The Great Batman: Brave and the Bold Rewatch: Last Bat on Earth!

Season One, Episode Twenty-Two: Last Bat on Earth!
Written by Steven Melching
Directed by Ben Jones

Plot Synopsis

Teaser: Batman and Mr. Miracle are chained to a roller coaster car passing through a booby trap littered roller coaster. They progressively escape from such death traps as blades, hammers, and fire, all while undoing the chains that hold them. At the last minute, before they are about to crash into a spiked wall, they break free and land on stage; this has been a charity stunt to raise money for orphans, and Miracle's wife, Big Barda, and manager, Oberon, are waiting.

Episode: In a post-apocalyptic future, a tribe of tiger men in armor march to meet a similar army of gorillas. Watching from a distance is Kamandi, the last boy on Earth, and his friend and mentor, the dog-man Dr. Canus. They are waiting for the battle to begin so they can liberate the humans who both sides keep as slaves. The battle is joined, and the tiger king, Great Caesar,  urges his son, Tuftan, friend of Kamandi, into battle. The battle is brutal, and when Tuftan is lassoed, Kamandi jumps into battle to save his friend, and the two ride off on horseback together.

The tigers win the day, driving off the gorillas, but Caesar is disappointed that his son has abandoned him. Meanwhile, at the gorilla camp, the gorilla general is berating his soldiers, when a cloaked figure appears and says the loss is the general's fault. The figure removes his cowl and reveals his identity: Gorilla Grodd.

Back in the present, Batman finds himself in the lab of Professor Nichols, a scientist working on time travel. Batman finds Nichols tied up and gagged, and when Batman removes the gag, Nichols tells him that Grodd coerced Nichols into sending him to the future. Batman asks Nichols to send him after Grodd, and after receiving a beacon that will allow him to return, Batman goes after Grodd.

Back in the future, Grodd challenges the general to a battle to determine the leader of the gorillas and bests him, taking over the gorilla army. In the tiger encampment, we see tiger warriors gathering more human slaves as Kamandi and Tuftan attack. While they distract the guards, Canus tries to free the humans, but is captured in a net as is Kamandi, but before a tiger guard can smash Kamandi with a club, a batarang disarms him and Batman appears to aid Kamandi and his friends. Batman and Kamandi begin to defeat the tigers, but are forced to surrender when the guards threaten to kill the humans, Tuftan, and Canus unless they do.

In the city of the tigers, Batman, Kamandi, Canus, and Tuftan are imprisoned. Great Caesar comes down to tell them that Tuftan will be left imprisoned and the others will be executed. Batman tries to warn Caesar of the coming on Grodd, but Caesar scoffs until he hears the war chant of the gorillas: Grodd has arrived outside the citadel with his army. Grodd has come to the future with technology, including a power gauntlet for himself and other weapons, and after Caesar insults Grodd by calling him a monkey. Grodd has his soldiers fire a sonic cannon, which has an even stronger effect on the sensitive hearing of the cats. Grodd then has a huge ape named Tiny smash the tigers' gates and the gorillas attack.

In the jail, Batman uses acid to melt through the bars and escape with Kamandi and friends. Tuftan uses his knowledge of the city to lead them through the streets, but Grodd smells Batman and sends his soldiers after him, but Batman and company slip into the sewers and escape. Batman takes Kamandi and Canus to prepare his plan to stop Grodd, while he sends Tuftan on another mission.

Batman takes Kamandi and Canus to the Batcave, which has fallen into disrepair over the centuries, and is now populated by man-bats, who attack Batman for mocking them with his costume. Batman and Kamandi fight the man-bats, and when they defeat the leader, the man-bats leave. Batmanreveaks his plan, and begins preparing technology of his own to stand against Grodd's.

Grodd and his army march out of the city, only ot be met by an army of tigers, snakes, rats and other animals, led by Tuftan. Tuftan again goads Grodd by calling him a chimp, and Grodd unleashes the sonic cannon, but as Grodd orders the charge, Batman appears with the Batplane, which fires missles that destroy the sonic cannons, helping to level the playing field.

As the armies meet, Batman, Kamandi, and Canus escape the Batplane with an ejector seat, and the plane crashes into the mountain, raining rubble down on the gorillas. As they drift to the ground, the man-bats return, swearing allegiance to Batman, and joining the battle against the gorillas, stealing their clubs from them. The armies are warring when Grodd sends Tiny into combat. Kamandi takes some rope from Batman and goes to deal with Tiny while Batman goes to deal with Grodd.

