On this week’s edition of The Goggler Pull List, we review and recommend Garth Ennis and Liam Sharpe’s Batman: Reptilian and Joëlle Jones’ Wonder Girl.
Check it out…
Batman: Reptilian (Garth Ennis and Liam Sharpe)
I was all in on Batman: Reptilian from the very first encounter. It takes place outside the Gotham courthouse where yet another crime boss, Edgar Licchario, has been let off the hook. His lawyer is gloating to the press, telling them about how his client’s name das been tarnished, and how he’s thinking about suing the city for defamation, when Batman shows up. He doesn’t swoop or swing. He doesn’t screech in on the Batmobile. He just walks up to Licchario and gets in his face. He calls him a coward, taunts him, and provokes him into violence before incapacitating him in front of everyone.
The first six pages of this comic immediately sets the tone for the comic book we’re getting. Gritty. Grimy. Grounded. Batman feels colder and more caustic than his in-continuity counterpart. And throughout this issue, Ennis reminds us of just how terrifying the Dark Knight is to the cowardly and superstitious criminals of Gotham.
The story of Batman: Reptilian can best be described as a horror mystery. It used to be that The Dark Knight was the one stalking in the shadows and striking fear into the hearts of bad guys, but something far more frightening has found its way onto the streets of Gotham. Someone is carving up the city’s criminal underground, savagely mutilating Batman’s most ruthless enemies, and leaving them for dead.
This is a street level Batman story. One that is grounded in his persona as the world’s greatest detective but with an element of fear and off-beat weirdness that makes it stand out as one of the most unique Batman titles to come out of DC in a while.
I’ve complained before about DC relentlessly churning out one Bat story after the other in what feels like a shameless cash grab. I get that he is their most popular and bestselling character, but sometimes too much is just… well… too much. That said, if they continue to tell stories like Batman: Reptilian, in this way, with this kind of talent on display, then by all means bring it on.
Garth Ennis’ understanding of Batman in this series feels so utterly complete. The dialogue is clipped. Criminals are scum. His banter with Alfred is terse. This is a Batman who uses his words and his fists in equal measure, who, in true Sherlockian fashion, uses both his mind and body in service of his vocation.
There is plenty of prose here, but nothing ever feels slow or drawn out. Ennis is an absolute master at pacing and action (see: The Boys!), striking that perfect balance between message and madness. There is real nuance to the way he writes the character. There is a distinction between the humanity we see in his conversations with Alfred, and the unhinged vigilante he portrays when he’s threatening a thug by hanging him off the side of a building.
The real hero here, however, is Liam Sharpe. His art, psychedelic and uneasy, is more than just a sight to behold, it also creates the perfect atmosphere of fear and anxiety that the story demands. Batman has never felt more intimidating. Gotham City has never looked quite as majestic or as haunting. Think Dave McKean meets Bill Sienkiewicz, but with enough of Sharpe’s own expressive eye thrown in for good measure.
It’s been a while since I’ve read something that was this tonally harmonious. The prose and the art are perfectly in sync creating a truly unique reading experience. Batman: Reptilian can best be described as a mood. The kind that DC’s Black Label imprint was made for.
Wonder Girl (Joëlle Jones)
Back in January 2021, DC did what DC tends to do every now and again, and throw up an “event.” DC Comics don’t call it a reboot, and it’s not, but it’s one of those things that are designed to try and hype up their comic book characters, and possibly introduce new ones to both new (and old) readers.
Overall, the Future State “event” felt like a money grab that went nowhere. Clark Kent has gone off world, Bruce Wayne is presumed dead, and Diana Prince has a meeting with The Spectre about her future. The introductions of Luke Fox (son of Lucius) as the new Batman, a new Aquawoman, Superman (Jon Kent, son of Clark), didn’t really feel like the big set up that DC had wanted them to be.
Once in a while, however, these comic book events accidentally kick up a good one. And for Future State, that “good one,” was Yara Flor. Future State: Wonder Woman is not a Diana Prince Wonder Woman comic (that was Future State: Immortal Wonder Woman) but rather the introduction of a (potentially) new Wonder Woman in Yara Flor.
The purpose of DC’s Future State was to show a “possible future” for some of DC’s biggest heroes, and in Future State: Wonder Woman, we’re thrown right into the deep end with a new hero and a new mission. How we got there, however, is explored in issue one of this new comic, Wonder Girl, released in July 2021.
Wonder Girl begins where all stories start, at the beginning. We meet Yara Flor, a young woman who is making her way back to Brazil, where she was born, for the first time. She is immediately pulled into the deep end (read issue one and you’ll know what I mean) and has an encounter with her namesake Iara, then Eros. Because there’s more to Yara Flor than meets the eye.
There is also a secondary story in the pages of Wonder Girl. Yara’s arrival in Brazil has set in motion gears outside her control as the mystical lands of Themyscira, Mount Olympus, and Bana-Mighdall all send envoys to intercept Yara and stop her from meeting her ultimate fate. Wonder Woman is not a character that I have read a lot of. But there was something about Yara Flor that attracted me to this book. Maybe it was the idea of a South American potentially taking over the mantle of one of DC’s big three. Maybe it was Joëlle Jones’ beautiful art (she’s also the writer). Or maybe it was just the idea that here is a character that didn’t come with 80 years of backstory that I could get into.
DC have recently introduced several new characters that have really clicked with their readers. Jo Mullein, the newest addition to the Green Lantern Corps had her own 12 issue run in the comic Far Sector. Brian Michael Bendis’ Naomi has not only blown up, she is now a member of the newly reformed Young Justice after a successful 6 issue run in her own comic. Naomi is also the latest addition to the CW DC TV-verse with her very own series being developed by award winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay.
Now for my money, Yara Flor’s Wonder Girl series is the next big title to watch out for. Three issues in and we’ve already been given a multitude of mysteries to go on. Who is Yara Flor? How did she end up in Hell in the Future State comics? Why do Queen Nubia of Themyscira, Hera of Mount Olympus, and Queen Faruka and Artemis of Bana-Mighdall want to stop her?
Needless to say, it’s been three issues and I am totally hooked.
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