I much preferred this introduction to the alternate world Bruce Waynes/Batmen to the actual Metal event. It's mostly silly Elseworld tales where, after suffering tragedy Bruce or Bryce Wayne becomes The Batlantern, Bataquawoman, Batflash, etc. and is then recruited by The Batman Who Laughs to take over the multiverse.

I wish these introductions led somewhere better but I enjoyed their intro stories for what they were.

Caveat: This collection was published by a small press I run.

I love Terry's work. I just got done listening to a night of other people reading poems from this book, and "Call Me Earthling", which is another Terry Blade poetry book.

This is a book that's raw but never at the expense of the writing or the audience. This series of [Another American Dream] and other poems is constantly surprising, even though every poem is undeniably a Terry Blade experience.

I've read this through three teams since it was published, and look forward to reading it again.

The actual two new stories in this collection are solid and entertaining enough that I'm curious to get to the actual Metal series. The rest of the book, however, is filled with DC's cosmic-crap. Two issues from the poorly paced Final Crisis by Grant Morrison, the first issue of the truly terrible Return Of Bruce Wayne comic, a couple issues of the New 52 Batman that were fine in their own story but aren't great here where they don't have the context of the other issues around it, and a perfectly cromulent Nightwing issue from Rebirth.

All of the old issues take place before the new ones, but are placed after them in the book. It's a consistently poor choice by comic book editorial managers whose decisions imply that they're not actually big readers and that they don't have any concept of narrative structure. But that's pretty much every collections editor at DC and Marvel.

They really should have yanked out all the old issues and put them in their own primer book, and made the two new issues the beginning of the Metal trade. It would have made for a much better reading experience.

I really wanted to like this more.

After a fun, four-star, lead-off issue where Huntress and Black Canary take kids to a historical re-enactment park, and Batgirl stays in Gotham and has a team-up with Catwoman and Poison Ivy, the story quality falls off a cliff.

The idea of an all-female superhero team-up with Batgirl, Batwoman, Wonder Woman, Huntress, Black Canary, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Spoiler, and Gotham Girl is awesome. But the story of a group of women in Gotham rebelling against all men and infecting them with a virus because...men are jerks? Its a pretty basic story that makes the villains seem petty and stupid. There's no specifics: men are poisoning the planet (Poison Ivy's usual take), men are holding us back, men are using capitalism to control women, etc. That's really all the story would need, there are a ton of reasons why a group of women would rebel against men that would make an intriguing story. Instead they rebel because....men. And none of the villains do anything interesting during their rebellion. Even the solution is incredibly trite, and would probably be the first thing any competent doctor would think of when a virus that only affects men broke out.

This just felt like such a wasted opportunity. When a story contains this many amazing female heroes, it either needs to be a moving, well-thought out story, or dumb fun. This story brought the dumb but left the fun behind.

The final storyline in the book, wrapping up the title before it was cancelled, was so dull that I forgot what it was about during the three minutes I finished reading it, and when I got to this point of the review. I flipped back through it, and it's just an empty wrap-up.

While the first two volumes of this title weren't Must-Read Bat-comics, I enjoyed reading them, and was hoping the series would go out with the same level of intensity it started with. Alas.

A solid Bat-story. A new version of an old villain that makes logical sense, personal drama, a connection with long-term continuity, and some fun fight scenes.

Both the Blockbuster arc, and the return of Spyral are each enjoyable (though I preferred the former). It was also nice that, unlike very other Bat-book of the era, Seeley didn't fel the need to have every issue include long flashbacks to establish the current status-quo.

After feeling like it stuck the landing in the last volume, Tynion writes an epilogue, mostly centered on the Red Robin of The Future storyline from his run. It was my least favorite part of the overall story, so I wasn't excited to see it become the focal point of the post-Clayface story.

There were so many solid elements to Tynion's entire run that it didn't need the silly time travel aspect, and it's a shame he decided to make it a pivotal part of his run's conclusion.

After a bit of a lull in the middle, Tynion's Batman story, with a strong center on Clayface, comes together really well.

There's a typical Batman issue where some complex characters get out of their fate too easy, to set the stage for other stories and characters, without them having major consequences for their actions. But, overall, this is what I wanted from Tynion's collection of Batman-adjacent characters.

Same ol' same ol' Batman stories. I prefer this mediocre run to the boring run on the main Batman title, but I'm disappointed that the potential of the Team Batman that Tynion set up has quickly become so dull.

This book reminded me of when writers I like go back to college and join a writing program. Their technique may improve, but their work becomes bland and hollow. They take moments and dissect them with familiar platitudes and generationally cliché images and ideas.

This book feels less like new poetry, and more like slightly more modern translation of twentieth century poems. Abbot and Costello and Dragnet references next to Zoom, Covid, and Starbuck's. It all feels more like archeology than entertainment or real self-reflection.

It's certainly better than what I would expect from a collection of poetry by a celebrity but it's not something I can imagine picking up again or sharing with a friend.

Another profoundly disappointing Batman book by Tom King.

The artwork, once again, is spectacular but the story is, at best, mediocre. The Joker and The Riddler do battle. People die.

Every storyarc of Tom King's Batman has a writing formula wherein he repeats patterns to make a point. But each pattern is dreadfully boring and pretentious, and the points are always akin to "Batman has mommy issues." or "Jokes and riddles are similar." or "A kid with a kite says Hell. Oh, and Kite Man exists. Oooooooooh. Also, the name Charlie Brown is used in a story about kites. Oooooooooooooooh." It's almost as if Tom King is in a middle school writing class, trying to impress a teacher, instead of writing an interesting Batman story

I regret trying to read through the Rebirth-era Bat books. I am unlikely to ever do this again.

To call Tom King's run on Batman a disappointment is an understatement. By Batman standards, it's fine. But Tom King is better than an average Batman comic.

This is very apparent in the five-star first issue. King does have a grasp on these characters. The idea of Bruce Wayne waiting in line to order burgers and fries at a Batman-themed fast food restaurant is funny. The interplay between the currently living male robins: Dick, Todd, and Damien, is joyous and very sibling-believable. Duke being slotted in as clearly Not A Robin is also well-fleshed out. And everyone's actions surrounding an angry, returning Bane seem natural and poised to create a compelling story.

Then, King puts on his Psychology 101 hat and we get a bunch of issues where he tediously, painfully spells out that Batman and Bane are, like, totally the same person. WOAH. WOW. DEEP. And then, rather than be cliche and say that the hero and the villain are defined by their daddy issues, he goes totally rogue and uses the cliche that the hero and the villain are defined by their mommy issues. I mean, he doesn't give a reason, or a follow-up, he just has each character say mommy over and over again for two issues. It's actually worse than the "WHY DID YOU SAY MARTHA?" part of Batman vs Superman.

It then threatens to get better by the inclusion of Catwoman before forgetting she was part of the story, and focusing on Batman, and Bane singing a chorus of "I AM BANE!" "I AM BATMAN!" "I AM BANE!" "I AM BATMAN!"

The Swamp Thing issue that follows the Bane storyline was a delight, though. The ending is a more complex look at who Batman is than anything else from King's run, so far. But then that's followed by the "epilogue" with Catwoman and Gotham Girl, and that is some trite, nonsensical garbage.