Kamandi and Tuftan are able to die Tiny's feet together, and when he falls the assembled armies easily defeat him. Grodd is caught in the flight of his gorilla army, as they flee after their strongest member and their weapons are destroyed, leaving him for Batman to retrieve. With the battle over, Great Caesar thanks Batman and Kamandi, finding that humans are more than he thought, and after congratulating his son as well, he frees the human slaves. Kamandi says goodbye to Batman, who returns to his own time with Grodd, leaving Kamandi excited at the idea of maybe visiting Batman in his time someday.




Who's Who

Kamandi (Voiced by Mikey Kelley)

First Comic Book Appearance:  Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth (October, 1972)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Seven- Dawn of the Deadman!

Gorilla Grodd (Voice by John DiMaggio)
First Comic Book Appearance: The Flash #106 (May, 1959)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Two- Terror on Dinosaur Island!


Mr. Miracle (Voiced by Yuri Lowenthal)
First Comic Book Appearance:  Mister Miracle #1 (April, 1971)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Twenty-Two- Last Bat on Earth!

One of the New Gods of New Genesis, Scott Free is the son of the leader of that world, Highfather. But as a part of the pact that brought about the cease fire between New Genesis and its opposite number, evil Apokolips, Scott was given over to Darkseid to raise as a hostage, while Darkseid's son was given to Highfather, Not surprisingly, Darkseid was not a loving father, and dumped Scott into one of his orphanages, to be raised at the not so tender mercies of Granny Goodness. But Scott never gave in, and eventually did what no one ever had: he escaped. He came to Earth, where he would take up the name of Mr. Miracle and be both a superhero and the world's greatest escape artist. He would be a member of the Justice League. He would make friends and marry Big Barda, another escapee from Apokolips. But above all else, he would be free. Mr. Miracle has many of the standard powers of a New God, including immortality and enhanced durability, but its his mind that is truly impressive. A master inventor, he builds his own traps to escape. He is the world's greatest escape artist, and emplyes otherworldly tech including the sentient computer Mother Box.

Big Barda (Voiced by Diane Delano)
First Comic Book Appearance:  Mister Miracle #4 (October, 1971)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Twenty-Two- Last Bat on Earth!

Big Barda was raised by Granny Goodness to be the leader of her Female Furies, the elite female warriors trained to, "Die for Darkseid." But a meeting with a young Scott Free changed all that, and after helping him and other rebels against the despotic ruler of Apokolips, Barda fled Apokolips for Earth. There she found Scott, and the two were married. Barda would travel with her husband, and would join the Justice League, both at his side and on her own. Barda is a powerful presence with a personality equal to her huge stature, but is at heart someone who loves life as much as she loves Scott. Barda is physically powerful, even by the standards of the New Gods, exceedingly strong and nearly indestructible.

Oberon (Voiced by Dee Bradley Baker)
First Comic Book Appearance:  Mister Miracle #1 (April, 1971)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Twenty-Two- Last Bat on Earth!

Oberon was the manager and assistant to the original Mr. Miracle, the human escape artist Thaddeus Brown, and when Scott Free came to Earth and inherited the mantle, Oberon stayed with him in those capacities, but also as friend and mentor here on Earth. Oberon is most often seen with Scott, although he did spend some time with Maxwell Lord as his assistant when Lord was leading the Justice League, but returned to working with Scott when that incarnation of the League folded. Oberon is a normal human, although he has an excellent knowledge of business and escapology.

Continuity, Comics Connections, and Notes

The creations of Jack Kirby, the King of Comics, feature heavily in this episode. Both Mr. Miracle and his supporting cast, and the world of Kamandi are Kirby creations. Last episode also featured Kirby creations, in that case Steppenwolf and members of the Female Furies. And next episode also guest stars Kirby creations, but we'll get to that next week,

Professor Nichols, the scientist who sends Batman and Grodd into the future, was a Silver Age character, who would appear in those stories to use "time travel hypnosis" to send Batman and Robin through time. Grant Morrison would revisit the character, as he did with many Silver Age concepts, during his extended run on the Batman titles.

Tiny has some King Kong-inspired moments in this episode, and it would be easy to assume a giant ape is just a generic concept. But Tiny is a character right out of the Kamandi comics, specifically issue seven of Kamandi's original series. There he could talk, though, so that version has some advantages.

Yuri Lowenthal makes his Brave and the Bold debut in this episode, voicing Mr. Miracle, but as another voice actor with a long list of credits, this is far from his only DC animated credit. He voiced Lagoon Boy and Icicle Jr. in Young Justice, and has voiced Red Robin in the direct to video Batman Unlimited features.

