Post by BigPapaJoe on Sept 15, 2019 9:15:04 GMT -5
Written by Neal Adams
Art by Neal Adams
Damn. I wanted to like this book. I was really excited for a couple of months when I heard it was coming out. Neal Adams is arguably my favorite comic artist ever, but when it comes to his writing...not a fan. I gave up on Batman Odyssey pretty quickly. It was just too strange. While this doesn't seem as wacky, Neal's depiction of Batman is really old school, and the dialogue is really dated. I don't mind that, but I guess with Batman being depicted as he has the last 35 years or so...this just isn't cutting it. Also, Neal just seemed to barely establish any backgrounds. Which isn't unusual for him, but compared to his older stuff he at least had more invested in the panels. Here, the building are really just sketched out essentially. I know he's doing this comic all on his own, and DC just seems to let him down whatever since he's a legend, but it's still a little jarring. Neal Adam's Batman is of course in his 1970's garb, and the other two popular characters Adams is known for doing are here: Deadman and Ra's Al Ghul. Probably too much to expect Adams to start drawing Batman in his more modern day getup, but that's fine. The actual story so far isn't a bad idea. Ra's essentially offering overrun Gotham his own special fighting force, and Batman not being on board with it. It's just the execution to me was a little disappointing. It's Neal Adams though, and I'll keep reading, as long as it's not what Odyssey was.
I respect the heck out of Neal Adams, and of course his artwork is legendary, but his writing skills, not so much.
Odyssey was so bad I couldn't continue to force myself to read it and quit about halfway through.
The only way I would ever buy a Neal Adams-written book is if he had a co-writer, and then I would wait to hear the reviews after it's done and collected.
Chances of this happening ? pretty slim.