The Classy Comics Podcast

I revisit the first graphic novel I read, "The Untold Legend of the Batman" as well as Len Wein's other later Batman work including Batman meets Grizzly Adams (sort of).
Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: We take a look at the first graphic novel I ever read and a few more of Len Wein’s Batman tales as we conclude our look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein. Straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Concurrently with Wein’s run on Batman the last three months, there was a mini-series released called Untold Legends of the Batman. It was actually only the second mini-series that D.C. Comics had created. The first was 1979’s mini-series, World of Krypton. This Untold Legends of the Batman, kind of serve to really cement what Batman's origin story had been because there has been a lot of conflicting tales, imaginary tales. There was information in various books and this becomes kind of a definitive Batman origin story which takes existing information on what had happened with Batman and also goes ahead and adds in a new information, new little spins and touches on Batman's origin story and right there, Untold Legends of the Batman became the definitive Batman origin story for about six years until Crisis on Infinite Earths but for a while it was and it's actually a pretty good story. It was the first graphic novel that I ever picked up. I got it from a thrift store, must have done it was because the edition I read was from 1982 and it was published in a pocket paperback format in black and white. When I read it, I liked it but I was a bit confused because the only Batman I had ever experienced was the 1960’s Batman T.V. series with Adam West. So, this seemed kind of rough edged. Reading it as an adult, it's not really that problematic. Batman is rough-edged, but there's a reason for that that's revealed as the story goes on. Of course, Batman's origin story isn't told directly. It's actually told through a framing device that there had been some strange attacks on Batman. His father's Batman costume, his father was the first Batman in this origin story, wearing it as a costume for a party, it's destroyed and there are other strange goings on leading up to the destruction of the Bat-mobile at the end of Issue 2 and the story follows Batman as he tries to find who's behind this and keeps running into moments where people are recalling parts of his origin, of his relationship with Robin and Commissioner Gordon and I think that this is actually a really solid origin story. It's a shame that it was wiped from continuity but it's still a good read for fans who want to have a handle on the way Batman was pre-crisis or just want to read a really good Batman story. This holds up and is as good if not better than when I remember reading it is a kid.
As a recent writer on Batman, Wein wrote a backup story for Detective Comics #500, which much like the Action Comics #1000 that we reviewed a few weeks ago, was a baby anniversary issue with a lot of stories. Wein got a two-page story where he decided to tell the classic, it was a dark and stormy night tale in the narration with the pictures telling a Batman story. It was one of those things OK. It's not the greatest thing in the world but I guess it's an interesting little story.
Then we have a guest story from Action Comics [Detective Comics] #514, Haven, in which Batman is chasing the gangster Maxie Zeus, who thinks he's a greek god through some tough terrain on winter road and both Zeus and the Bat-mobile crash and Batman is rescued by a bearded mountain man who is friends with the animals. Reading the story, this character Haven,

I revisit the first graphic novel I read, “The Untold Legend of the Batman” as well as Len Wein’s other later Batman work including Batman meets Grizzly Adams (sort of).

Affiliate link included.

Transcript below:

Graham: We take a look at the first graphic novel I ever read and a few more of Len Wein’s Batman tales as we conclude our look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein. Straight ahead.

[Into Music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.

Graham: Concurrently with Wein’s run on Batman the last three months, there was a mini-series released called Untold Legends of the Batman. It was actually only the second mini-series that D.C. Comics had created. The first was 1979’s mini-series, World of Krypton. This Untold Legends of the Batman, kind of serve to really cement what Batman’s origin story had been because there has been a lot of conflicting tales, imaginary tales. There was information in various books and this becomes kind of a definitive Batman origin story which takes existing information on what had happened with Batman and also goes ahead and adds in a new information, new little spins and touches on Batman’s origin story and right there, Untold Legends of the Batman became the definitive Batman origin story for about six years until Crisis on Infinite Earths but for a while it was and it’s actually a pretty good story. It was the first graphic novel that I ever picked up. I got it from a thrift store, must have done it was because the edition I read was from 1982 and it was published in a pocket paperback format in black and white. When I read it, I liked it but I was a bit confused because the only Batman I had ever experienced was the 1960’s Batman T.V. series with Adam West. So, this seemed kind of rough edged. Reading it as an adult, it’s not really that problematic. Batman is rough-edged, but there’s a reason for that that’s revealed as the story goes on. Of course, Batman’s origin story isn’t told directly. It’s actually told through a framing device that there had been some strange attacks on Batman. His father’s Batman costume, his father was the first Batman in this origin story, wearing it as a costume for a party, it’s destroyed and there are other strange goings on leading up to the destruction of the Bat-mobile at the end of Issue 2 and the story follows Batman as he tries to find who’s behind this and keeps running into moments where people are recalling parts of his origin, of his relationship with Robin and Commissioner Gordon and I think that this is actually a really solid origin story. It’s a shame that it was wiped from continuity but it’s still a good read for fans who want to have a handle on the way Batman was pre-crisis or just want to read a really good Batman story. This holds up and is as good if not better than when I remember reading it is a kid.

