Tales of The Batman: J.H. Williams III (Batman

Batman (1940-2011) #526, 550,667-669, Annual #21

by J.H. Williams III (Illustrator), Dan Curtis Johnson, Grant Morrison

New York Times Best-selling artist and writer J.H. Williams III's work with Batman in Gotham now is collected in Tales of the Batman: J.H. Williams III!

Spanning Detective Comics, Batman and Legends of the Dark Knight, this collection showcases J.H. Williams III work on Batman across the years.

Collects Batman #526,550,667-669, Batman Annual #21, Legends of the Dark Knight #86-88, 192-196, Chase #7-8, Detective Comics #821.

Genres: Comics, Batman, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Comic Book, Superheroes

435 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 22, 2014

About the author

James H. "Jim" Williams III, usually credited as J. H. Williams III, is a comic book artist and penciller. He is known for his work on titles such as Chase, Promethea and Desolation Jones.

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you like Doug Mensch Batman from the 90s? Me either. What doesn't help? Williams drawing him like a vampire.
Bruce looks like Hitman from Ennis. Motorcycle demonic worship gangs... Ugh.

This is mostly his artwork. He doesn't write much.

What do I know? I don't like j.h. Williams.

This was a bad choice.

[Mohammad Aboomar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the artwork here. A realistic and gritty Batman is a good change of scenes.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collecting 17 issues (including the double-sized Batman Annual #21), this book would make a welcome addition to any Bat-fan's book shelf. As J.H. Williams III mentioned in the book's afterword, you can clearly see the progression/evolution of the artist's skill and craft from January 1996 to November 2007. And what an evolution it is!

Including collaborations with some of Batman's greatest creators, such as Doug Moench, Kelley Jones, Paul Dini, and Grant Morrison, this is one book that should not be missed!

Here, then, is the breakdown of the individual stories' ratings:

Batman #526 'Constant Whitewater' 2 stars
Legends of the Dark Knight #s 86-88 ' Conspiracy' 3 stars
Batman Annual #21 'The screams of the Green Dragon' 2 stars
Batman #550 'Chasing Clay' 3 stars
Chase #s 7-8 'Shadowing the Bat' 4 stars
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #s 192-196 'Snow' (Story by J.H. Williams III and D. Curtis Johnson, art by Seth Fisher, colors by Dave Stewart) 5 stars
Detective Comics #821 'The Beautiful People' 5 stars
Batman #s 667-669 'The Island of Mister Mayhew', 'Now We Are Dead', 'The Dark Knight Must Die!' 5 stars

Happy reading!

[tony dillard jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple of years ago, the bargain discount store Ollie's was the place for comic collectors! DC Comics unloaded a very large chunk of their graphic novel overstock. $50 dollar books were now selling for less than $10. And that's how I came across this collection!

This volume of Tales of the Batman is over 400 pages long. Inside, you'll meet Batman's earliest attempts at a Batman family, participate in the reunion of the Batmen of All Nations, and creep around the darkest corners of Arkham Asylum. There's also a great multi-issue arc involving the Clayfaces, The Dark Knight and DEO agent Cameron Chase.

If you are a fan of Grant Morrison, Dough Moench and especially Kelley Jones, this is the collection for you!

Unfortunately, I doubt I'll be able to get any of the companion pieces in this collection. The inside cover touts anthologies featuring Carmine Infantino, Gene Colan, Jim Aparo and Archie Goodwin. I never saw those at Ollie's and I don't see DC doing such a massive unload of books again any time soon. But it doesn't mean that I don't long to own them. $50 is just too beyond my price range.

A wonderful collection of Batman stories. Featuring both the artwork and writing of J.H. Williams III. It's all of his stories up to 2014. This is a creator with his finger firmly on the pulse of the Batman corner of the DC Universe!

[Ben Humeniuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great collection of work by an influential artist. Seeing Williams progress from a nascent fill-in artist to a master of layout and rendering styles is a real treat. Pay special attention to how he evolves alongside Doug Moench's scripts as sort of a latter-day Paul Gulacy into a more refined and confident story-teller in his collaborations with D.C. Johnson. Also worth the price of entry: the Seth Fisher-illustrated "Snow" comic, which Williams co-wrote, that features a unique (almost contradictory) undermining of Batman's cool, collected aesthetic. It's instructive to learn from a master's finished work as well as their early efforts, and this Tales of the Batman collection offers just that kind of chance.

[Drew Ames · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was . . . okay. I liked a lot of it, but ended each story arc feeling like there should be more of something that I couldn't really pin down. I liked how intricate the stories were in their plotting. I liked that they showed Batman doing detective work. However, in the first few stories, the inks were very heavy, making it hard to read the text or understand the action. I also consistently found the panel layout to be confusing.

Finally, there was what I can only describe as a cynical edge to the stories that I found disagreeable. There were parts that I really liked, but other parts where the violence and death seemed gratuitous.

Oh well, if I could, I would give it 2.5 stars.

[Brian Dickerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My initial interest in this book was experiencing the evolution of J.H. Williams III’s fantastic art and page design, but I found the real shinning star of this collection to be only written by Williams and drawn by the late Seth Fisher. The “Snow” story arc is fantastic!

An OHC presentation would garner five stars from me... A collection of stories from a great artist in a standard edition? Silly DC...

[Zack · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading more classic comic books, the illustrations are a bit over the top as mentioned in other reviews. However, I did enjoy a unique look at Batman from a new lens (even if a majority of stories were copy cats of Watchmen ideas).

[Enigmaticblue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a nice collection of stand-alone Batman stories.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

J.H. Williams has some beautiful art work and fascinating page layouts. Unfortunately, the best of them aren't Batman titles (see Batwoman to see him really shine), so this collection ends up with some really odd selections. It's interesting to see his earlier work, which is very traditional, compared to his work wit Grant Morrison, which are the only issues in this collection that really show off his unique approach.
The middle section is a 5-issue story that is written by Williams but not illustrated by him; it looks like Batman '66 actually, although predates that by several years. It's an origin story for Mr. Freeze and it doesn't really work very well (the whole Batman has a posse concept just doesn't fly). Some of the other stories in the collection are passable (it was interesting to go back and see Chase again after all these years; I know the DEO still shows up, but I haven't seen anything of her in decades. And the Chase issues are some more of Williams' stylistic highlights). So this definitely has its ups and downs, and the ups don't really highlight Williams' best works, but they are a decent introduction to his style.