About Heroes

This Review Submitted by Brent K.

Writer: Matt Wagner
Artist: Matt Wagner

When the issues first came out, I was hearing and reading good things about this mini-series. It being only a mini, I decided to wait for the trade and save myself a few dollars. I love Matt Wagner's covers on the DC books, I read and liked his "Trinity" mini-series about the big 3, so my interest was peaked. Now that I have read the story, I'm almost left wondering... why?

Matt Wagner has crafted a very capable Batman tale. Good, but not great. Wagner aims to look back on Batman's past and give new life into Professor Hugo Strange. He succeeds here, although barely. Reading this, it felt like Matt Wagner was trying to fit too many things into the story. Its the multiple storylines that kept me from enjoying this book as much as I should have. We follow Batman, Hugo Strange, Jim Gordon, Julie Madison, and her father Mr. Madison. Each of these characters not only has their own sequences in each issue, but also their own narration boxes, and the colors of each character's narration is not consistent throughout the whole trade, ruining what might have led to easy character-color associations. Batman's narration boxes were the only consistent ones in the entire storyline. With all of these point of views, we get a confusing narrative. Wagner jumps from person to person in one page, instead of over two separate pages. Waiting a panel would have made the story flow much better.

Speaking of the story, I'm never afraid for Batman from the Monster Men threat, I know that he will defeat them, and as villians for Batman, they pale in comparison to others in his gallery. The Monster Men are products of Hugo Strange and genetic engineering, but they are merely dumb Frankenstien monsters. Lots of "Yaaaarrgh's" and grunts. They might as well be wearing red shirts on Star Trek. There was a Batman: Animated Series episode where Catwoman was captured and genetically manipulated into a cat-creature along with another human. In the episode, Catwoman and the other creature kept their human intelligence. When Batman shows up to rescue Catwoman, he must first face the other cat-creature. The fight is spectacular because not only is the cat-creature bigger, faster, and stronger than Batman, he can think like a human as well. The Monster Men never achieve this threat level because they are mindless creatures. Hugo Strange manages to improve upon his Monster Men, but the newest incarnation is only less-ugly and does not display any intelligence, and thus does not raise the threat to Batman.

The best elements of Wagner's story are the Bruce Wayne and girlfriend moments where Bruce tries to have a life outside of his night-job, and actually thinks that one day, he will win his crusade. Its a very young and naive Batman, but Wagner does not develop much of this storyline because he has the other 5 or 6 storylines to tell also. If this was supposed to be a Year 1.5 or Year Two tale, Wagner should have explored the naiive Batman/Bruce more. Wagner also draws heavily on Year One and the Long Halloween by recycling gangsters Sal Maroni and Carmine "the Roman" Falcone. In the other two stories, these are developed characters, but Wagner just uses them to place his story in the early Batman time-frame. These characters are nothing more than time-stamps for this story. Wagner would have done better to leave these characters as single-page cameo appearances, rather than the multi-issues they appear in, and developed his main plot more. Hugo Strange is a genetic engineer but what is he looking for? How did he create the Monster Men? Are they accidents or are they his purpose? Also, Hugo Strange unleashes his creatures over money. Money. Whoopee. Hasn't this been done in Batman before? Yes, and done better than this. See Batman: Year One and Long Halloween, specifically.

The only thing that saves the book is Wagner's art. Wagner is no Jim Lee, but his simplicity adds to the "early" feel of the book. He can stage his panels and action scenes beautifully, and his expressions are great too. It's not realistic or detailed art, like most modern comic-book artists (somewhat), but it is still GOOD classic comic book art. That's what this book is. GOOD, but not great. Capable, but not re-defining of the character. I wonder if this will read better when read next to its upcoming companion Batman and the Mad Monk. If you waited for the trade on this book, pick it up, its only $15, this looks to be a slow week DC wise. If you're looking for a great early Batman story to compete with Year One or Long Halloween, look elsewhere, this book is merely OK. C-