Man, it appears that DC and I must have some mind melding going on because as soon as I write an article on Batman they announce that Dennis O’Neil is returning to Detective Comics for the Batman #700 anniversary and now Neal Adams is doing a new Batman book! It’s as if they had a bunch of ideas in a hat labeled “What would get Matt to consistently read Batman?”, and they’re just pulling out all the ideas now that I’ve said I don’t care for him. Thanks, DC!
So what’s the book? Well, it’s a 12-issue series written and drawn by Neal Adams entitled Odyssey. “ODYSSEY finds Batman facing a series of seemingly unrelated challenges, villains and allies, old and new, that push him to his limits as never before. The battles get more intense and, in turn, more deadly, The Dark Knight Detective discovers that there might be an over-arching force behind his troubles. And if this is so, if there is a dark and mysterious matrix being super-imposed over Batman’s life… what sort of life-changing voyage must he go on to free himself from this powerful and insidious direction?” The idea sounds a lot like the overall point of Spider-Man’s Gauntlet arc right now, but I’m still generally intrigued, especially with Adams doing the book by himself.
The book starts in July, and the initial spread they’ve given to tease us looks pretty good. I don’t think we need ANOTHER Batman mini or on-going of any kind, but I’d be interested to see more. Neal Adams is a classic Batman artist, and I can only imagine what kind of story he is preparing to tell. I’m sure it’ll be entertaining. Keep tuned for updates as we get ’em!
