a dead giveaway!

Anyway, this issue ends with Bats discovering Jason battered and beaten in an alley, sadly the way he usually found Jason...
Wow, Bats was a real drama queen back in the day...

Detective Comics #535(Feb. 1984).

This issue gets started with Bats carrying Robin home, stripping him, dressing him in a pair of hospital scrubs and putting a massive bandage on his chest to deal with his beating from Crazy-Quilt... Um, okay... That'll fix everything... Robin wakes up and recounts how he was beaten by Crazy-Quilt before zinging Bruce and shuffling off to the Batcave to rest up.
Yep, this definitely deserves a “ZING!”

That night, Robin emerges from the Batcave and smacks Bats in the face with Joker's scepter, knocking Bats out cold... HA! It seems that Robin had been hypnotized during Crazy-Quilt's beating the night prior and was told to knock Bats out and find Crazy-Quilt once the opportunity presented itself.
No means no, Batman!

Robin heads straight for a warehouse in Gotham and discovers Crazy-Quilt there. Crazy-Quilt sics his goons on Robin just as Batman wakes up, finding the Joker's scepter laying next to him with a note attached. The note tells Bats where Robin headed, and he soon arrives, spooking Crazy-Quilt's goons by simply walking in the door... Good help is SO hard to find... Crazy-Quilt blasts Bats to show his goons that Bats wasn't anything special, but Bats and Robin manage to hide in the shadows while Crazy-Quilt is scolding his lackadaisical goons. Panicked by Robin's disappearance, Crazy-Quilt takes off his helmet(which apparently has REALLY long wires) and hangs it on a pillar to draw out a confused Robin. Upon spotting Robin, Crazy-Quilt smacks him in the head with a pipe... D'oh!
Man, Jason really takes a lot of blunt trauma to the head these two issues...

Batman stops Crazy-Quilt from bashing Robin's brains out with a well placed Batarang, but manages to accidentally knock Crazy-Quilt INTO his helmet... Wow, that's just terrible luck. Now back in his helmet, Crazy-Quilt begins to school Batman.
“palette of pain”? “Masterpiece of death!”? Crazy-Quilt's dialogue is beyond awesome!!

Before Crazy-Quilt can kill off Bats, Robin wakes up and hypnotizes Crazy-Quilt with a mini-fan with some foil attached to the blades... Yes, really. With Crazy-Quilt now under his power, Robin commands Crazy-Quilt to smash his helmet, ending the threat of Crazy-Quilt... FOREVER!!! Really, I don't think Crazy-Quilt has done anything substantial since this issue! Sure he's had a few cameo appearances, but THIS was the pinnacle of his criminal career... Sad.
I guess you shouldn't have killed the mad scientist, should you have, jerk?

And thus ends what can only be called The Crazy-Quilt Trilogy. Here's hoping you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed typing it up. That's it for me today, until next time, X out.

Picto-Review: REBELS #20

REBELS #20: Writer: Tony Bedard. Pencils: Claude St. Aubin.

Just a quick note, REBELS #18 and 19 BOTH received rare perfect scores from me. Will this issue be the trifecta? Well I already know, but you should read on to find out!


We starts things off with Vril Dox bringing his secret weapon(LOBO!)to Colu, the planet his father Brainiac was in the process of conquering.


Unfortunately, by the time Dox and Lobo arrive on Colu, Brainiac has managed to wrest control of Stargrave from Dox's son Brainiac 3 and has sent the rogue star after Lobo.


The first round goes rather poorly for the Main Man...


While Lobo is busy dealing with Stargrave, Dox and his son Brainiac 3 send holographic avatars of themselves to distract Brainiac. However, Brainiac 3's avatar winds up getting shot, tipping Brainiac off to Dox's plan.


Now aware of Dox's duplicity, I'm sure Brainiac has some nefarious scheme to enact on his offspring...


And sure enough, Brainiac busts out said nefarious scheme, as he begins to drain every bit of knowledge out of Dox and his son.


Brainiac winds up outsmarting himself though as he taps into Dox's feelings towards his father and finds his mind flooded by feelings and sensations he had no way of coping with.


Unable to concentrate, Brainiac and Stargrave beat a hasty retreat while two rookie Green Lanterns decide to attempt to bring Dox in.

