Batman: The Brave and the Bold #1 by Matt Wayne

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Batman Brave and the Bold provides a kid-friendly panorama of the DC Univese. This book collects Issue 1-6 of the series based on the popular Cartoon Network program.

In this book, we get appearance by Powergirl, Blue Beetle, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Captain Marvel (Shazam), and a Golden Age style Kid Eternity. Villians include the pre-Crisis Mad Scientist version of Lex Luthor, the Mad Thinker, the Ultra-humanite, Dr. Cyber, the Queen of Fables, and General Immortus. On top of that, the book follows the format of the series with a short lead in adventure before the main event which allows readers to take a Superman, Wonder-woman, Haunted Tank, and Hour Man.

The book's big benefit is that it introduces kids to more innocent and wholesome versions of comic characters than they'll see anywhere else. Unfortunately, the stories are a mixed bag. Issues 1 and 2 are horendous and Issues 5 and 6 are mediocre. It'd be tempting to merely blame the format, particularly trying to include a 2 page lead in story in a comic book.

However, Issues 3 and 4 are real gems. In Issue 3, Batman has to impersonate the President to save him from being kidnapped and we get to see "President Batman" deal with Congressional gridlock Batman-style. Issue 4 was great from start to finish with the best two page lead-in story in the book and a crazy time travel adventure. True enough, it had some environmentalist propaganda in it, but it was still a fun story.

Series such as Superman Adventures and Spider-girl have shown that you don't have to be banal to create an all ages series: clever writing can be done in a fun and kid-friendly way. The two middle stories proved the same point and I only hope that future Brave and the Bold books are more fun than forgettable and these characters are given the type of stories they deserve.



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