Welcome back to Bat Chat with Matt (and Will!). Itās a new year and a whole new Gotham City ā¦ of the future. Gotham is now a fascist police state controlled by private security called The Magistrate. Masks are illegal. Batman, whoever he may be, is as much an outlaw as the villains he once…
I have experimented with different columns and different formats over the five or so years Iāve been writing about comics, but you, Loyal Content Consumer, donāt necessarily care about that; no, you care about the comics, and I want to care about the comics with you. When Iām curled up in my big ratty office…
What if the last 60 years of American history was a carefully orchestrated conspiracy designed to teach the president who really runs the country? Wouldnāt that be something? Vishal Gullapalli, Forrest Hollingsworth and Will Nevin team up to talk over The Department of Truth #4 by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds, Aditya Bidikar, Dylan Todd…
Batman and Robin (?) swing in to save the rest of the Bat family from Hush, a new mayor of Gotham is elected and Bruce says goodbye to Wayne Manor in Detective Comics #1,033 from Peter J. Tomasi, Brad Walker, Andrew Hennesy, Dave McCaig and Rob Leigh. Meanwhile, Harley, Duke Thomas and FBI profiler Hector…
Miskatonicās Magical Misery Tour continues with a trip to Arkham in AfterShock Comicsā Miskatonic #2. Written by Mark Sable, penciled by Giorgio Pontrelli, colored by Pippa Bowland and lettered by Thomas Mauer, Miskatonic #2 finds our intrepid investigators on the run from the Dagon cultists, aiming toward deeper, darker corners of Lovecraft Country. We open…
āPeople donāt believe in God,ā says Jesus Christ in Second Coming #1, āso much as they hope for a witness to their suffering.ā Thus began a series from writer Mark Russell and artist Richard Pace that surprised readers and critics alike. Far from the blasphemous screed the Fox News crowd assumed it would be before…
What if reality was only as real as people believed it was? What if it could change depending on popular support? And what if the real breakout Image comic of 2020 was not a thing that purportedly had something to say about superheroes but actually had something to offer about the way in which conspiracy…
Welcome back to Bat Chat with Matt (and Will!). This week weāre back to just one book with the conclusion of the Ghost-Maker story, as Batman faces off with his foe and Harley has a heart-to-heart with Clownhunter in Batman #105 by James Tynion IV, Carlo Pagulayan & Danny Miki, Alvaro Martinez & Christian Duce…
As we close out the year that was, the staff at Xavier Files wanted to take a moment to highlight our favorite comics from throughout the year. There were so many great books that we couldn’t list them all, but we wanted to give our team the chance to highlight an issue, an arc, a…
The infant Sunstar will grow up to fulfill his destiny as Earth’s most powerful superhero and roommate to Jesus Christ ā but first, he and his parents must endure the mundane and the tedious on the last night of the doomed planet Zirconia. Seek a friend for the end of the world in AHOY Comicsā…
I have interviewed a mess oā people over the years ā Jason Aaron, Scott Snyder, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Charles Soule and Brian Michael Bendis to obscenely drop a few names ā but outside of Eliot Rahal and Kyle Starks (two repeat customers who are always good for great insights and even better laughs), my favorite…
The malevolent machinations of the Clown Prince of Crime are apparently too much for the paltry pages of Batman or even Detective Comics as writer James Tynion IV, artist Guillem March and more will bring the roguesā galleryās most famous (and bankable) villain to his own ongoing prestige series The Joker starting in March. According…
Will Nevin: One week, I think weāll hit on a book that we both like, that we can both praise and feel good about. This aināt that week. Matt Lazorwitz: This is a very ā¦ meh week. āDetectiveā was inoffensive water treading, and āBlack and Whiteā was hit or miss, as most anthologies are. Detective…
Will Nevin: This is a heckuva week, but for mostly the wrong reasons ā because while Bat/Cat #1 (I canāt believe Tom King resisted his urge to go there again) was overwhelmingly fine, Batman #104 is ā and I say this with as little hyperbole as possible ā an embarrassing look at when a comic…
Detective Comics #1,031 Welcome to a special holiday week Bat Chat! The Mirror inserts himself into Gothamās mayoral race as he continues his anti-vigilante crusade, Damian makes a move to prove heās smarter than Batman, and a Bat rogue makes his return in āDetective Comicsā #1,031 from Peter J. Tomasi, Bilquis Evely, Mat Lopes and…