The Great Batman: The Brave and the Bold Rewatch: "Dawn of the Dead Man!"

Season One, Episode Seven: Dawn of the Dead Man!
Written by Todd Casey
Directed by Ben Jones

Plot Synopsis

Teaser: Hopping across the rooftops of a post-apocalyptic world, Batman follows Kamandi, the last human boy, and his mentor, Dr Canus, towards a time fissure. They are attacked by rat-men, with Batman holding them off while Kamandi and Canus carry a capsule to the fissure. They travel by inflatable raft to the wreck of the Statue of Liberty, where Batman takes the capsule and heads into the rift with the vaccine he needs to save human life, but not until telling Kamandi to check the statue's nostril, where he finds a time capsule with a ray weapon Kamandi uses to save himself and Canus from the pursuing rat-men

Episode: In a London cemetery stands a grave that reads, "Here Lies Batman," and from the grave rises what appears to be Batman's ghost. In flashback we see Batman chasing Gentleman Ghost, who is trying to obtain artifacts that will allow him to raise a ghost army, across London. Gentleman Ghost is able to knock Batman unconscious and bury him alive, but Batman is able to astrally project out of his body.

Out of the grave, he meets a ghost and tells him he has two hours of air before his body will die. The ghost tells Batman he can possess bodies, and offers to use a body to dig up Batman's body, but Batman knows the coffin is booby trapped, so he has to find another way. While Gentleman Ghost acquires the second artifact, Batman and the ghost travel across London. Batman sees a light that is a way to the other side, something the ghost is excited for as he himself is trapped on the mortal plain, and Batman sees his parents beckoning him, and begins to drift towards the light.

At the last moment, Batman decides to stay behind and because his work is not done. The ghost is annoyed by Batman rejecting what he has sought, but they head off to find a nearby hero. As luck would have it, Green Arrow and his sidekick, Speedy, are chasing a thief in London, and the ghost pushes Batman into Speedy, since a ghost needs to possess a living person to speak with the living. After a little experimentation, Batman gets Arrow to believe it's him, and Arrow and Speedy head to the cemetery.

When the ghost hears Gentleman Ghost is involved, he wants out, as Gentleman Ghost is, "bad news," but after Batman tells him to stop wallowing in self pity, he follows Batman back towards his body, and tells Batman his origin: he was a trapeze artist who was shot while performing, and his killer, who has a hook for a hand, was never caught. Batman knows him to be Boston Brand, who performed under the name Deadman, and Batman tells Deadman he's been working his case, and challenges Deadman to help him stop Gentleman Ghost.

At the, "Museum of Torture," Gentleman Ghost gets the final artifact, the noose he was hung with, and the astral Batman confronts him. They battle, and while Batman is the more skilled fighter, Gentleman Ghost's familiarity with fighting as a ghost gives him the upper hand. Deadman arrives to aid Batman, but Gentleman Ghost calls his ghost horse to escape. The ghostly heroes pursue him, and they all wind up heading back to the cemetery, and Gentleman Ghost uses the pen that signed his death warrant, the key that locked the dungeon, and the noose to summon an army of criminal ghosts, who restrain Batman's spirit form and possess skeletons to able to destroy London.

Green Arrow and Speedy are able to beat the booby trap and dig up Batman's body, and Deadman possesses the body, leading Arrow and Speedy into the catacombs beneath the cemetery where Batman's spirit is imprisoned. He goes down to save Batman, while Arrow and Speedy fight Gentleman Ghost up above. The Nth Metal in Batman's tools defeats the ghosts holding Batman's spirit, and Batman retakes his body.

Arrow and Speedy are outnumbered by Gentleman Ghost's army, but Batman arrives, and Deadman possesses Speedy. Arrow uses Nth Metal arrowheads to destroy Gentleman Ghost's horse, and Batman fights him hand to hand with Nth Metal knuckles. Batman knocks off Gentleman Ghost's hat, where the artifacts were hidden, and the spirits Gentleman Ghost summoned drag him back to the afterlife. Batman swears he'll find Deadman's killer, and with the Deadman sees the light.

Flash forward three months, and Batman has been captured by a gang and is about to be killed, when Deadman possesses the leader, having decided to stay behind and find his own killer. Freeing Batman, the episode ends with the two of them joining together to fight the gang.




Who's Who

Deadman (Voiced by Michael Rosenbaum)
First Comic Book Appearance: Strange Adventures #205 (October, 1967)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Seven- Dawn of the Deadman!

