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The Box That Time Forgot, Pt. 2: Bat Lash - Guns & Roses TPB
As I mentioned in Pt. 1, I received a large, surprise package from DiscountComicBookService, basically a year's worth of graphic novels and trades I'd ordered that hadn't been filled when expected, and about which I'd forgotten. So in the hopes of trying to get through these and back into newer books, or at least the rest of the files of unread stuff I have, let's get on with it.
Bat Lash: Guns & Roses TPB
Written by Sergio Aragones and Peter Brandvold
Art by John Severin (with Steve Lieber and Javi Pina on Ch. 6)
Published by DC Comics. $17.99 USD
Let's face it: the existence of this six-part miniseries is due mainly so DC can hang onto their trademark on the character. Still, if you need to publish a new Bat Lash book, you couldn't put together a better team than Aragones, who plotted the majority of the original '60s series after his first appearance, Brandvold, an acclaimed Western novelist, and Severin, a wonderful veteran artist who in recent years has done quite a few Western comics, including Wildstorm's Desperadoes miniseries. Add other classic DC artists Nick Cardy and Walt Simonson on covers, and it seems like editors Rachel Gluckstern and Michael Wright have a better sense of history than most at DC.
The story itself is kind of an expanded origin for Bat. He's a grown man but still living on his parents' ranch, and secretly romancing the daughter of a ruthless land baron. She's also supposed to be engaged to the corrupt sheriff, while her father is trying to take over the Lash Ranch, partly out of greed and partly out of revenge that long ago, Bat's mother chose Zeke Lash rather than him. Did you get all that? That's a lot of conflict, and you would be right to predict it doesn't resolve without a good deal of bloodshed. However, this isn't a gratuitous, vicious kind of Western tale. There's real sweetness to the romance between Bat and Dominique, also echoed in the love his parents have for each other.
Severin's work here is a joy. From the opening splash page of Dominique and Bat riding through the sage, one knows they're in good hands. It's like a John Ford film on paper. It's amazing that an artist with such a light, feathery touch can still convey action and anger as well as he does.
This is quite a successful reboot, the five issues given to it a perfect length. Bat experiences a lot of hardship and heartache here, and it sets him up to be the seemingly devil-may-care, ladies' man quality for later stories, which can work perfectly well on a surface level--kind of like Jim Garner's Maverick character--or you can see that it's an armor he's assumed to cover his pain, if you've read and remembered this book. Good work. I like the idea, and we'll see how it plays out--no one involved is getting any younger--that this creative team might have a few more of these stories to tell if given the chance, but it doesn't have to be forced into a monthly book like Jonah Hex or El Diablo or other series that might have been better off in limited doses.
Bat Lash: Guns & Roses TPB
Written by Sergio Aragones and Peter Brandvold
Art by John Severin (with Steve Lieber and Javi Pina on Ch. 6)
Published by DC Comics. $17.99 USD
Let's face it: the existence of this six-part miniseries is due mainly so DC can hang onto their trademark on the character. Still, if you need to publish a new Bat Lash book, you couldn't put together a better team than Aragones, who plotted the majority of the original '60s series after his first appearance, Brandvold, an acclaimed Western novelist, and Severin, a wonderful veteran artist who in recent years has done quite a few Western comics, including Wildstorm's Desperadoes miniseries. Add other classic DC artists Nick Cardy and Walt Simonson on covers, and it seems like editors Rachel Gluckstern and Michael Wright have a better sense of history than most at DC.
The story itself is kind of an expanded origin for Bat. He's a grown man but still living on his parents' ranch, and secretly romancing the daughter of a ruthless land baron. She's also supposed to be engaged to the corrupt sheriff, while her father is trying to take over the Lash Ranch, partly out of greed and partly out of revenge that long ago, Bat's mother chose Zeke Lash rather than him. Did you get all that? That's a lot of conflict, and you would be right to predict it doesn't resolve without a good deal of bloodshed. However, this isn't a gratuitous, vicious kind of Western tale. There's real sweetness to the romance between Bat and Dominique, also echoed in the love his parents have for each other.
Severin's work here is a joy. From the opening splash page of Dominique and Bat riding through the sage, one knows they're in good hands. It's like a John Ford film on paper. It's amazing that an artist with such a light, feathery touch can still convey action and anger as well as he does.
This is quite a successful reboot, the five issues given to it a perfect length. Bat experiences a lot of hardship and heartache here, and it sets him up to be the seemingly devil-may-care, ladies' man quality for later stories, which can work perfectly well on a surface level--kind of like Jim Garner's Maverick character--or you can see that it's an armor he's assumed to cover his pain, if you've read and remembered this book. Good work. I like the idea, and we'll see how it plays out--no one involved is getting any younger--that this creative team might have a few more of these stories to tell if given the chance, but it doesn't have to be forced into a monthly book like Jonah Hex or El Diablo or other series that might have been better off in limited doses.
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