As a recent writer on Batman, Wein wrote a backup story for Detective Comics #500, which much like the Action Comics #1000 that we reviewed a few weeks ago, was a baby anniversary issue with a lot of stories. Wein got a two-page story where he decided to tell the classic, it was a dark and stormy night tale in the narration with the pictures telling a Batman story. It was one of those things OK. It’s not the greatest thing in the world but I guess it’s an interesting little story.

Then we have a guest story from Action Comics [Detective Comics] #514, Haven, in which Batman is chasing the gangster Maxie Zeus, who thinks he’s a greek god through some tough terrain on winter road and both Zeus and the Bat-mobile crash and Batman is rescued by a bearded mountain man who is friends with the animals. Reading the story, this character Haven,

A look at Len Wein's Bat-murderer saga in the early 1970s. Then in the later 1970s, Wein became the writer of Batman and introduced a love interest in the form of Selina Kyle.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: Can Batman survive the danger posed by such foes as Ra’s al Ghul and Signalman? We'll tell you all about it next as we take a look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Len Wein was one of those really great comic book readers tied into a lot of things was a co-creator of Swamp Thing and also of Wolverine as well as helping to revamp the X-Men and was rightly inducted into the comic book Hall of Fame in 2008, passed away in 2017. Today we're taking a look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein, which collects his work on the Cape Crusader. These range from one off appearance in Detective Comics to his own run as writer of Batman and actually the very first graphic novel I ever read. So, let's go ahead and take a look.
The book starts out with a story from Detective Comics 408 and it opens with Batman seemingly in a haunted house where nothing is quite as it appears. This is just a really, really good story and the art by Neal Adams is just fabulous. It does a great job setting the scene, the atmosphere, giving it all this sort of Twilight Zone feel to it. So, both writing and art are really good here and then there is an appearance in World's Finest, the Batman/Superman team up book and me it's another one with Neal Adams artwork and it's a story in which Clark Kent is apparently trying to hire thugs to kill Superman and Batman is trying to figure out what's going on. Now this one is a fairly good story. It does end with a pretty nice super villain battle with Dr Light. It's not my favorite World's Finest story but I enjoyed it pretty well.
Alright, so the next thing that he ends up writing is the Bat-Murderer saga, which was a series in Detective Comics #444 to #448 and it’s mostly has the art by Jim Aparo and the plot in this involves Batman picking up a gun and appearing to shoot Talia al Ghul and the police declare the him wanted for murder because he won't turn himself in and he's on the run from the police trying to clear his name. He breaks into jail to question Ra’s al Ghul about what happened to Talia and then he appears to shoot Ra’s and so it's a story where he is on the run from the police and then The Creeper gets into the action to try and hunt down Batman. The story is interesting. It's essential the first 4 or half issue stories with the other half of the comic book and Detective Comics taken up by the backup feature but in issue 448, we get a full-fledged resolution at a circus. The story's not perfect and he does also fight a villain, Silversmith, in the middle of this. This is a really good serialized story for the era. It manages to build action, to build consequences, to increase the pressure as The Creeper rejoins the hunt and you get a reveal. It's not completely surprising. It just does tend to make a lot of sense.
Next stop is another guest writing appearance in Detective Comics #466. In this one, Batman is dealing with the return of an obscure villain named Signalman. Signalman is one of those villains that just shows the strength of the Batman Rogues Gallery and how you can really go back through history to see some characters who are not considered all that successful and make them interesting. In this case Signalman really does give Batman a run for his money and actually comes close to killing Batman, which you wouldn't really expect from a villain like signal man but he tried to kill him in the most Signalman way possible,

A look at Len Wein’s Bat-murderer saga in the early 1970s. Then in the later 1970s, Wein became the writer of Batman and introduced a love interest in the form of Selina Kyle.

