I have been a Batman fan since I begged my parents to take me to Tim Burton's 1989 film for my eighth birthday. As we all know, that movie once again made the caped crusader a household name perhaps for the first time since the campy 1960's television series. While I've been a comic book collector up until very recently, I was always a bit of a poser when it came to comics in that I owned many, but actually read very few. I gave away all of my comics before I left New Jersey, but recently playing through Batman: A Telltale Series with the community lit a spark that has led me down quite the Batman rabbit hole. Let's take a look at the second installment of Telltale's Batman series as well as a few of the graphic novels and trade paperbacks I've checked out recently.




I had no plans to jump into Batman: The Enemy Within so soon after finishing the first season of the series, but my Playcast cohost, SingleBanana had picked it up and was raving about it. He assured me that it was even better than the first game. I was persuaded to purchase and play through the game as soon as I could. The Enemy Within features a robust cast of villains and borrows story elements from general Batman and DC Comics lore. At its heart, the game is about the relationship between Bruce Wayne and John Doe, the man obviously destined to become the Joker. This game takes concepts that were established in the first game and expands on them in great ways, and you can import your save from the first game so the choices you made will carry over. If you have played the original Telltale Batman, you must experience this well done follow up.


A keyword search of "Batman" filtered by the category of "graphic novels" in my local public library system yields over four hundred results. As I noted above, I collected comics for a long time but was never a big reader of them. As of late, inspired by the Telltale games, I've been catching up on the comic book world of Batman. I particularly enjoyed Batman: Venom, a story I remember from my childhood about the drug that would eventually fuel Bane, the villain who would end up "breaking" the Batman. What's great about picking up these trade paperbacks at my library is being able to read the full stories of series' where I was missing an issue or two as a kid. I only had the first two issues of the Venom storyline and only issues two and three of another series I particularly enjoyed, Batman vs. Predator. Furthermore, little did I know that this amazing crossover series has two installments after the first one.

I picked up the "Noir" version of The Court of Owls, which just means it is in black and white. I liked it so much that I will wait until the original full-color version becomes available and will read it again. The Man Who Laughs is a decent alternate origin story for the Joker. I have discovered the magic of reading comics thanks to Batman and the Austin Public Library System. I read comics in between reading actual books. They are great for when my concentration is a little lower than usual. I have another wave of Batman trades and graphic novels on the way and as I mentioned, there are hundreds available so I see no end to this wave. To keep up with what I'm reading, follow me on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com.../show/74121213-shawn-gray

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