Batman Retro Active – 1980’s

So I decided I needed another outlet for my thoughts on comics and thought a totally negative connotation would be fun.

The “new” 1980’s story was done by Mike Barr and Jerry Bingham and all in all it was well done. Aping the style of that era makes me wonder if Barr could write for comics today as the style of writing today is dramatically different. Heck in reading the 1970’s Batman it was almost unreadable. Done in that style but made me wonder why I read comics at all during that era. It is not a coincidence that I stopped reading comics as I was turning 15 / 16 and at the same time we were in the 1970s. 

Comic books have been growing up over the years I have been reading them, which is since the early sixties. DC stayed in the mode of writing for 8-12 year olds and the growth spurts that it took for their comics to become more sophisticated were pretty painful. The 70’s were some lowlights, at the same time some of the best things were starting to happen. One step forward and two steps back.

This issue was impressive and Jerry Bingham still can draw and does a very good job with Batman. We get a new story of Batman and the Jason Todd Robin. The Reaper has returned and Batman has to stop him, some fun twists and turns, building on old continuity and a clean wrap up as we find almost every character introduced was a bad guy. Hard to deliver anymore then what we got given the assignment is to do a “new” story from that era and tell it in 26 pages. Personally I think DC should have given them Jason Aaron’s solo story issue of Scalped #35 as an example of what can be done in one issue, but again this was a very narrow assignment.

So I like this issue, so why do comic books suck? Because the backup reprint is part one of the Year Two Batman Story about the Reaper. Who wants to read part one of anything? That sucks.