Affiliate link included.

Transcript below:

Graham: Can Batman survive the danger posed by such foes as Ra’s al Ghul and Signalman? We’ll tell you all about it next as we take a look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein straight ahead.

[Into Music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.

Graham: Len Wein was one of those really great comic book readers tied into a lot of things was a co-creator of Swamp Thing and also of Wolverine as well as helping to revamp the X-Men and was rightly inducted into the comic book Hall of Fame in 2008, passed away in 2017. Today we’re taking a look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein, which collects his work on the Cape Crusader. These range from one off appearance in Detective Comics to his own run as writer of Batman and actually the very first graphic novel I ever read. So, let’s go ahead and take a look.

The book starts out with a story from Detective Comics 408 and it opens with Batman seemingly in a haunted house where nothing is quite as it appears. This is just a really, really good story and the art by Neal Adams is just fabulous. It does a great job setting the scene, the atmosphere, giving it all this sort of Twilight Zone feel to it. So, both writing and art are really good here and then there is an appearance in World’s Finest, the Batman/Superman team up book and me it’s another one with Neal Adams artwork and it’s a story in which Clark Kent is apparently trying to hire thugs to kill Superman and Batman is trying to figure out what’s going on. Now this one is a fairly good story. It does end with a pretty nice super villain battle with Dr Light. It’s not my favorite World’s Finest story but I enjoyed it pretty well.

Alright, so the next thing that he ends up writing is the Bat-Murderer saga, which was a series in Detective Comics #444 to #448 and it’s mostly has the art by Jim Aparo and the plot in this involves Batman picking up a gun and appearing to shoot Talia al Ghul and the police declare the him wanted for murder because he won’t turn himself in and he’s on the run from the police trying to clear his name. He breaks into jail to question Ra’s al Ghul about what happened to Talia and then he appears to shoot Ra’s and so it’s a story where he is on the run from the police and then The Creeper gets into the action to try and hunt down Batman. The story is interesting. It’s essential the first 4 or half issue stories with the other half of the comic book and Detective Comics taken up by the backup feature but in issue 448, we get a full-fledged resolution at a circus. The story’s not perfect and he does also fight a villain, Silversmith, in the middle of this. This is a really good serialized story for the era. It manages to build action, to build consequences, to increase the pressure as The Creeper rejoins the hunt and you get a reveal. It’s not completely surprising. It just does tend to make a lot of sense.

Next stop is another guest writing appearance in Detective Comics #466. In this one, Batman is dealing with the return of an obscure villain named Signalman. Signalman is one of those villains that just shows the strength of the Batman Rogues Gallery and how you can really go back through history to see some characters who are not considered all that successful and make them interesting. In this case Signalman really does give Batman a run for his money and actually comes close to killing Batman, which you wouldn’t really expect from a villain like signal man but he tried to kill him in the most Signalman way poss...

