Batman: Reptilian

Product Information

Gotham City is filled with murderous creatures who stalk the shadows--foul villains with murderous impulses who strike fear into the hearts of every man, woman, and child in the city. But what strikes fear into the hearts of those who terrorize the city? It used to be Batman, but something far more frightening than a mere man has begun stalking the shadows—and it’s after Gotham’s villains. How savage must a monster be to haunt the dreams of monsters?

The End... Or Is It?: The monster is killed, and Killer Croc is arrested, but Batman remarks that Croc is still mutating, and could become something even worse in the future. Garth Ennis usually only tangentially writes about superheroes in his comics, and often subversively, like in The Boys, The Punisher, Kev, etc. - they’re never the main feature. And, aside from a short run on Ghost Rider, I don’t think he’s ever written a mainstream superhero comic and has only written Batman as a side-character in books like Hitman and Section Eight.

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I don't even wanna go into what happens storywise and I even less want to talk about what little left there is of waylons character to take serious!

Ennis: For me, the book isn’t a tribute to Steve, it’s just something that in practical terms exists because of him. I don’t think anyone would be too surprised to learn that were I to celebrate Steve’s life it wouldn’t be with a Batman comic or any kind of comic -- it would be with a large donation to his favourite charitable cause, the Arthur Guinness Foundation. But I do like to think of him having a good old laugh at Mr. I-hate-superheroes ending up writing Batman. The artstyle does not fit that at all... don't get me wrong I love the art, hence the 3 stars but the dark brooding mood it evokes combined with this humor ... Ennis' Batman has more of a sense of humor but it's a biting, insulting one. His attitude towards criminals comes off the same as a rich person who is inconvenienced by someone less fortunate. I think most Batman fans have a definitive version in their mind and Ennis' is a jarring change that doesn't come off as very heroic.In Gotham City, either Batman or Killer Croc were the two most dangerous things lurking in the city’s shadows.

This book has been described as a tribute to Steve Dillon, someone you've worked with for a long time on titles like Preacher and his loss is still felt nearly five years later. How did you want to celebrate Steve's life and legacy with this book? So it’s surprising to see Ennis finally write a Batman book, and also very disappointing, as both a fan of Ennis and Batman, to discover that Reptilian was so bad!I would hate to live in a world where comics characters never changed. Or rather, I wouldn’t care because I would have stopped reading comics when I was a child. Because they wouldn’t have remained interesting to me because they’d never changed. Or, to put it a bit differently, nobody would have had the imagination or guts to have written them “out of character.” This is hilarious, but its sad at the same time! In a nutshell: If you want a grounded deep story that takes the character of waylon jones serious then ignore this book. And if Batman had always been written “in character” he’d still be carrying a gun and killing people. Superman wouldn’t be able to fly. Wonder Woman would be a dominatrix. And a Justice League with those three “in character” characters would have been unimaginable, which reminds me why this drives me up a wall—because it comes, more than anything else, from a failure of imagination. Batman: Reptilian #1 is my favorite Batman comic I’ve read in a while. Garth Ennis is a master of balancing dark subject matter with a sense of humor and his take on Batman is highly entertaining. Liam Sharp’s intricate art style pairs well with the stripped down narrative that follows Batman as he interrogates a couple of goons in a refreshingly to the point manner. While it likely won’t hold mass appeal, those who are on the same wavelength as Ennis and Sharp will find themselves wanting the next issue as soon as possible. Self-Deprecation: There are a number of snarky remarks about Batman being nothing but a rich guy with too much time on his hands, most of them courtesy of Alfred.

Batman, as a character, has become part of global popular culture, popular being here a way of highlighting a certain anthropological and social attitude towards what might be called modern folklore. Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, Batman has been the subject of many changes, many interpretations (and, also, reinterpretation), a necessity given its long – seemingly unending – life.In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name). Animalistic Abomination: The monster. No one who sees it can really describe what it is, beyond the fact that it's huge, vicious, and reptilian. According to Mr. Freeze, "it makes Croc look like someone's pet turtle." Ironically, it turns out it's actually Killer Croc's offspring.