DC's Grifter Got Run Over by a Reindeer (2022) #1

DC Anthology Specials

by Max Bemis, Scott Bryan Wilson, Michael Conrad

Ho-ho-ho my gosh, it's time to deck the halls with holly...er, Harley Quinn, Batman, and more of your favorite DC superstars! Who made it to the Nice List? Hawkman? Black Canary? Is that Animal Man on the naughty list? And how did Grifter find himself in the targeting sights of those pesky reindeer! Get one for you and an extra for a loved one's stocking (yule be glad you did!) in this holiday song celebration!

Genres: Comics, Anthologies, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Christmas, Wonder Woman, Superheroes

83 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 29, 2022

Reviews

[Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some hits, some misses. But the Hawkman story was easily my favourite, story + art wise. Same with the Frankenstein story, it was fun and heartfelt. The rest are a little too try-hard for my liking. But overall it was an Okay read.

[Alex Sarll]

On the one hand, I never held with integrating the Wildstorm and DC universes. On the other, that is a great title. But going back to the first hand, not even Dustin Nguyen art can hide that the Grifter story here is a stinker, a tour of the DCU at Christmas which relies on playing a character who used to be an antihero as an outright kleptomaniac and git for the sake of a fairly feeble pun. How about the rest of it? Well, when the opening story is about someone getting an electric shock from fairy lights while listening to a cryptid podcast and mistaking Krypto for a dog bitten by a vampire reindeer, it's fair to wonder whether DC's drawer of festive short story ideas may be getting as bare as their cupboard of notions for what to do with their characters across the rest of the year. Oh, and the artist on that one is David Lapham, one of the biggest names here, but not a man where the tendency to witless gore across much of his back catalogue exactly screams Christmas cheer. I suppose we should consider it a Christmas miracle that, if he doesn't do anything terribly special here, at least he keeps this outing fairly clear of shit and incest. But then Frankenstein teams up with Frosty, sorry, 'Freezy' the Snowman against demon Ebenezer Scrooge, as drawn by PJ Holden, and suddenly the festive sparkle is present and correct. Alas, it doesn't last; as alien winter festival stories go, Thanagar's is enough to make one long for Life Day, and while I was excited at the prospect of Max Bemis writing a John Constantine/Black Canary supergroup, the script for that one gives the impression of having been laboriously translated through at least two intervening languages. DC's seasonal specials have been one of the few times I generally still check in on their output, even as they've gone about systematically wrecking the rest of their line, but based on this evidence, the rot has finally set in here too.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holiday anthologies can be a mixed bag at times, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Harley seeing giant gingerbread man and other holiday stuff in Gotham is pretty funny. She even meets her own look-alike imp and is given this comic. The end of the Batman and Catwoman story is cute. Wonder Woman being invited for the holidays by Lois and Clark is fun. And I really wasn't expecting the traveling around with Frankenstein and the snowman.

[Norman Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

This anthology is pretty tame. Lots of holiday cheer, but not much else. It is probably a good book for youngsters who love superheroes but aren't allowed to read the mature titles. I think most of the creators of these short stories are newish to comics (with a couple of notable exceptions), and I'm sure some of them will be future stars, but for now there's nothing special here.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

DC’s Grifter Got Run Over by a Reindeer had some really good stories and 1 or 2 not so good. It’s a collection of Xmas themed stories and some of my favorites were: Last Christmas, Eight Crazy Nights How the Grifter Stole Christmas, and Memories and forfeits Do You Hear What I Hear was really sad, but very good.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.3 stars

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Dog - 2 stars
Last Christmas - 3.5 stars
Eight Crazy Nights - 3.5 stars
Home For the Holidays - 2.5 stars
Not-So-Silent Night - 3.5 stars
Memories and Forfeits - 3.5 stars
Do You Hear What I Hear? - 4.5 stars
How the Grifter Stole Christmas - 3.5 stars

[Burton Olivier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute. I especially liked the Frankenstein story

[Colin Oaten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun collection of DC Universe holiday tales in this anthology title. Highlights being a Cavan Scot scripted Hawkworld tale and a scavenger hunt by Grifter in some of the most famous DC locales.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great title but this turkey was overcooked and dried out. These stories stink.