The Titans try to figure out who's the traitor on the team.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: It's time for the Titans to root out the traitor. Find out all about it as we take a look at Titans Volume 3: A Judas Among Us.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham:The Titans have been around for 50 years in either the form of the Teen Titans, the original teen from the 1960s, with sidekicks for Batman, the Flash and Aquaman to the present day. There have been a lot of iterations of this. One of the more popular ones are the Titans, which are the original Teen Titans, people who knew each other since they were kids, now fighting together as adults, young adults. The Titans disappeared in the New 52. In Titans Rebirth, it was revealed that their memories had been stolen and Wally's return helped them to remember who they were and come together as a team with old Wally West, a big part of the action and what had happened.
They went through a lot of difficult times including Lazarus Contract, which I covered very early in the series. In which they were given cause to doubt Dick Grayson over his agreeing to, with Deathstroke, to something called the Lazarus Contract. However, what exactly that entailed, I'm still not clear on and more importantly, the heart of the team, Wally West had his own heart injured as a teen when the teams traveled back in time to stop Deathstroke. This was Damian Wayne's decision at work. So, you've got the first 2 volumes of Titan stories and you also have the crossover event, the Lazarus Contract in the rearview mirror.
I really do like the first issue of this book. It's a good starting place, even though it's the first issue of volume 3. Issue 12, if you were reading the issues individually as they came out. It begins with Omen visiting Psimon in prison to try and get information about H.I.V.E. They are a group that was masquerading as someone who was just helping out metahumans by getting rid of their powers and quirks so they didn't stop them from living a normal life and they had gotten, actually, some heroes to do it including Mal Duncan, the former guardian, who tried to get his wife to do it as well. She had the identity of Bumblebee. However, in the process she didn't get her powers taken, she got her entire memory. So, she doesn't remember Mal and does not remember her baby, which is a major problem they have to resolve. On top of Wally’s heart, Donna Troy has learned that her own background is a lie. She's picked that up from Wonder Woman and this reflects the fact that Donna Troy’s identity has been something that writers have been messing around with for decades when she was first introduced on the Teen Titans as a Wonder Girl, which was based off of Bob Haney’s misunderstanding that there actually was a Wonder Girl from seeing covers of Wonder Woman comics when this was actually just Wonder Woman as a girl and not a separate character that he could use but it's become more serious and it becomes more serious still. The book still has a lot of fun and I think the art is great. Some of the resolutions, the question about old Wally West and his heart, really is addressed and it does intersect some plot points. I think the biggest thing is the crossed on the team because Simon in that first issue, states that there is a traitor on the Titans and that plot plays out and adds to the sense of suspicion on the team. With old Wally, it does put him in this very interesting mental state He is at risk of dying when he uses his powers but he still wants to help people and still wants to be part of the team and he actually has a moment with Donna Troy when he kisses her and that creates some problems with Roy Harper, aka Arsenal,

The Titans try to figure out who’s the traitor on the team.

Affiliate link included.

Transcript:

Graham: It’s time for the Titans to root out the traitor. Find out all about it as we take a look at Titans Volume 3: A Judas Among Us.

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.

Graham: The Titans have been around for 50 years in either the form of the Teen Titans, the original teen from the 1960s, with sidekicks for Batman, the Flash and Aquaman to the present day. There have been a lot of iterations of this. One of the more popular ones are the Titans, which are the original Teen Titans, people who knew each other since they were kids, now fighting together as adults, young adults. The Titans disappeared in the New 52. In Titans Rebirth, it was revealed that their memories had been stolen and Wally’s return helped them to remember who they were and come together as a team with old Wally West, a big part of the action and what had happened.

They went through a lot of difficult times including Lazarus Contract, which I covered very early in the series. In which they were given cause to doubt Dick Grayson over his agreeing to, with Deathstroke, to something called the Lazarus Contract. However, what exactly that entailed, I’m still not clear on and more importantly, the heart of the team, Wally West had his own heart injured as a teen when the teams traveled back in time to stop Deathstroke. This was Damian Wayne’s decision at work. So, you’ve got the first 2 volumes of Titan stories and you also have the crossover event, the Lazarus Contract in the rearview mirror.

I really do like the first issue of this book. It’s a good starting place, even though it’s the first issue of volume 3. Issue 12, if you were reading the issues individually as they came out. It begins with Omen visiting Psimon in prison to try and get information about H.I.V.E. They are a group that was masquerading as someone who was just helping out metahumans by getting rid of their powers and quirks so they didn’t stop them from living a normal life and they had gotten, actually, some heroes to do it including Mal Duncan, the former guardian, who tried to get his wife to do it as well. She had the identity of Bumblebee. However, in the process she didn’t get her powers taken, she got her entire memory. So, she doesn’t remember Mal and does not remember her baby, which is a major problem they have to resolve. On top of Wally’s heart, Donna Troy has learned that her own background is a lie. She’s picked that up from Wonder Woman and this reflects the fact that Donna Troy’s identity has been something that writers have been messing around with for decades when she was first introduced on the Teen Titans as a Wonder Girl, which was based off of Bob Haney’s misunderstanding that there actually was a Wonder Girl from seeing covers of Wonder Woman comics when this was actually just Wonder Woman as a girl and not a separate character that he could use but it’s become more serious and it becomes more serious still. The book still has a lot of fun and I think the art is great. Some of the resolutions, the question about old Wally West and his heart, really is addressed and it does intersect some plot points. I think the biggest thing is the crossed on the team because Simon in that first issue, states that there is a traitor on the Titans and that plot plays out and adds to the sense of suspicion on the team. With old Wally, it does put him in this very interesting mental state He is at risk of dying when he uses his powers but he still wants to help people and still wants to be part of the team and he actually has a moment with Donna Troy when he kisses her and that creates some problems with Roy Harper, aka Arsenal,

