Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Batman And Robin

Brian Stelfreeze — Zero Hour, Plus 30

Original Art and The Artists

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #31, September 1994

Brian Stelfreeze provides this amazing “Golden Age” style cover for a Batman story in the 1994 Zero Hour event. The “original” portly Alfred suddenly reappears (from another timeline) — and, spoiler alert — disappears at the end of the story.

No matter: Stelfreeze’s cover painting is terrific, and Brian purposely added all the stains and scratches to give it an aged look.

Bonus: I can cover up his signature and no one realizes Brian painted it; it’s (obviously) nothing like his traditional painting style.

Zero Hour — The first large-scale crossover event at DC since Crisis on Infinite Earths, is celebrating its 30thanniversary. It’s a timeline event, designed primarily to clean up some continuity holes left behind by “Crisis.” Some get fixed, some don’t, but it’s a fun crossover, regardless. (And of course I’m biased, because pal Dan Jurgens wrote and drew the original mini-series.  A brand new 30th anniversary special featuring a new story by Dan and Ron Marz landed on shelves last week.)

Alfred makes his first appearance in Batman #16; He loses weight a year or so later when a thinner actor is cast in the role in the first Batman movie serial.

Patrick Gleason — Demon Child

Original Art and The Artists

Batman and Robin #0, November 2012

Nothing pleases an editor (and publisher) more than when a creative team gels in such a way that they define a character(s) for a long time, and deliver consistently quality storytelling issue after issue. 

The readers, obviously, notice.

Case in point: Writer Peter Tomasi, penciller Patrick Gleason and inker Mick Gray delivered a great run on Batman and Robin during the “New 52” period. 

(They had actually created a cool three-parter in the “Batman Reborn” period prior. So many eras, so little time.)

This page is the phenomenal closing splash from a prequel “zero” issue featuring the full origin of Damien Wayne, the (genetically-engineered) offspring of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul. As you can see from the published page, this is the first time father and son meet.

The composition and use of negative space work seamlessly. Batman looks pissed, and the much-smaller Damien isn’t intimidated at all upon meeting his legendary father.

Perfect.