Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Blackest Night Batman #1Blackest Night: Batman #1 of 3
DC Comics
Tomasi, Syaf, Dell & Cifuentes

A mini series tie-in that is probably easily skipped over turns in a terrific opening effort. It’s unlikely that this series will be important to the overall Blackest Night plot, but it’s providing a very interesting look at a side battle. I thought this issue delivered some nice characterizations and did a great job of not stomping on events in other books. In the end, this just won’t be anything more than something to satisfy Batman fans and give the completists out there the full Blackest Night picture. However, I found this issue to be very entertaining.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsThe comic is simple enough. Batman and Robin are investigating the destroyed graves of the Wayne’s, while Deadman’s former body, Boston Brand becomes a Black Lantern. Each of these scenes or characters were explored in previous Blackest Night issues, but this comic does a very good job of not treading over the same ground and not messing up the previous events in the other books.

The decision is made by Batman to move the remains of the Wayne’s to keep them safe. This brings up a moment where Robin shows some hesitation. This provides some great dialogue and brings a twist to the new relationship between Batman and Robin. In previous issues with the duo, we’ve always seen Batman as the one doubting he could do the job, we haven’t really seen this from Robin. In this comic, Batman is strong and sure of himself while Robin slips up. This brought something to this comic worth exploring and it was a nice addition to the story.

The remainder of the comic is spent with Deadman taking over Batman and Robin to gather and give information about the Black Lanterns. Not knowing anything about Deadman isn’t going to hurt you here as this comic gives you his basic origin and is written in such a way that his character shows his personality almost immediately.

The comic moves along at a brisk pace and the artwork keeps up very well. There are a couple of pages of montages that are very well crafted and show off a wide array of characters, making the comic show off artistically very nicely. The art also captures facial expressions very well, giving some level of tone to the dialogue. Perhaps the best page of art is when a new group of dead characters get their rings. Check it. If you like Batman you’ll get a kick out it.

This was a mini series I was going to pass up on and I was convinced otherwise at the shop. I’m glad I picked it up. This comic gave a good look at Batman and Robin, a good side plot for them and some interesting secondary characters get some face time. This is a good tie in issue, hopefully that will follow through for the remaining two issues.

4 out of 5 geek goggles