Batman: War Drums

September 13, 2004 | Trades

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Batman: War Drums
Bill Willingham, Andersen Gabrych, Pete Woods, Damion Scott, Brad Walker, Cam Smith, Troy Nixey
DC Comics
$27.95/$17.99 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)

War is coming to Gotham City and not even the Batman can stop it.
Batman: The 12-Cent Adventure kicked off the sweeping three-month Batman crossover War Games in August, but before the war began, the foundation was being laid in the pages of Detective Comics and Robin.
In Detective, writer Anderson Gabrych and artist Pete Woods bring us The Surrogate, a three-part tale about a play by some small-time gang members to go big and take over Gotham’s Hill Street neighbourhood, while a teen girl’s life, and that of her unborn child hang in the balance.
The two-part Monsters Of Rot sees Batman reluctantly working with the beautiful Tarantula to stop a deadly outbreak from spreading, as the Dark Knight’s associate Orpheus steps into the power vacuum on Hill Street.
The issues of Robin, featuring the all-new female version of the character, are the follow-up to the very solid Robin: Unmasked trade paperback released last month.
As Stephanie Brown secretly begins to learn the ropes from Batman in the guise as his new partner, Tim Drake, the now-retired former Robin, begins to suspect something is amiss with his girlfriend: Stephanie. These all-too-brief adventures of the Girl Wonder are terrific stuff from writer Bill Willingham and artist Damion Scott.
Collecting a whopping 10 issues, War Drums catches all casual Bat-fans up to date on the goings on in Gotham and helps clear up the who’s who and the whys headed into War Games.
A teaser at the back of the book even tells readers to keep an eye out for three collections of War Games stories in 2005, for those either too lazy or too casually interested to pick up all 25 parts to this epic. Or maybe even for those who just love those big trades on their bookshelves.

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