If you’ve been holding out on reading DC’s anthology series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, issue #13 is a good jumping-on point with three new multi-part stories kicking off. That’s not all; an ongoing Artemis tale continues, and the usual black-and-white one-shot ends everything on a high note. That’s right: today, it’s another great edition of the best comic anthology coming out today.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13 opens with “Nightwing & Deadman: Down the Road” by Tim Seeley and Kelley Jones. If you dig Jones’ macabre work, you’ll enjoy this tale, especially when Deadman shows up. The story opens with Nightwing attempting to save a woman who jumps from a bridge, but there isn’t a body to be found. After running through all the magic users he knows, he’s eventually visited by Deadman, who has a good idea of where to look next.
Outside of the amazing visuals, Seeley does some interesting stuff with Deadman, comes up with a nifty way he can speak to Nightwing, and connects their backgrounds in the circus. The two are clearly going to bond on this multi-part story.
Next up is “Time Jerks” by Mark Russell and Jon Mikel, which shows just how careless Booster Gold can be when he crashes on Earth 65 million years ago. This story weaves in the semi-recent dinosaur Justice League with some surprising results. Not only does Russell nail Booster Gold’s voice, but the art looks fabulous every step of the way. There’s a nice bit of humor thrown in, but the serious ramifications of the cliffhanger are going to have you coming back for part two of the next issue.
Nobody does it as creepy as Jones.
Credit: DC Comics
“Artemis: The Poison Within” continues with part four by Delilah S. Dawson and Serg Acuna. This story has been slow going, but the action ramps up this issue as Artemis fights an army. Acuna stretches the panels with a cinematic style as Artemis moves quicker than an army can track. The plot progression continues to be insanely slow, but this story is good for an intense action scene.
Next, Joshua Hale Fialkov and Lisandro Estherren take a creepy sci-fi path with “The Invader,” part 1. The story has Batman follow an alien crash landing with some surprising results. Throw in a Green Lantern team up and it’s a worthy candidate to come back for part two next month. The cliffhanger is certainly going to entertain fans of aliens and the painterly art is just gorgeous to eyeball.
“Perp Walk” is the final story, which has a plot and art by Jason Shawn Alexander with a story by Rodney Barnes. First off, Alexander will blow your mind with a cool Batmobile design. The Elseworlds story is an intriguing one, too. It proposes Batman and Joker have a trauma bond, so what would happen if a person killed Joker to break that bond? The art is excellent in this story, which forces Batman to reconcile what the murderer has done and if he’s lost more than just an enemy.
Yet another great issue can be had with Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13, which offers three new starting points, a good one-shot, and excellent action in another. You can’t lose if you pick up this issue!
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