Paul Gulacy

A quintessential early Batman story. Batman is still trying to figure out how to coexist with the police force in Gotham so he won’t have to be up against both them and the criminals. He knows his greatest link is Gordon, but Gordon too must walk a tight rope within the force.

Amidst this, Dr. Hugo Strange is brought in as a specialist to assist the force in catching Batman once and for all. But the police have no idea how obsessed Strange is with Batman and he quickly takes the mission off the rails.

There was some more theming that questions how Batman is different than the criminals themselves and some great scenes between him and Catwoman in this volume.… (more)

I first became aware of this during the early run up to The Dark Knight Rises when Anne Hathaway was in as Catwoman and Tom Hardy was rumored to be Hugo Strange -- there were quite a few people who were convinced that Rises was going to be an adaptation of Prey. It's a pretty good story, with Batman facing down Hugo Strange and Catwoman for the first time. It's clearly something that came out of the wake of Year One, down to the cursive Batman narration/printed Gordon narration. I think it has a strong start, but sort of loses its way towards the end -- I would have liked to see more of the early Catwoman, but she seems really underused here. The art is a nice build on Mazzuchelli's work in Year zone in a few different ways and has some nicely staged fight scenes. Overall pretty solid, but not quite classic.… (more)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission. Title: Bloodmatch Series: Batman versus Predator Author/Artist: Doug Moench, et al Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Graphic Novel/Comic Pages: 144 Format: Digital scan Synopsis: A rogue Predator comes to Gotham to take on Batman. A group of Rule Keepers [for lack of a better word] is after the Rogue Predator. At the same time, a group of Super Mercs have been hired to take out Batman. So you have Predator versus Predator, Predator versus Batman, Predator versus Mercs and Batman versus Mercs. If that isn't complicated enough, the Huntress is hunting down the criminal who hired the mercs and gets involved herself. My Thoughts: This wasn't as enjoyable as the previous battle. Part of it was the novelty was gone but part was the story itself. The Huntress just didn't fit in and it made things awkward. Also, I had forgotten just how sexualized women usually are in comics. My goodness, talk about a lot of cleavage, leg and butt. The "bad ass" rogue Predator wasn't. He just kills a lot. *wave hands and make scary ghost noises* This was just 'meh' for me. It didn't appeal. I didn't hate it, but I sure wasn't loving it. "… (more)