Created by Arnold Drake and Neal Adams, Deadman's origin is pretty much exactly what this episode puts forth: Boston Brand was a trapeze artist who was kind of a jerk, who was shot mid-performance by a hook-handed assassin. As he died, the goddess Rama Kushna appears to him, granting him the ability to possess bodies so he can hunt down his killer. Deadman does eventually hunt down Hook, who was a member of the League of Assassins, but does not pass on, instead staying on Earth to continue to do good. He has rarely held his own series, although has had a number of mini-series, and has often appeared in comic alongside Batman, two characters whose visuals were both defined by Neal Adams. In recent years, Deadman has gotten more of a spotlight as he was a featured player in DC's last pre-Flashpoint epic, Brightest Day, and was a member of the Justice League Dark in the New 52. Aside from the ability to possess the living, which allows Deadman a physical form and the ability to communicate with the living, when in a body Deadman retains the physical memory of being a trapeze artist and acrobat, able to perform stunts most people can not.

Green Arrow (Voiced by James Arnold Taylor)
First Comic Book Appearance: More Fun Comics #73 (November, 1941)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode One- Rise of the Blue Beetle

Kamandi (Voiced by Mikey Kelley)

First Comic Book Appearance:  Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth (October, 1972)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Seven- Dawn of the Deadman!

Kamandi is the last human left alive in a post-apocalyptic world. Years ago, "the Great Disaster," occurred, wiping out most of humanity, and what humanity is left is feral. Emerging from the Command D bunker, from where he gets his name, Kamandi finds a world populated by bipedal animal people, most of them very hostile to humans. The only ones who approve of Kamandi are Dr. Canus, a dog scientist who acts as Kamandi's mentor, Prince Tuftan of the Tigers, and Tuftan's father, Great Caesar. Kamandi travels the Earth, trying to find a way to restore the last of humanity's sentience. Created by Jack Kirby, Kamandi has had limited interactions with the DC Universe proper, although he was used by Grant Morrison in both Final Crisis and Multiversity. Kamandi is a normal human, although one on very good physical shape, and who is clever and a talented fighter.

Speedy (Voiced by Jason Marsden)
First Comic Book Appearance: More Fun Comics #73 (November, 1941)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Seven- Dawn of the Deadman!

Roy Harper was the ward of Green Arrow, Oliver Queen, who took him in after losing both his father, a park ranger, to fire, and his adopted father, Brave Bow, a Native American who taught him archery. An excellent archer in his own right already, Roy took the name Speedy and became Green Arrow's partner, as well as a founding member of the Teen Titans. Roy's life after this was a hard one, as he became addicted to heroin, became a government agent, had a daughter with a supervillain, and various other travails. He took on the adult secret identities of first Arsenal and then Red Arrow, and would spend time leading the Titans and as a member of the Justice League. In the current continuity, he has been a partner of Jason Todd, the Red Hood, and they currently run a heroes for hire business. While having no superhuman powers, Roy Harper is an excellent marksman, one of the best in the world, as well as an inventor of unusual weapons, and a skilled hand to hand combatant.

Gentleman Ghost (Voiced by Jonny Rees)
First Comic Book Appearance: Flash Comics #88 (October, 1947)
First Brave and the Bold Appearance: Season One, Episode Two- Terror on Dinosaur Island!


Continuity, Comics Connections, and Notes

The teaser for this episode is loaded with references to the DC work of Jack "The King" Kirby, on e of the greatest creators in comic book history. A billboard Kamandi stands in front of is a reference to the cover of the first issue of OMAC another Kirby title, and a character who will appear in a future episode of Brave and the Bold. The Statue of Liberty is in the same position that it appears in on the cover of the first issue of Kamandi's own series. Thee ray weapon that Batman leaves behind for Kamandi is straight out of a Kirby design, down the the visual effect is utilizes, called Kirby Krackles, which were a trademark of Kirby's art.

Michael Rosenbaum, who voices Deadman in this episode, has a long resume filled with DC Comics projects. Probably most famous for playing the part of Lex Luthor on TV's Smallville, Rosenbaum also was a regular member of the classic DC Animated Universe voice troupe, starting out with a small cameo in Batman Beyond, before graduating to a larger role in the animated movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, and then a starring role a the Flash in Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, where he also voiced Deadshot. He has reprised the role of Flash in a few video games and DC Animated movies, and voiced Kid Flash on Teen Titans as well.

