Wow I completely fell in love with this and ordered volume 2-3 right away.

So the first story is probably one of the most famous stories. You know the famous image of Wonder Woman's boot on Batman's face? (WE KNOW YOU LIKED IT BATMAN) Well...this is hiketeia. A woman who is being hunted by the Batman for killing people goes to Diana for sanctuary. After doing a Hiketeia which is basically a vow to protect that person, it puts Batman and Wonder Woman verses each other.

This story is great, filled with quick pacing, great art, wonderful bitter moments between two fights who HAVE to fight with a legit reason, and a sad but strong ending. Overall, I can see why so many people hold this as a classic for Wonder Woman. It is THAT good.

The next few arcs in here focus on Diana as she releases a book. This book is all about her view points and trying to preach love and such to everyone. This is a great view into the world of Wonder Woman as we take multiple points of views of people around her, down to even a new assistant. This won't be for everyone as it is very down to earth but I love the political nature of this arc and a very scary "villain' in the sense she's not some hulking god or something.

We also get multiple stories running here and that includes the gods fucking around because...well that's what they do. But when War has his eye on Diana once more he begins to play his family to get back at Diana, which cause a major event to happen that not even HE could see coming.

Overall, I was engrossed the entire time. Each issue made me want to read more and Rucka was a master at giving us SO many plot lines but making it very easy to follow. I can't recommend this title enough.

Also, 500th book read in 2020! WHOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Okay 4.5 out of 5.

A tale you might have seen before but thanks to the amazing art and Lemire's solid dialogue, it rises above the rest.

Let me make it clear I'm not a huge Joker fan. I think he's a great advisory to Batman, and he's downright disturbing at points, but as a character he's not even in my top 10. I dislike his movie, usually his solo books kind of suck, and I'm just not a fan. Luckily here we have Lemire focus on a therapist who's trying to break through to the Joker but we all know that's not going to happen, so we watch a sad tale of destruction.

Similiar to last years Harleen, we know the end results. So watching it unfold is just the dreadful feeling of loss. The doctor here has a family but you can already begin to see the cracks in him as early as the first part. By the middle of the story we are revealed huge things that change the rest of the plot.

Overall, the imagery is great and twisted, what I want in a Joker tale. I also really enjoyed the voices of the characters, even the joker, who seems much more down to earth yet still comical at times. The ending was solid enough too that I was interested throughout.

The one off Bat story was pretty meh though.

Overall, a 3.5 out of 5.

Yeah, I'm feeling this Manga more and more.

This one picks up RIGHT where the last volume left off. Maki and Megumi are working together to try and take down the cursed creature Hanami. What I love is that the creatures actually feel STRONG. Like our heroes struggle consistently over and over again. So once our heroes can't seem to defeat Hanami we get Aoi and Yuji to show up. We know these motherfuckin' badasses gonna lay the smack down.

I think the thing I loved most is the second half of this is super fun. Aoi Todo and Yuji Itadori really work well together, their fighting styles are great, and the fight scene itself is a blast. Watching them work in unison, almost brother and brother like, is just great. We also get some cool new moves and an amazing ending.

While the first half was good, it wasn't until the second half it went amazing. A 4 out of 5.

Took me a long time to finish this one haha. But in the end I ended up really enjoying it.

Judith Coin is a rockstar and he is now being haunted by a sick fuck who knows how to control people with his voice. So Judith and Mary Beth, his girlfriend, go on the run from the ghost. In this novel they basically are traveling across country to try and stop a ghost from killing them. With their two big doggies as their warriors. It sounds weird right? It is. But it's also highly entertaining and somehow gets emotional by the end.

I really enjoyed the twist and turns. I guessed some of them but most were presented well. I also thought the villains were truly disgusting and sick, and this is a book filled with them. The best part is they don't really present our "heroes" in a positive light but they are far better than the villains. And isn't that life? There's bad, but there's always someone worse.

The sexual violence that occurs is mostly off screen but it's none the less hard to hear. Especially when it involves kids. So if you don't want to hear that I'd suggest maybe not reading this. But if you can stomach it, the tale is pretty solid, there's some spooky parts, and a emotional payoff that works well.

A 4 out of 5.

A deadly virus is spreading quick through the city by any means necessary. The biggest way is coughing and the virus getting onto other people.

Sounds like 2020? But this was made in 1996!

So Gotham is under a lot of pressure as a deadly virus begins to spread and Batman and Co have to find a way to stop this. With the help of Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing, and Azurel. So this let's the book spin off from various titles to let expand the world. While Batman looks to Poison Ivy to fix the problem, Robin and company go to try and find people who have survive the virus first. This is basically a chase to whomever can get the cure first before more people die.

Some parts are stronger than others. Easily the two best stories going are Batman trying to convince Poison Ivy for help and Robin working with Cat Woman as it is entertaining. The strongest part to me was the start and also the chapter that focused on different points of view the night of the virus. The strongest story in the entire collection for me was Robin suffering from the virus and you see into his mind for a bit, ending on a speechless and sad moment.

Overall, this event of Batman was pretty fun. Sure having various writers makes the quality jump up and down. I especially think Azurel chapters were pretty bad. The art was atrocious for that. But worse of all he's a key part of the fix for the virus, and I had to force myself to get through his stuff. But the rest ranged from decent to great. Overall a good story worth checking out, especially during this Pandemic.

A 3 out of 5.

Wow what a pile of horse shit to end the Pre-New52 superman line.

