Review | Batman: Arkham City & Moon Knight

Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City picks up where the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game ends. Written by Paul Dini (of Batman: The Animated Series fame) and art by Carlos D’anda, the story begin right after you’ve finished Arkham Asylum and fought the Joker hyped up on Titan. The Joker is hauled back to the Asylum and he’s realized that Titan is slowly eating away his insides and knows there won’t be a next time to confront the Bat. The intense skill it takes to draw the Joker looking completely balls to wall crazy and then in the next frame, capture the Joker looking perfectly sane and capable of anything genuinely made me grin. He looks sickly but utterly capable of creating chaos as he begins cackling loud enough for poor locked up Harley to yearn for her puddin’.
Batman, meanwhile, is searching Gotham for a sister and brother pair high on Titan and wreaking havoc under the apparent orders from Two Face. We find out this isn’t the case once Bats infiltrates Two Face’s lair and instead it seems to be Hugo Strange who is pulling the strings. I’m definitely looking forward to the next issue in June, so check it out! I’d give it 3.5/4 stars!

Moon Knight

veriant cover

Moon Knight was something a little different for me since I didn’t read the original series back in 2006. The story is by Brian Michael Bendis (pretty much Marvel’s “golden boy”) and is a complete reboot of the character.

Jake starts this tale as a hot, popular television star, a show Wolverine labels as crap, and is celebrating at a party when the Avengers show up. He is forced to become Moon Knight again and stops a possible drug deal which is revealed to instead be a deal for….a dead Ultron? Artist Alex Maleev does a damn good job foreshadowing the end panel which shows Jake has clearly hallucinated everything we’ve just read and leaves you in a state of mindfuck.
You definitely don’t see that coming! I think it’s a good series for newcomers to start off with so I’d give Moon Knight # 1 2.75/4 stars.

I definitely enjoyed both but if you’re on a tight budget, I’d recommend picking up Batman: Arkham City #1. I think it’s going to have a better story, the pacing is neater and I ain’t gonna lie…I dig the Joker more!