The Doctor goes to Antartic and finds Vikings, Ice Warriors and a ton of continuity.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: The Doctor arrives in Antarctica to find Vikings and a whole mass of old continuity and then faces a greater challenge when he takes Bill shopping. We'll tell you all about it as we take a look at Dr Who: The Twelfth Doctor – The Wolves of Winter. Straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Host:We're now to the point in the Twelfth Doctor comics continuity where he began to travel with his series 10 companion Bill Potts and they continued on to some adventures in the comics rather than going with one-off comic-only companions. This book contains 4 issues and 2 different stories. The first is a 3-issue story the titular Wolves of Winter, where the Doctor arrives right after Vikings land in Antartica fleeing other Vikings and wanting to protect their treasure and pretty soon there are some mysterious goings on and the Doctor and the Vikings bump into the Ice Warriors and the Ice Warriors are on Earth on the trail of the flood. Now this is another continuity point, if you've been following Doctor Who, going back to the 10th Doctor era, the second to last television stories for the 10th Doctor. The Waters of Mars had the Doctor facing off against a Martian virus that took possession of human host and sought to wipe out everyone at a Mars colony and in many ways this story is before this because we're back in the time of the Vikings, a several hundred years before the events in the Waters of Mars. The Antarctic setting really does create a great sense of atmosphere particularly the way the art is laid out in this book and there is a lot going on.
There is also another villain from the Doctor's past. This one from classic Doctor Who, and I won't reveal it as a big spoiler here, that shows up. I think writer Richard Menic deserves credit for managing to get this to hang together as a story with its own continuity and just really work as a story because there are some Doctor Who stories where they'll just throw out a bunch of continuity. Ooh Dalek, Ooh I Cybermen, Ooh Ice warriors, aren't you impressed but this is actually a really good story with some solid twist and some actual surprises. It does use a lot of continuity and the more that you're into Doctor Who, the more you're going to appreciate this story but I think it is absolutely a solid, well-told tale.
The second story is "The Great Shopping Bill" and in this one, this is after the point in series 10 when it was revealed that Missy was what was being imprisoned in the vault. She had had a sense of death conferred on her for her crimes but the Doctor had decided to rehabilitate her by locking her in this vault and pledging to keep guard on it for as long as it took and not to go off-world, though he does fudge a bit on that during the course of series 10. At any rate, it's found that the dimensional stabilizer is failing and in order to keep the vault secure for Missy, as well as to keep Missy alive, they have to find a new one and it finally occurs, thanks to Bill’s suggestion to go to the Ubermart, which is a giant intergalactic market with anything you could imagine including dimensional stabilizers. Anyway, in the store Bill finds a lost little girl and tries to get her back to her mother. However, there's confusion, robots end up chasing after them, particularly when the Doctor reports Bill missing. It’s a sweet, short little story. It's a fun read, not particularly great but I think enjoyable.
Well overall I thought this was actually a pretty decent volume. I don't think it was great by any means. I think that when Doctor Who comics are truly great,

The Doctor goes to Antartic and finds Vikings, Ice Warriors and a ton of continuity.

Affiliate link included.

Transcript:

Graham: The Doctor arrives in Antarctica to find Vikings and a whole mass of old continuity and then faces a greater challenge when he takes Bill shopping. We’ll tell you all about it as we take a look at Dr Who: The Twelfth Doctor – The Wolves of Winter. Straight ahead.

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.

