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| BATMAN No. 31, July 2014 |
Incredibly the best-selling “DC Comics” publication of May
2014, it is hard to understand just how Issue Thirty One of “Batman” managed to
peddle an incredible 107,499 copies when all both Scott Snyder and its titular
character seem intent on doing throughout its narrative is simply ‘buy time’
until the comic’s next set-piece can be made ready. Indeed one could easily
argue that any casual bibliophile could quite merrily skip the opening half of
this twenty-two page periodical, and not only save themselves the tedium of
negotiating panel after laborious panel of heavily-laden word balloons. But
omit yet another head-scratchingly contrived set of circumstances which rather
bizarrely result in the Dark Knight being trapped at the bottom of an
underground car park surrounded by ravenous man-eating lions.
Fortunately however, once the New Yorker’s narrative does
focus upon the masked vigilante’s battle with his carnivorous opponents, this
comic actually transforms into a seriously tense and enthralling experience.
For whilst the three-time Stan Lee Award-winner still insists on annoyingly
slowing down the pace of his plot with plenty of infuriating flashbacks to when
Bruce Wayne was at college studying. His depiction of the ‘present-day’
costumed crimefighter matching his wits and ingenuity against the savagery of
two ferocious big cats proves both plausible and positively pulse-pounding. In
fact the action is so good, as Batman drains a disused vehicle for its gasoline
in order to create an impromptu flamethrower and then later batters a Panthera Leo
with a self-made Bat-shield that one may even forgive penciller Greg Capullo for
cramming the majority of these stunning sequences into just a handful of panels;
“I’ve got one last question for you, Edward… Is that all you’ve got? Is it?!”
Disappointingly the former “Quasar” artist certainly seems
to find plotting his colleague’s script somewhat difficult, especially at the
book’s beginning, when a good deal of the story revolves around the Riddler
once again challenging the city’s “Gothamites” to “save this place from its own
encroaching entropic end” by besting him with an unsolvable conundrum. Presumably
tired of drawing Edward Nygma’s never-changing sedentary face from a variety of
different angles, the Schenectady-born illustrator even attempts to break up
the monotony of his layouts by depicting the Dark Knight briefly popping into a
local rundown warehouse store for a change of gloves.
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| The "BATMAN '66" variant cover art of "BATMAN" No. 31 by Mike & Laura Allred |
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