Getting back into reading comics can be daunting – so many story lines, universes, where do you start? For Batman I read several suggestions to  give the Paul Dini Batman Omnibus a try… so I did! How was it?

My History with Comics…

I have been a fan of the DC canon of Superheroes since I was a little kid in the 80’s but  the first comics I read  were in what is considered the Silver Age of Comics ( 1956-1970). 

My parents bought me lots of issues from this era at garage sales and flea markets, wanting to both save money and get more ‘kid friendly’ comics. 

I literally learned how to read with these comic books and my love for these type of stories is almost as old as I am!

As I grew up I read more and more comics from lots of publishers but the ones I read again and again were from DC comics.  I loved Superman and Batman especially and when I wasn’t reading comics I was playing with my action figures or running around in my Superman pajamas pretending to save Metropolis, or pretending to solve crimes as Batman…

I even had my own little Batcave with various ‘lab equipment’ – I added little labels to Fisher Price steering wheels, and made my own props with switches for the Bat-Computer!

As I got older I read comic Superhero stories less and less and mostly enjoyed movies or shows.  Paul Dini’s various animated series in the 90’s were (and still remain) some of the best superhero stories I’ve ever seen: Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited (Batman Beyond too!)

A Re-introduction to Batman?

Something that makes reading comics difficult and somewhat hard to approach for me, and I’m sure others, is that there are multiple storylines occuring, sometimes in the same universe, sometimes not, sometimes crossing over, being published concurrently with the hopes that you’ll buy and read as many issues as possible to get the whole ‘story.’

It is both exciting in that it makes the whole world feel connected and alive while also being extremely frustrating to keep up with.

I don’t really ever buy loose issues of comics and prefer reading them in trade paperbacks or collections – that way much like a book I get a story that can be read cover to cover – so this Omnibus looked like it might be just what I wanted! 

So – after a very heavy package arrived on my doorstep I got to reading!

First Impressions

Paul Dini writes an introduction to the Omnibus that talks about how his run on “Batman” was pretty similar to his take on how they made Batman: The Animated Series:  A lot of recurring characters, and some overarching larger stories but mostly a focus on shorter stories that ran an issue or so. 

This was a relief because when you hold a collection like this in your hands it is a bit intimidating – the thing is HEAVY and if you don’t know what you’re getting into it can be a bit of a gamble if you’re going to like it or not.  My assumption was  that a collection like this would be self contained and that I would get a fairly cohesive set of stories that fit together and that I could read front-to-back without having much else to read or research. Alas, this was not the case.

An “Omnibus” can be a collection of a specific author, or a certain subject – and this particular Omnibus only collects the works of the author, even when the storylines have significant narrative gaps.

I really enjoyed the first two thirds of the book.  There are some really great stories. Some you can almost imagine being an episode of the Animated Series and some darker stories too but really nothing too gory or awful. I dislike when comics do this – the world can be bad enough without my fiction also being difficult to look at!

While there were a few points where I found myself wondering “hmm – what’s going on here” a little internet sleuthing cleared it right up.  These stories are set in the larger DC Comics Universe which is HUGE, so it really wasn’t too surprising that a few stories needed me to do a little sleuthing to see what the background was. 

In general though they are all a stand alone series of stories which is exactly what I wanted. That is, until I got to the ‘Hush’ plot line….

Missing Half the Story

“Hush” is a character that was part of a 12 series run in 2003 called “Batman: Hush”. Without delving too much into ‘spoilers’ the character becomes central to the storyline in the omnibus.  Starting at this point the book enters Dini’s run on ‘Gotham Streets’ and various other stories that aren’t really connected at all times.

Who? What?  Huh?

At one point Batman is missing, possibly dead. The story just starts with everyone acting like he is dead – there is zero explanation given.  At another point we are thrown into the middle of a plot arc with Rah’s Al Guhl – again no explanation given. We discover Batman has a son, without explanation or background (this was news to me as I was unaware of this plot development.)

While I suppose this is expected I nonetheless found it very frustrating to read half the book as one cohesive storyline to what felt like a “Paul Dini wrote these stories and only these stories will be collected here.  Any missing chapters are your problem.”

It’s unfortunate too because the problem is not the stories themselves, it is that they are missing important context for stories.

I don’t regret getting this book but I do wish I enjoyed the last part as much as I enjoyed the first.

Many reviews I read said this was a great “jumping off” point for Batman. When I read that I thought it was more a “get to know the modern iteration of the character in comics”.  I think reviewers might mean that this is literally a good place to start reading Batman comics and then spin off to other Batman comics to get the ‘full story’

I wish this was a true collection tha had all these story lines, and not just the ones written specifically, and only by Dini – All his stories plus the surrounding ones that are clearly missing.

I don’t like the Hush plot line.  Maybe this is because I haven’t read Hush, and the entire story felt like I was reading a sequel to a story I knew nothing about.  I should like the story – character driven, original, but ugh. 

Something about it just never clicked. 

Still, the parts that were good were quite good – I just wish that this ‘omnibus’ included all the missing stories between Paul Dini’s work.

Worth a read?

If you are very familiar with Batman and are already a fan of Dini’s Batman stories… maybe. But many stories are incomplete and missing ‘the rest’.  The first half, maybe two thirds was really great, but I found the later stories fragmented and irritating. 

This Omnibus should really come with a warning – Before you continue be sure to read these issues! (In fact, loose comics often do this.)

If you are like me and looking for a place to start reading Batman again after a long absence, I can’t really suggest this to you. 

If you are already a big Dini fan this collection is physically great – wonderful printing and binding.