Cacophony is a three part Batman title written by Kevin Smith, it’s got art by Walt Flanagan, and it’s pretty great. It came out in 2008-2009 so this was before you had to worry about the whole DC reboot thing. Say what you will about Kevin Smith as a movie man, like him or hate him (personally I like him) but there’s no denying that he’s great when it comes to comics. What we’ve got for this one is a bit of a big story with the joker and a new villain. Deadshot breaks into Arkham in an attempt to kill the Joker, he’s stopped by some other masked man and the Joker escapes. The Joker finds out that his Joker venom has been turned into a drug for club kids so he’s out for revenge on Maxie Zeus, the man behind that. As we go on Batman of course chases the Joker in an attempt to stop him and along the way he finds out that this mystery man is actually hunting him, he’s somewhat of a hero killer. Overall this is really good but it’s not without its faults. The faults aren’t many, first (and smallest) is this doesn’t really seem like a stand-alone story, this seems like something that should have just been written into Batman or Detective Comics but I guess that doesn’t really matter. The biggest fault is I think two issues was way too short for this, the second issue seems a little rushed, causing the last issue to kind of run out of steam, I think this would have worked much better if it had been stretched over five issues. However those complaints aside it’s a great story that reinforces how insane the Joker is while introducing a new villain into the mix and leaving a nice open end. Though really the best thing about this I think is the artwork. Walt Flanagan captures what I see in my mind when I think of most of these characters. The Joker is perfect, Gordon is great, Batman has (almost) my favorite costume design (it’d have been perfect if we got the yellow chest oval). Everything is just fucking perfect from a visual standpoint. The art is serious and gritty without being dark and gothic, I wish more Batman comics looked like this. If you’re a fan of Batman this story will sit nicely with you, it’s a great addition to the Batman world and if you’re one of those rare people just now looking to get into Batman this is a story that you can go into and enjoy without needing to know tons of Bat-back story. Highly recommended.
Get Batman: Cacophony from Amazon HERE
Filed under: Books, Comics, Reviews | Tagged: Batman, comcis, Comic Books, dc, kevin smith, review, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
