Batman '66, Volume 5

You look at the cover and you're probably saying 'Batman '66 never fought against Solomon Grundy or Clayface!' However, you have to remember that this DC comics webseries turned comic book is supposed to be an imagining of what could have been if ABC never destroyed the sets and NBC picked up Batman for a fourth season!

Plus, you would be wrong in your assumptions about Grundy and perhaps Clayface. If you are like me and you remember the awesomely terrible Legends of the Superheroes and the even worse sequel, the Adam West Batman along with the Burt Ward Robin went up against Solomon Grundy, played by character actor Mickey Morton. Plus, it's a fan theory that the one-shot villain False Face, played by heavy Malachi Thorne, was in fact Basil Karloff, the first Clayface! Well, thanks to Jeff Parker, that theory became reality with a story that sees False Face falling into a polluted swamp and becoming the Matt Hagen version of Clayface!

This volume is sadly the last volume collection of Batman '66 stories. Thus, I think with cancellation on the horizon, the creative team got a chance to give their wildest wishes a chance to get the Batman '66 treatment. Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy and Bane all make debuts. I loved every page, though there was just a little too much of Marsha, Queen of Diamonds. She's in 2 issues!!! I'd rather give Shame or the Minstrel another chance to shine.

There's a great story where Barbara Gordon takes a temp job at an ad agency that gets held hostage by the Big Four: Catwoman, Joker, Riddler and the Penguin. They want the ad execs to create a campaign, changing their reputation as villains. Unable to change into Batgirl, Barbara has to use her wits and the baddies' hubris to play the antagonists against each other. It's a brilliant story that doesn't see any capes!

Unfortunately, we never get a Batman '66/Superman '52 team-up. Though we come really close in the last issue! The Allred Family wrap up the series with a brilliant tale that reveals true story behind the battle Batman and Robin undertake in the animated sequence performed every episode, during the show's theme song. Towards the very end, we get an amazing cameo of George Reeves' Clark Kent, as well as several other appearances by characters who might have existed in the '66 universe. 

This volume wraps up my having read everything tied into the classic 60s TV version of the Caped Crusader.  I still have a Wonder Woman '77 team up with the Bionic Woman and some of the other more recent releases to go. But hopefully we'll get some more adventures of the Gothamites of 1966. I can understand DC wanting a cooling off period to not over-saturate the brand. But the number of devotees to that show are dwindling. We're not getting any younger. Here's to hoping we don't have to wait until 2066 for further adventures...

Worth Consuming!

Rating 9 out of 10 stars.

Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive

Incorruptible cop Dick Tracy is one of those properties that is visually stunning. With it's bright colors and ever so colorful villains, you can't look away from this gritty crime comic created by Chester Gould. 

My biggest problem with Dick Tracy was that it wasn't readily available in my area growing up as a kid. You would think a big city such as Raleigh, NC would have a newspaper that carried Dick Tracy. But except for when I would travel into very rural country to see either my grandmama or my great-grandmother, I never got to read Tracy's exploits all that often.

I was a big fan of the Warren Beatty picture from the 90s. Being only 11 or 12, I didn't know that it was supposed to suck. But even looking at the film today, you can't deny that the producers and make-up team did a pretty darn good job of making a comic strip come alive on the silver screen.

When it was announced last year that Dick Tracy was coming to comics in an all-new series and that not just one, but 3 Allreds were to be involved, I was overjoyed. Michael and his brother, Lee Allred wrote the script to this quasi-modern rebooted origin of the world's greatest cop. Comics legend Michael also penciled everything with his equally legendary wife Laura coloring the book. Dark Corridor's Rich Tommaso inked the book and he's so good at it that his inks don't flush out Mike Allred's iconic art style. 

I thought that this was a great origin tale. It had a classic feel to it with very little modern changes. Dick Tracy had always been ahead of it's time with two-way radio wrist-watches and engine-less cop cars. Thus, any new changes to the technology, while far-out, didn't seem all that odd. 

The extra material was really my only complaint. There's a timeline of important moments in Dick Tracy history which I really enjoyed. But for some reason, it stops abruptly sometime in the 1950s without any warning or explanation. Are later years planned for future collected works of Dick Tracy comics? I know that there's a new Dick Tracy miniseries being published right now (Dick Tracy Forever). Is that the plan? A small blurb promising such would have been greatly appreciated.

Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive was a super fun book by those amazing Allreds. I love their work so freakin' much. I hate that the only blemish to this awesome miniseries from IDW Publishing was the director's cut material which is left unfinished. It just doesn't seem fair. But I must stick to my ratings. Otherwise, this was a nearly flawless work.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.