What's worse than 1 doomsday? MULTIPLE.

This has all the heroes kidnapped from the previous volume now having to work together to take down Doomsday. A new and improve Doomsday who's smart and can speak. But before we can get to that jumble of fun we deal with Luthor being a giant force of cosmic shit. He's just big giant red and angry and can do weird shit. What's happening? I have no damn clue.

Anyway this shit is just boring. We have our heroes doing the same shit with little to no consequences when fighting multiple different doomsday. The worst part is this was supposed to be the last Hooray for our Original Superman run but it was kind of dogshit...

A 1 out of 5.

A horror filled with more real life horror and covered up with "monsters" to help illustrate the horrors of it all.

So the book starts with our two main characters, El and Vee, and right off the bat they're in a weird town filled with creatures that are monsters like half Deer humans, skinless men, and more. So when they awake in the theater and question what the hell happened, asking the guy who works there and not getting anywhere, they begin their investigation of the town and its dark past and secrets that are more horrifying than any "creature" out there.

And where The Low, Low Woods does well is it's characters. I liked Vee and El a lot because I like fucked up characters that aren't perfect and neither is. They're just trying to get through life, both being gay, and both trying to find their place in this screwed up town while also trying to get the hell out. The art gives a nice vibe of creepiness while also able to show good expression on character's faces. I also really dug the reveal, even if it's fucked up, they handled it well and the metaphors are well placed.

The things that didn't work for me as much is the fact this seems to be the author's first "comic" and so the dialogue can be a bit over preachy and much. This is common when authors of novels jump to comics. So I didn't take it to heart but the over-monologue and just general overwriting was getting a bit much by the end. I also thought the "scary" factor wasn't that well done. We could have gotten better monsters. Especially compared to what they represent and show, we could have for sure gotten "scarier" ones as a good metaphor.

Saying that this was still a pretty enjoyable read. A good first impression into the Joe Hill comic line. Excited to read more. A 3.5 out of 5.

Naruto goes full berserk and unleashes his 4 tails form to fight mr. Michael Jackson. The fight is explosive with some great visuals, and it helps that we get some more background to the new leader of the group and a interesting direction for everyone else. A solid volume. A 3 out of 5.

Hellblazer returns to its R rated Roots while going under the Sandman Universe Umbrella. But is it good?

Simon Spurrier decides to basically have our boy Constantine say "Fuck the last few years of my stories, they don't count" and you know what? I'm very okay with that. I read New 52 Constantine and holy fucking shit people, that was horrible. This is deep into the dark, twisted, and screwed up world of John and Spurrier gets it.

The story starts off weird with events happening out of order but once we get into the main story where it focuses on individual stories we have John dealing with gangs, a new age of people who uses magic but not very skilled at it, and a vicious spirit sucking the soul out of people in a hospital. These are the dark, twisted, and grimy tales I like out of my Hellblazer stories.

Saying that, there is some negatives. I think the art change between stories is DRASTIC and hard to get used to at points. I also think the main villain, won't spoil it, is kind of cheesy in the fact it's someone very close to John. Also, I think it's a bit hard to understand all the slang, sometimes I have to re-read things.

Saying that I was pretty engrossed the whole time. Laughed, horrified, and amazed this is what Hellblazer should have been for the last 8 years. A great start, so sad it got canned already at issue 12. A 4 out of 5.

In all my years of comics I can't believe I never read Knightfall.

I mean most people know of Bane. The one who broke Batman's back. If you didn't pre-2010's you for sure did after Christopher Nolan's Batman Dark Knight Rises (Fuck this movie though, so bad, so boring, so many what the fuck illogical moments) but Bane is a big deal. He was the center piece main villain in Tom King's Batman's run recently and has always been up there with names like "The Joker, Scarecrow, Riddler" and more.

But man oh man, this is the best Bane has ever been IMO.

So this huge collection of over 600 pages is a bit exhausting to read. Not in the sense they're bad stories. No, the storyline is Bane using every villain of Batman to wear the guy down. The Prelude of Batman already showed a tired bruce. Here though, we see Bruce go through the ringer like never before. Villain after villain, dire situation after another, until the guy can barely walk and keeps making stupid mistakes.

Even more so you get Bane in a light I've never really seen him. Destructive, cunning, a man with a mission. To watch Bane go from a little boy with a terrible life to a man hellbent on getting anything he wants by using both his brawn and brain, makes him one of Bruce's toughest opponents yet. A really solid origin helps make Bane almost relatable, if not understandable, despite is disgusting actions.

Now this isn't to say we have a perfect story. With a book this big we do have some padding here and there. The weakest links being Alan Grants Shadow Batman story which is all about Jean Paul as Batman. A more unhinged version of the Batman using whatever means necessary to win the fight. While I did enjoy some Jean Paul stories this 3 part scarecrow one was long and boring IMO. I also thought some of Catwoman storylines didn't go anywhere either and odd placement.

But the main story of Bruce losing himself to the fight to save Gotham is pretty great. Both mentally and physically he is pushed to his limits and Bane behind it all is wonderful. The contrast between them even better. By the 2/3rd mark we have the famous breaking the bat moment and it is brutal as hell. Even more so is the last fight between Bane and Azrael (Now with his hip new 90's suit) and man oh man, he is brutal against Bane.

Overall, I really enjoyed this collection. Sure some 90's corniness slips in, and each writer's style is different, but the end result is both solid and impactful. I just hope the other two volumes hold up. A 4 out of 5.