The dialogue Green Arrow uses when doing a Batman impression, "I am Vengeance, I am the Night, I am Batman!" is dialogue lifted directly from the classic Batman: The Animated Series.

Batman says that Deadman was working for Haly's Circus at the time of his death. While Deadman has not been connected with Haly's Circus in the comics,it is connected to the origin of another DC Comics acrobat: Dick Grayson, the original Robin. Dick and his parents, the Flying Graysons, were working at Haly's when Boss Tony Zucco killed the Graysons in Gotham City. Dick would eventually go on to own Haly's Circus in both the pre- and post-Flashpoint continuities.

After Deadman leaves Speedy's body, the sidekick pounds one fist into his open palm and says, "Holy involuntary acrobatics!" an obvious reference both the physical performance of, and the dialogue given to, Burt Ward, who played Robin in the classic Batman series of the '60s.

Who Are the Young Animals? And What's So Challenging About Kamandi?

It's convention season ladies and gentlemen, and that means a few things: meeting creators, getting sketches, digging for back issues, and long lines. And of course announcements of new titles. There are three cons in New Jersey this weekend I know of. But this big con of the weekend is Emerald City Comic Con out in Seattle, and DC started it off big with the announcement of a new imprint and a particularly fascinating title outside of it.

The new imprint, called Young Animals, is being spearheaded by My Chemical Romance front man Gerard Way. Those of you who don't know you who don't know Way from his alt/punk rock band might know him from some pretty impressive comic book credits out of Dark Horse, where he's written three very successful mini-series: two volumes featuring The Umbrella Academy and one called The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. The Umbrella Academy is a group of grown up superheroes who were brought together as kids to train by a professor who was a manipulative jerk, and who now resent each other as adults. As I get into the Young Animals books, you'll see there's a theme with this.

So I looked at this announcement yesterday, and I was like, "Huh, those are some interesting character choices," and so today, I thought I'd give a brief rundown to exactly who the characters are in three of these four titles, and some historical context on the fourth, who is a brand new character. And after that, I'm going to talk briefly about the other new title announced, Kamandi Challenge, and why I'm super excited about it.

Doom Patrol

Story: Gerard Way

Art: Nick Derington

The Doom Patrol are probably the biggest name characters of any of the Young Animals titles, and the best known. Created in the 1963, right around the same time as the X-Men, there's often been a question of who ripped off who when it comes to these two teams of misfits. Both featured heroes who were outside the norm, and both had mentors in wheelchairs. They were probably DC's earliest attempt at Marvel like pathos, with the original three members of the team, Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and Negative Man all being angry at the world and full of angst for being freaks. The original run also introduced Beast Boy, who joined the team and would go on to bigger and better things as a Teen Titan. When the series was to be cancelled in 1968, co-creator and series writer Arnold Drake did something unprecedented at the time: he had his freaky heroes sacrifice themselves for the greater good, dying to save a a small town from an enemy. And since this is comics, where death is an absolute, that was the end of the Doom Patrol...

... Ah, who am I kidding? The Doom Patrol would return many times over the course of the decades. The most successful of these series was the mid-80s series, where a young Scottish writer named Grant Morrison took over at issue 19 and made the book weird. Not just a little weird, because Doom Patrol had always been a little weird. But full on, surrealist bizarre, It would be difficult to sum up all the different things that Morrison did in his run, because it defies quick synopsis, and the heroes and villains he created and reinvented all completely defy any categorization. Favorite characters and concepts included the Brotherhood of Dada, a Dadaist group of supervillains, Danny the Street, a cross-dressing sentient street, and Flex Mentallo, the Charles Atlas ad in comics come to life. If you want to read any Doom Patrol before trying the new series, this is the one to try.

After Morrison left the book, which had become a Vertigo title when DC created the imprint (along with Sandman, Swamp Thing, Shade the Changing Man, and Hellblazer), writer Rachel Pollock took over for another twenty four issues which were weird, but never captured the same public acclaim as Morrison's. DC has tried three time to launch a new series taking place in the normal DCU since 2001, the first written by John Arcudi, the second by John Byrne, and the third by Keith Giffen. None proved especially popular, sales-wise, with the Byrne, which was a hard reboot having the Doom Patrol make a "first appearance" in the DC Universe years after they previously had, being the most controversial, to the point that Infinite Crisis had to reboot them to get the continuity straight again. Most recently, the original team returned during the Forever Evil event, but have not seen much use outside of appearances in Justice League.