Host: We’re now to the point in the Twelfth Doctor comics continuity where he began to travel with his series 10 companion Bill Potts and they continued on to some adventures in the comics rather than going with one-off comic-only companions. This book contains 4 issues and 2 different stories. The first is a 3-issue story the titular Wolves of Winter, where the Doctor arrives right after Vikings land in Antartica fleeing other Vikings and wanting to protect their treasure and pretty soon there are some mysterious goings on and the Doctor and the Vikings bump into the Ice Warriors and the Ice Warriors are on Earth on the trail of the flood. Now this is another continuity point, if you’ve been following Doctor Who, going back to the 10th Doctor era, the second to last television stories for the 10th Doctor. The Waters of Mars had the Doctor facing off against a Martian virus that took possession of human host and sought to wipe out everyone at a Mars colony and in many ways this story is before this because we’re back in the time of the Vikings, a several hundred years before the events in the Waters of Mars. The Antarctic setting really does create a great sense of atmosphere particularly the way the art is laid out in this book and there is a lot going on.

There is also another villain from the Doctor’s past. This one from classic Doctor Who, and I won’t reveal it as a big spoiler here, that shows up. I think writer Richard Menic deserves credit for managing to get this to hang together as a story with its own continuity and just really work as a story because there are some Doctor Who stories where they’ll just throw out a bunch of continuity. Ooh Dalek, Ooh I Cybermen, Ooh Ice warriors, aren’t you impressed but this is actually a really good story with some solid twist and some actual surprises. It does use a lot of continuity and the more that you’re into Doctor Who, the more you’re going to appreciate this story but I think it is absolutely a solid, well-told tale.

The second story is “The Great Shopping Bill” and in this one, this is after the point in series 10 when it was revealed that Missy was what was being imprisoned in the vault. She had had a sense of death conferred on her for her crimes but the Doctor had decided to rehabilitate her by locking her in this vault and pledging to keep guard on it for as long as it took and not to go off-world, though he does fudge a bit on that during the course of series 10. At any rate, it’s found that the dimensional stabilizer is failing and in order to keep the vault secure for Missy, as well as to keep Missy alive, they have to find a new one and it finally occurs, thanks to Bill’s suggestion to go to the Ubermart, which is a giant intergalactic market with anything you could imagine including dimensional stabilizers. Anyway, in the store Bill finds a lost little girl and tries to get her back to her mother. However, there’s confusion, robots end up chasing after them, particularly when the Doctor reports Bill missing. It’s a sweet, short little story. It’s a fun read, not particularly great but I think enjoyable.

Well overall I thought this was actually a pretty decent volume. I don’t think it was great by any means. I think that when Doctor Who comics are truly great,

An old enemy returns and why the Kents left Hamilton County.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
There's something weird going on in Hamilton County when Batman comes to town. Find out more about it as we take a look at Superman Volume 4: Black Dawn. Straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
D.C. Rebirth began with Clark Kent and family living in Hamilton County. Clark running a farm with Lois getting rehired to the Planet, first impersonating her younger self and then made the actual Lois Lane with the advance of Superman Reborn, where the 2 timelines were merged. She, and now Clark, have jobs in Metropolis and so, eventually, it’s going to require moving there. I think this has always been in the offing. As much as I like the idea of Clark Kent, rural farmer who super commutes as Superman, I think that these things in comics, there tends to be a gravitational pull back towards a certain status quo and one of those big things is Lois Lane and Clark Kent, reporters for The Daily Planet, working and living in Metropolis. So, this was always going to end and I think that the writers of Superman, where most of the Hamilton County stuff occurred, were really aware of that; that this was not going to last forever and so they actually were pretty clever about it. They worked in little hints throughout the Superman issues that showed some of the weirdness going on in Hamilton County but never focused on it too much except for one issue which didn't seem at the time to really go anywhere but in retrospect, was part of the weirdness going on throughout this.
And so, we come to Black Dawn and in many ways Black Dawn is like a finale of a T.V. series. The book contains issues 20 through 26 with the Black Dawn storyline taking up issues 20 through 25 and you remember Superman is being published every two weeks. Currently, it'll be just monthly when Brian Michael Bendis takes over. So, this is the culmination of a year's worth of storytelling and their writer Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason as the artist, really, it's a great run. I highly recommend it, right from the first volume but at any rate the story begins with Batman coming to town to report some problems with John's powers and some weirdness going on in Hamilton County and Superman, Batman, Robin and his son John, aka Superboy, are doing the general superhero thing of scoping around in the shadows until Lois Lane comes out and shines the light on them and tells them to be like normal people and go indoors to talk and so there is this great picture. This is one of my favorite pictures from the Patrick Gleason art on Superman where you've got Batman and Superman sitting at the kitchen table of farmhouse along with Robin and Superboy and you've got the rooster clock in the background and it's just as beautiful for how out of place and awkward Batman looks in this picture. It's got one of these great lines, where because Batman doesn't eat his pie, and Superboy asked “Doesn't your dad like Apple?” and Robin whispers, “Batman doesn’t eat pie.”, and it’s just a beautiful, weird little thing and I just love that. It's really emblematic of the sort of fun this series has had. Really, it's just a tremendous picture and it's one of my favorites in this run so I love that and essentially Batman reveals that there's weird readings and that John's powers are being repressed, for some reason, and he's here to investigate and everybody goes to bed but Batman wanders out on his own and is captured. So, it's a serious situation and other people disappear and get captured. Lois finds herself alone in the farmhouse and so we get an issue where Lois is dealing with being alone in this really weird...

