It’s comical how many Batman-related titles DC are putting out at the moment, almost like they’ve got no other characters that appeal to enough readers - anyway, here’s another one to add to the pile: a retelling of Batman’s origins imaginatively called The Knight!
Not-your-grandpappy’s-Frosty the Snowman turns the whole world cold so capes’n’masks gotta punch ice until things somehow get fixed! I know, it sounds like a Eugene O’Neill play, doesn’t it? It’s the worst Justice League book since… well, the last one. They’re all bad!
A hifalutin lawyer is murdered by wine bottle in his swanky London house - whodunit? Special consultant to the police, Daniel Hawthorne, teams up once again with his hapless modern-day Watson, Anthony Horowitz, to find out.
Batman and Catwoman get sucked into the world of Fortnite and suddenly have their memories wiped and their ability to talk removed. As they fight for survival and try to remember who they are, they have to figure out a way back home.
A few years ago I was sent an unsolicited review copy of Tillie Walden’s memoir Spinning. It was about how she found out she was gay and did figure skating. I think she was 22 when she produced this “memoir”, not much older than she was in the book itself. This is why memoirs are usually suited for people who have lived a life or had some extraordinary experience, neither of which applies to Spinning. It’d be like if I ate a bagel, stared into the middle distance and then wrote a 400 page book about it. I read about half of it (it actually was 400 pages long!), laughed at how utterly inane and empty Spinning was and tossed it into the book donation bag I give to my local charity shop when it’s full.
DCeased: Unkillables is a sequel-ish/companion piece to DCeased that mostly focuses on what the villains were up to during the events of the first book while the heroes were dealing with the deathly-modified Anti-Life Equation - and, surprisingly, it’s actually better than the main book!
Still recovering from injuries, Matt Murdock’s not in the best shape, but Daredevil needs to be seen patrolling Hell’s Kitchen so he pushes through the pain and forces himself out. Which leads to Matt making a mistake he can’t take back: in stopping a robbery by three guys, he accidentally causes fatal head trauma to one of the robbers. Daredevil is officially a killer. Is it time for Matt to finally walk away from the vigilante life?
Nine strangers receive an anonymous letter with nine names on it, including their own. And then they start dying! Coincidence? Not if you’re in a bad novel! But why them - and can Generic FBI Agent Character stop the killer before everyone on the list is moiderized?!
Pascal Girard reimagines his wife Rebecca as an amateur sleuth, investigating the disappearance of a social worker in their neighbourhood, while looking after their newborn daughter Lucie on maternity leave.
The World is an anthology book of Batman short stories set in multiple countries, written/drawn by creators from those countries. And it’s pretty terrible!
A woman organises her own funeral - and then, a few hours later, is murdered. Coincidence? Special consultant to the popo, Daniel Hawthorne, is brought in to assist, and joining him is… Anthony Horowitz?! Buh, you mean the author of this book?! The word is… meta! And, y’know, whodunit?
Philippe Girard has created a short biographical comic on the life of Leonard Cohen, the poet/musician/writer/actor most famous for his song “Hallelujah”, with Leonard Cohen On a Wire. Cohen seems like an interesting figure to me and I don’t know anything about him so I was looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it’s not very good.
Alfred was a billionaire - whodathunkit? And, following his demise, he left everything to Dick Grayson. Newly rich Dick decides to help his adopted city of Bludhaven, first by feeding and housing the homeless. But shenanigans are afoot in city hall as Blockbuster, the boss of Bludhaven’s underworld, is busy installing a new mayor - Melinda Zucco, the daughter of Tony Zucco, aka the man who killed Dick’s parents - and a new serial killer called Heartless is stalking the streets, murdering the homeless. And if there’s one thing Dick hates, it’s dicks! Time for Dick to get a firm handle on things and start rubbing out these problems…
Boredfinger! He’s the man, the man with the boring touch! A boring… zzz…Auric Goldfinger, a man so obsessed with goooooold that Mike Myers’ caricature of the character was actually understated, wants to rob Fort Knox because it’s full of goooooold. Only one man can stop him: James Boooooond!
Stalin collapsed on 1 March 1953 and died a few days later. Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin relate the farce that was going on behind the scenes in those days before Stalin actually kicked the bucket, as high ranking communist party officials ineptly tried to help save their comrade’s life while also attempting to secure power for themselves in the vacuum of his impending exit.
Superman’s son Jon is back from being part of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the future and is by his father’s side as Superboy - but, oh no, Superman can suddenly be hurt somehow (and not Jon)! Jon realises he must soon take his father’s place as the new Superman when his dad becomes… The One Who Fell!
2021, aka Covid Year 2, flew by, didn’t it? But also, when I think about the start of this year when the first doses of the vaccine were being administered, it does feel like an age ago. Covid brain, eh?