What I Thought: I thoroughly enjoyed this storyline. I'm an unrepentant Vril Dox fanatic, and his evil son Lyrl(Brainiac 3)has also managed to grow on me. So it was all good... Almost. I can't say I liked the way Brainiac was “defeated”. Basically Brainiac unlocked Dox's repressed feelings towards Brainiac himself, and Brainiac was unable to deal with those emotions since he had detached himself from his own emotions so long ago. So Brainiac essentially beat himself. I would have much rather seen Dox(or better yet, Lyrl)have a more active role in Brainiac's defeat. Instead Brainiac just kind of took Stargrave(and the Colu Data-Core)and left. A hollow victory for Dox to be sure, but I guess a win is a win. So from here Dox will have to decide what to do with his renegade son, as well as what looks like a potential battle between Dox(and LEGION) and the Green Lantern Corps on the horizon. It's a good time to be a REBELS fan!

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10. So the perfect score streak ends at 2, but hey, this is STILL my favorite DC comic!

Picto-Review: Shadowland: Elektra #1

Shadowland: Elektra #1: Writer: Zeb Wells. Artist: Emma Rios.


This issue gets started with Master Izo contacting Elektra telepathically in an attempt to convince her to help save Daredevil from the Hand. Elektra is not at all interested in assisting Matt in his time of need.


When Izo breaks contact, Elektra returns to her body and beats up some goons.


Later on, a few Hand ninjas find her and warn her to leave town before the morning. Needless to say Elektra declines that offer and slaughters the ninjas.


After dispatching the ninjas, Elektra heads to the streets and happens across a store where the murder of Bullseye was being played on television.


After seeing the pain etched on Matt's face, Elektra decides to try to help her former lover break the Hand's hold on him.

What I Thought: Meh. This was one of those comics that really didn't need to happen... There really wasn't a story that needed to be told here. Instead of this one-shot, why not just put Master Izo and Elektra's conversation in the main Shadowland comic, since that was the only real pertinent thing to come out of this book. The story was okay, but for $3.99, I want good to great, not simply okay.

Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.

Picto-Review: Taskmaster #1

Taskmaster #1(of 4): Writer: Fred Van Lente. Artist: Jefté Palo


We begin this issue with Taskmaster being stalked by numerous villains at a diner. It seems there is a one billion dollar bounty of Taskmaster's head since he is thought to be assisting Steve Rogers.


The villains attack, and Taskmaster dispatches each and every one of them with ease.


After the battle, Taskmaster grabs one of the AIM agent's handheld devices to see what was being said about him and he learns that he wasn't the only one who was a part of the bounty anymore...


This issue ends with Taskmaster heading to the home of the waitress who was serving him at the diner to warn her that thanks to her speaking with him, she was now thought to be assisting him and was a part of the billion dollar bounty.

What I Thought: Well, I don't think I'll be picking up the rest of this mini. It just didn't deliver what I was hoping for here. Instead of a straight-forward Taskmaster story, we instead have a story where Taskmaster has amnesia(for some reason...)and is forced to save a waitress. It sounds more like a bad summer blockbuster movie than a Taskmaster comic book. Oh well, it was worth a shot...

Score: 4 out of 10.

Picto-Review: Red Hood: Lost Days #4

Red Hood: Lost Days #4(of 6): Writer: Judd Winick. Artist: Jeremy Haun.


We start off with Jason Todd explaining to Talia Al Ghul that Jason had been learning skills from some of society's scumbags. Jason intended to take these skills back to Gotham with him to punish the guilty. Talia notes that several of Jason's “teachers” had ended up dead at Jason's hands, to which Jason explains that they had deserved it.


Before their meeting comes to an end, Talia reveals to Jason that Batman had replaced him with a new Robin, which needless to say hits Jason hard.


From there, Jason begins to learn about bomb-making from a Russian criminal. After secretly following the bomb-maker, Jason discovers that his “teacher” was planning on killing several hundred innocent civilians and pinning the act on Arab terrorists to help get the British Government off the back of the Russian mafia.


Jason decides to sabotage the bombs, but while in the act of disarming the devices is discovered by some of the bomb-maker's goons.


After a bit of a battle, Jason activates one of the bombs and hightails it out of the warehouse, letting the hapless goons blow up.


Before Jason can recover from the explosion, the head of the Russian mafia finds him and orders his men to deal with Jason... Permanently.


