Art by: Brent Schoonover
Cover Price: $1.99
Release Date:October 15, 2014
Batman's Rebound
The great thing about the Batman 66 DC Digital First series is that it can do a whole world of things that the television series could never hope to touch--like turning Batman and Robin into Neanderthals that speak perfect English. That being said, it's exactly where this story goes. After pushing his mind ahead to a 40th century intellect, Egghead has gone a crime spree, stealing from Gotham's most wanted--Spoiler alert--including cameos from Mr. Freeze and The Riddler. Back at the Batcave, the Dynamic Duo find themselves of the position of needing to hunt down Egghead and bring him to justice.
Seeing Batman and Robin operate as highly intelligent cavemen is a nice change of pace for the series, though the good starts to turn to a slightly bad about half way through. One of the things I love about this series is that it's easy to read in the characters voices from the original series. That is not the case when the first time you see Batman and Robin in the issue they look like they should be in a GEICO commercial. Fortunately, caveman Batman and Robin are able to score a few laughs throughout the book, in places human Batman and Robin could never.
This week, Jeff Parker's writing wasn't entirely up to snuff, compared to last issue, and Schoonover's caveman Batman and Robin get hard to look at after a while, but there was still an MVP working on the book this week. Kelly Fitzpatrick, who provided the colors for this issue. Batman 66 #45 is a very colorful issue, not only exploring the world of Batman and Robin, but putting the spotlight on a few other villains for a few pages--each whom comes with their own unique coloring. It's possible I'm on a color kick because of how good the restored Batman TV series looks, but I was surprisingly drawn to the colors in the issue this time around. Anytime you step into campy 60's territory you're bound to find bright colors all around.
This week, Jeff Parker's writing wasn't entirely up to snuff, compared to last issue, and Schoonover's caveman Batman and Robin get hard to look at after a while, but there was still an MVP working on the book this week. Kelly Fitzpatrick, who provided the colors for this issue. Batman 66 #45 is a very colorful issue, not only exploring the world of Batman and Robin, but putting the spotlight on a few other villains for a few pages--each whom comes with their own unique coloring. It's possible I'm on a color kick because of how good the restored Batman TV series looks, but I was surprisingly drawn to the colors in the issue this time around. Anytime you step into campy 60's territory you're bound to find bright colors all around.
In the beginning of the series DC sold the digital copies for $.99 a pop, putting the three digital chapters on par with a print copy at about the same price point. Then after a while, DC dropped the DC2 system from the books, giving it a presentation similar to The Flash: Season Zero. I'm proud to the the DC2 system is back in the series, though it's caused a price hike to $1.99 an issue. While I can understand where the price hike comes in, it'd be nice for DC to lower the price and rise it for special issues. That being said, having DC2 in this book definitely enhanced some of the moments where Neanderthal Batman and Robin failed to entertain on their own.
Bits and Pieces
The Batman 66 line of books is great, but like with any series your mileage may vary from issue to issue. Having the DC2 system in place helped saved this issue but it still managed to seemingly wrap up the main story quite nicely.
7/10
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