The New 52 hits UK newsagents with an anthology featuring Justice League, Action Comics and Green Lantern.

A reasonable compromise between the simplistic entertainment of Batman video games, the pop art spectacle of the 1960s TV show and Nolan’s more adult approach.

‘Knight of Vengeance’ is very good work, a beautifully assembled comic that just happened to leave me cold.

‘DC Universe Presents’ is the latest UK title to reprint US comics for the UK newsstand, and with one great story and two quite good ones it represents very good value for your three quid.

‘Under the Red Hood’ manages the surprising feat of taking a comic book story mired in sprawling continuity and turning it into a highly enjoyable, accessible action thriller.

‘Detective Comics’ #866 marks the return of Denny O’Neil to Batman comics, and it’s cracking stuff.

Writer Paul Levitz revisits the future of ‘Batman Beyond’ in a story that, in spite of being set in a dystopia, provides an upbeat and refreshing alternative to most of DC’s current books.

‘King Tut’s Tomb’ collects three issues of ‘Batman: Confidential’, smartly re-inventing a villain from the 1960s ‘Batman’ TV show as a far more serious threat in a story well-served by the gorgeous pencils of José Luis García-López.

If Grant Morrison’s introduction is to be believed, the comics chosen for DC’s ‘The Black Casebook’ – a collection of Batman issues from the 50s and 60s which influenced Morrison’s run – are generally unpopular among Batman fans, owing to their supernatural and sci-fi content.

‘First Wave’ features a curious mash-up of DC heroes (including a gun-toting Batman) and pulp characters (Doc Savage), as well as throwing in the Spirit for good measure. The first issue is passable, but not terribly exciting.

The latest animated incarnation of Batman has been running in the States for a while and is, I believe, shown in the UK at an hour in the morning that I refuse to acknowledge the existence of. Thankfully, it’s being very slowly released on DVD, four episodes at a time.
With ‘The Dark Knight’ providing a [...]

… Bolton Wanderers Nil.

A messy pulp.

Or ‘Thursday Comics’, for readers in the UK.

Fun with Dick and Damian… oh, and Azrael too.

From being pencilled by Bob Kane to being made into a game by Rocksteady: a birthday look at Batman both in the beginning and in 2009.

I love DC Comics…

Bruce Wayne RIP?

A review of this week’s ‘Batman: Gotham Knight’, and a bit about ‘New Frontier’ and ‘Superman: Doomsday’ while we’re at it…

Tim Burton’s sequel to ‘Batman’ is riddled with perverse decision making – not only is it a big summer movie set at Christmas, but it’s also loaded with bleak moments of humorous violence and fetishistic relationships…

Just in case you thought this advent calendar business was all going to be dewy eyed nostalgia about the movies we used to watch on TV when we were still young… here’s something new.

Like ‘All-Star Superman’, this is a series Grant Morrison has been preparing to write for his entire career, and it shows…

Comics’ oldest continually published title has a new, super-star creative team and by the look of this first issue, it’s going to be an outstanding run.

Call me a heretic but, outside of ‘Year One’, Frank Miller’s Batman has never gelled for me. He is, in the writer’s own words, not a human being but ‘the god of vengeance’. He’s also ethically to the right of Nietzche.

It’s ‘One Year Later’ in Gotham, and everything new is old again…

As 2006 begins, now is the last chance we’ll have to round-up all those things that Shiny Shelf should have reviewed in 2005 but, due to the constraints of time and competence, didn’t get around to. ..

If 2004 was, as we said at the time, the year of late arrivals and revivals, 2005 was a year of completing, and contrasting, circles.

‘Infinite Crisis’ #3 is another confused and confusing issue of the potboiling mini-series.

If I go for too long without reading a satisfying Batman comic, my flesh begins to itch…

I was, I’ll admit it, really quite moved by the final page of ‘Infinite Crisis’ #1 the appearance of Kal-L, the Golden Age Superman, the first, best, character in super hero comics and the progenitor of the whole of this medium’s primary genre.

After months and months of the set up burbling away in the background, much of it rather humdrum and offputting, the first actual issue of Infinite Crisis is here.

I like it.

By getting Frank Miller and Jim Lee together, the first book in DC’s new ‘All Star’ line certainly lives up to its name…

Aaaah, do you remember the bad old days of Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies? Somnambulistic actors, insultingly deabsed versions of beloved characters and only the sight of Alicia Silverstone in a grey pleated miniskirt to keep one awake?

In today’s crowded media market, you have to get your ideas across quickly and clearly and there’s no better way of doing that than reworking an idea people know already…

Three crossover titles out this week – House of M #1, Superman/Batman #20, and Marvel Team-Up #9.

To make up for the recent drought, here’s a random round-up of last week’s comics, in alphabetical order, to keep you going.

Some kind of error has meant that this issue of ‘Batman’ has gone out with Judd Winick’s name on the cover when he didn’t write that which is inside it.

To my great alarm and not inconsiderable shock, I now live in a town without a comic shop…

It’s “Batman: The Anime Series” essentially with an palette of colours and backgrounds seemingly drawn from Japanimation and character designs that seem to come via ‘Digimon’ or ‘Ultimate Muscle’.

Anyone expecting an Eddie Campbell ‘Batman’ comic set in historic London to have a ‘From Hell’ level of intensity and complexity is going to be a bit disappointed by ‘The Order of the Beasts’…

Yep, it’s this title again… already. What can we say? DC are throwing talent at this book, with interesting results…

‘Gotham Knights’ has been a blighted title since its inception. With issue #50, a change of approach has arrived…

In theory, the combination of indie-comics creators with big mainstream properties is a win-win deal. This isn’t necessarily how it always works…

I read this latest issue of ‘Detective Comics’ under what are perhaps the ideal conditions for reviewing a mainstream comic…

Some ideas are as good or as bad as the execution. So much of ‘New Frontier’ sounds terrible in abstract – but in the hands of writer/artist/genius Darwyn Cooke, this may well be the superhero series of the year…

After a couple of issues mostly comprised of big long punch-ups, this issue of ‘Superman/Batman’ provides the payoff – and it’s more than I was expecting…

After Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s award winning ‘Hush’, DC have decided to maintain momentum on the main Batbook by bringing in the entire team behind the Eisner-winning Vertigo title ‘100 Bullets’…

It’s ironic that Greg Rucka should count Two-Face as one of his favourite Bat-villains, as the former ‘Detective Comics’ writer seems equally split between good and bad…

It looks like DC has got sick of being accused of having dropped the ball these last couple of years…

You know, you’re probably thinking that’s it’s ridiculous that it’s taken us five days to review last week’s ‘Batman’, and you’re right.