Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "gene-colan"

Tales of the Batman, Volume 1 by Gene Colan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Batman stories drawn by Gene Colan. The art is great, the stories are generally good. However, Colan started drawing Batman in the 1980s and by that time there was a lot of ongoing plotlines and continuity. So, while there are only two stories (including the last one) where we're left on an unressolved cliffhangers, there are several ongoing plot lines we're constantly dipping in and out of. Since this book was originally released: Tales of the Batman, Gerry Conway, Volume 2 has come out collecting all the Batman Issues in here prior to 349 and all the Detective Comics issues prior to 517, but as Conway is writing both books, you get to see more of the context.

The highlight then is the uncollected tale of Batman and Robin both having to battle becoming Vampires drawn by the artist of Tombs of Dracula for Marvel in Detective Comics 349-351 and Detective Comics 517. If they make a Tales of the Batman Gerry Conway, Volume 3, that will be in it, but for now, it's uncollected elsewhere (and incomplete in this book as the story continues in Detective Comics 518 which isn't collected here.) After that are three other Detective Comics stories including a clash with Solomon Grundy, a corrupt cop pre-Crisis Harvey Bullock, and a story with Jason Todd talking to a clown and threatening to join the circus if Batman doesn't make him the new Robin. This is also not resolved.

Overall, this isn't a bad digital collection to pick up on sale, but really shouldn't be bought otherwise unless you're a big Colan fan due to dangling plot threads and unresolved storylines.



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