An old enemy returns and why the Kents left Hamilton County.

Affiliate link included.

Transcript:

There’s something weird going on in Hamilton County when Batman comes to town. Find out more about it as we take a look at Superman Volume 4: Black Dawn. Straight ahead.

[Intro Music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.

D.C. Rebirth began with Clark Kent and family living in Hamilton County. Clark running a farm with Lois getting rehired to the Planet, first impersonating her younger self and then made the actual Lois Lane with the advance of Superman Reborn, where the 2 timelines were merged. She, and now Clark, have jobs in Metropolis and so, eventually, it’s going to require moving there. I think this has always been in the offing. As much as I like the idea of Clark Kent, rural farmer who super commutes as Superman, I think that these things in comics, there tends to be a gravitational pull back towards a certain status quo and one of those big things is Lois Lane and Clark Kent, reporters for The Daily Planet, working and living in Metropolis. So, this was always going to end and I think that the writers of Superman, where most of the Hamilton County stuff occurred, were really aware of that; that this was not going to last forever and so they actually were pretty clever about it. They worked in little hints throughout the Superman issues that showed some of the weirdness going on in Hamilton County but never focused on it too much except for one issue which didn’t seem at the time to really go anywhere but in retrospect, was part of the weirdness going on throughout this.

And so, we come to Black Dawn and in many ways Black Dawn is like a finale of a T.V. series. The book contains issues 20 through 26 with the Black Dawn storyline taking up issues 20 through 25 and you remember Superman is being published every two weeks. Currently, it’ll be just monthly when Brian Michael Bendis takes over. So, this is the culmination of a year’s worth of storytelling and their writer Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason as the artist, really, it’s a great run. I highly recommend it, right from the first volume but at any rate the story begins with Batman coming to town to report some problems with John’s powers and some weirdness going on in Hamilton County and Superman, Batman, Robin and his son John, aka Superboy, are doing the general superhero thing of scoping around in the shadows until Lois Lane comes out and shines the light on them and tells them to be like normal people and go indoors to talk and so there is this great picture. This is one of my favorite pictures from the Patrick Gleason art on Superman where you’ve got Batman and Superman sitting at the kitchen table of farmhouse along with Robin and Superboy and you’ve got the rooster clock in the background and it’s just as beautiful for how out of place and awkward Batman looks in this picture. It’s got one of these great lines, where because Batman doesn’t eat his pie, and Superboy asked “Doesn’t your dad like Apple?” and Robin whispers, “Batman doesn’t eat pie.”, and it’s just a beautiful, weird little thing and I just love that. It’s really emblematic of the sort of fun this series has had. Really, it’s just a tremendous picture and it’s one of my favorites in this run so I love that and essentially Batman reveals that there’s weird readings and that John’s powers are being repressed, for some reason, and he’s here to investigate and everybody goes to bed but Batman wanders out on his own and is captured. So, it’s a serious situation and other people disappear and get captured. Lois finds herself alone in the farmhouse and so we get an issue where Lois is dealing with being alone in this really...