The Doom Patrol's roster has fluctuated wildly over the years, especially during the Vertigo years and the Arcudi run, where nearly all the original team members were not used. Only Cliff Steele, Robotman, a human brain in a robot body, has appeared in every incarnation. Other notable members include The Chief, Niles Caulder, a wheelchair bound scientist who gathered the team and in some versions, caused the accidents that created them; Negative Man, pilot Larry Trainor who has an energy form that can leave his body, and who under Morrison went through many strange transformation; Elasti-Girl, Rita Farr, who could grow to giant size; Crazy Jane, who had sixty-four different multiple personalities, each with a different super power; and Dorothy Spinner, a deformed girl who could bring imaginary friends to life. Judging by the preview art provided for the series, Robotman will once again be on the Doom Patrol, as will Flex Mentallo, along with two new female characters.

Shade, The Changing Girl

Story:Cecil Castellucci

Art: Marley Zarcone (Covers by Becky Cloonan)

While Shade, the Changing Girl is a new character, Shade the Changing Man dates back to 1978. Created by Steve Ditko, Shade was an alien from another dimension, who wore an M-Vest, which initially meant Miraco-Vest but would change to be called a Madness-Vest, that granted him super powers. Initially the story of an alien fleeing his home dimension to clear his name of treason charges and a death sentence, Shade would pop up as a member of the Suicide Squad in the 80s.

But, like Doom Patrol, the series that this new one seems most influenced by the was the early 90s Vertigo incarnation of Shade. Here is where the M-Vest became the Madness-Vest, and it allowed Shade to warp reality. The series explored themes of identity, both on Shade and in others. Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo created a strange and unique view of the character, and the series ran for seventy issues before ending. Since then, Shade has popped up occasionally in other Milligan written projects, both in the Vertigo imprint and the main DCU.

Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye

Story: Gerard Way & Jon Rivera

Art: Michael Avon Oeming

The deepest of deep cuts, Cave Carson was a science hero in 1960s DC Comics, along with characters like the Challengers of the Unknown and The Time Masters. Not surprisingly by his name, he was a spelunker and explorer of the deepest recesses of the Earth. There's not a lot more to say about Carson. He's popped up on and off over the years, often in gathering of scientists and science heroes written by writers with a deep affection for the Silver Age, like Mark Waid in JLA: Year One. He was a member of The Forgotten Heroes, a group of random characters DC threw together to make a team. They appeared a few times, most notably with Superman in an issue of Action Comics and DC Comics Presents, and in the final arc of the original Resurrection Man series, where they thought Resurrection Man might be their lost teammate, the Immortal Man.

Mother Panic

Story: Gerard Way and Jody Houser

Art: Tommy Lee Edwards

Shockingly (or not at all), the title I'm most excited for takes place in Gotham City. Mother Panic is a completely new character, so I don't have any history to dig into here. I can say that, based on her writing in Valiant's Faith, I'm really excited to see what Jody Houser does in the DC Universe. Also, this isn't the first time a non-Bat aligned vigilante. The Helena Bertinelli Huntress first appeared in her own title with no connection to Batman, who only appeared in the final arc of her series. Garth Ennis's Hitman was based in Gotham, although Batman appeared infrequently, mostly because of Ennis's disdain for all things capes and tights. And Steve Niles and Scott Hampton's short-lived Simon Dark, about a patchwork man protecting a Gotham neighborhood, also featured no appearances by Batman. Judging by the Bat Signal on the preview art, Mother Panic will probably intersect a little more with Batman then these titles, but we'll have to wait and see.

The other announcement yesterday was about DC Challenge: Kamandi, a twelve issue mini-series with each issue by a different creative team. Kamandi, if you don't know, is the last boy on Earth, who lives in a world of anthropomorphic animal men. He was created by Jack Kirby and was featured heavily in Final Crisis, so that's a pretty solid pedigree. This title hearkens back to a 1985-1986 mini-series called just DC Challenge, which featured many of comics top creators at the time playing a game of exquisite corpse, a literary term for a story or even a sentence where each writer adds the next chapter/word without knowing exactly what the previous creators would do until they get the story. I picked up a set of DC Challenge a couple of years ago at a con and read it last year, amused but figuring ti was a fun artifact to read, but I wasn't going to write about it here, since it was not relevant and not exactly easy to track down. But now? Heck yes I'll be writing about it. Expect a Lost Legends in the next couple weeks about what is the most bizarre comic I've ever read. Not Grant Morrison bizarre either. Any series that has an issue end with a time displaced Jonah Hex having to save nuns from a runaway truck? That's a freakin' weird comic.