What I Thought: I've enjoyed every single issue of this mini-series so far, and this issue was no different. With the exception of Shadowland, this is probably(one of)the best minis I've read all year. I enjoyed the story, I loved Jason's shocked/devastated reaction to the fact that Batman had replaced him with a new Robin, and I continue to enjoy Jason's interactions with Talia. So yeah, I liked a lot here. I didn't really understand the cliffhanger ending though... We all KNOW that Jason isn't going to get killed here/CAN'T get killed here, so I'm not really sure why Judd decided to make this issue a cliffhanger. The other three issues before this were more or less self-contained, which makes sense since we all know how Jason's saga ends(with Crazy Grant Morrison butchering his character in Batman & Robin!). Besides the peculiar cliffhanger though, everything else here was highly enjoyable.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.

Picto-Review: X-Men: Curse of the Mutants-Storm & Gambit #1

X-Men: Curse of the Mutants-Storm & Gambit #1: Writer: Chuck Kim. Pencils: Chris Bachalo.


We get things started with a flashback(note the black and white coloring!)where Storm and Gambit are told to retrieve the headless body of Dracula in order to return the dethroned King of the Vampires to life. Why only Storm and Gambit? The Vampire base is surrounded by a magical field preventing the X-Men from teleporting a large force in, so with Storm and Gambit both being accomplished thieves, they get the call.


Storm and Gambit manage to sneak onto Creepy Vampire Island and gain entrance to the vampire base via a cave.


Unfortunately, the two are discovered by a roving band of vampire guardians and attacked.


Luckily for Gambit and Storm, Dracula's first born son, Janus, joins the fray and assists the two X-Men. Janus also wants his father brought back to life and his treacherous brother Xarus defeated.


So Storm goes off to discover the means in which the vampires were keeping teleporters off of their island, and Gambit and Janus head off to find Dracula's decapitated body. Unfortunately, the vampires were expecting Gambit and Janus...


Gambit and Janus wind up fighting a losing battle against the vampire horde, while Storm discovers that the vampires were using innocent civilians as part of a black magic ritual to prevent intruders from accessing their island home. Faced with the prospect of failing her mission and costing Gambit and Janus their lives, or killing the innocents to break the spell, Storm decides to kill the captives to break the vampire spell, thus allowing the X-Men to teleport a team to the island.


With that, the X-Men arrive, beat up the vampires and collect Dracula's body. So although Storm's mission was a success, she can't help but feel terribly guilty for killing the innocent victims of the vampire's spell.

What I Thought: I actually really enjoyed this comic. To be honest, I've really enjoyed this whole, “Vampires vs Mutants” thing WAAAY more then I thought I would. I'd all but given up hope on the X-books, but so far the vampire storyline has been the best thing to come out of the X-books in 5/6 years(although that's not really saying much). It was nice to see Storm return to the type of character she was back in the 90's, before her ridiculous and wholly unneeded marriage to Black Panther. Storm belongs with the X-Men, and she should be in a leadership type of role(better her then that damned Emma Frost!). Gambit also fit into this issue well. Granted he was more or less the damsel in distress, but he served his purpose and didn't really annoy me much. All in all, good work here. This storyline is slowly giving me some hope that the dark days of the X-books(thanks to writers like Chris Yost and Mike Carey)are finally coming to an end.

Score: 8 out of 10.

Picto-Review: Shadowland: Moon Knight #1

Shadowland: Moon Knight #1(of 3): Writer: Gregg Hurwitz. Pencils: Bong Dazo.


In this comic we discover that Khonshu, the Egyptian God Moon Knight is empowered by, has become annoyed with Moon Knight's lack of focus on his mission of vengeance.


One of Khonshu's agents(that weird Profiler guy)heads out and finds a new avatar to serve as Khonshu's deliverer of vengeance.


Moon Knight discovers that his long time girlfriend is pregnant with his child, but is called away from her by Steve Rogers, who asks him to get captured by the Hand to see exactly what Daredevil was doing to the people he was capturing in Shadowland.


So while Moon Knight is causing a ruckus in Hell's Kitchen, his pregnant girlfriend is being pummeled by Khonshu's new avatar, the Shadow Knight, ending this issue.


What I Thought: Ugh. What a waste of time THIS comic was. It was barely connected to the Shadowland storyline, and the Moon Knight stuff was pretty bad... I hated that Marlene(Moon Knight's pregnant girlfriend)was used as nothing more then a plot device to set up the Moon Knight/Shadow Knight confrontation. That reeked of lazy writing. It's sad to see that the whole, “Women in Refrigerators” plot device is still alive and well in comics. If not for the art this comic would have been a total waste of my time. The art was pretty, the story was pathetic.

Score: 3 1/2 out of 10.