Posted in: Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: Batman, dc comics, Ivan PlascenciaBatman The Shadow #1, pulp comics, pulp stories, riley rossmo, scott snyder, steve orlando, the shadow

What Fear Lurks In The Heart Of Batman: Batman/The Shadow #1 Review

Published Fri, 26 May 2017 07:00:14 -0500

by Baltimore Lauren

Comments

Finally, a series I'm seriously excited for. My love of pulp heroes is strong, and when you combine any of them with Batman (a pulp-inspired hero), I'm pretty much the happiest little camper alive. The book is overall fantastic, but there were some things I didn't enjoy, which I'll get to in a minute.

The Easter eggs in this book are awesome. When Bruce is in the Batcave trying to figure out what happened, he calls up a case titles "Case File 1994", and The Shadow movie came out in 1994. "Cowl Footage 1931" is homage to the year The Shadow made his pulp debut.

Scott Snyder and Steve Orlando have clearly done their homework, as they write the book as a pulp story. I was annoyed by how stupid Batman came off as, but I understand that since Batman was inspired by The Shadow, maybe Shadow should be smarter than Batman. I'm just not used to Batman being taken by surprise. And The Shadow is written perfectly — he's a mysterious asshole who can change his appearance. I appreciate that.

Riley Rossmo is a perfectly fine artist. His line art style is a little too cartoonish in some parts for what I would want in this story, but it adds an element of fun. I also just like the way he draws The Shadow. But it's colorist Ivan Plascencia who steals the show. He sets up the drama and mystery with clever uses of shadows and contrasting colors.

Overall, I'll be keeping this in my pull list. I know the second issue just came out (I'll review it soon, I promise), so here's hoping Batman gets his wits about him sooner rather than later.

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