Tales of The Batman: Gerry Conway Volume 3

Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway, Vol. 3 by Gerry Conway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway, Volume 3 collects Detective Comics 515-526 and Batman 349-359, written by Gerry Conway.

My favored version of Batman ends with Crisis on Infinite Earths so for me, this is Batman in his heyday. I have a handful of the issues collected between this book's covers but most of it was new to me. The cover price is $49.99 but I watched it until I was able to snap it up for a cool 20 bucks.

First off, the artists. This collection has a good mix, from all-times like Gene Colan, Don Newton, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and Curt Swan to newcomers at the time like Dan Jurgens. I was five when I read one of the Gene Colan issues and thus missed the significance of Gene Colan doing a vampire Batman story. The art is all pretty moody. Colan is my favorite artist of the bunch by a long chalk but JLGL and Dandy Don Newton also produced some great stuff.

As for the writing, this is Gerry Conway at his peak. He's always got a B and C plot on the back burner and manages to do slow burns on a lot of the stories while still having the issues be fairly self-contained. While The Joker gets an issue and Catwoman makes a couple appearances, Conway focused on deep cuts and new characters. Daedshot, Hugo Strange, and The Monk all get several issue arcs and Conway introduces Killer Croc in a multi-parter. I'll just gloss over Colonel Blimp and The Squid, if I may.

Gerry Conway's Batman is far from the unbeatable character he's become in the ensuing decades. Croc hands his ass to him on three occasions and both Dick and Bruce become vampiri for a time. Conway also explores the corruption in Gotham City. Gordon gets booted off the force and forms a detective agency with Jason Bard while biding his time. The Human Target guest stars in a few issues as someone is convinced Bruce Wayne is Batman and puts a contract out on him.

I really can't say enough good things about this collection. The vampire story and the Hugo Strange issue were easily my favorites, partly because of childhood nostalgia and partly because they hold up so well today.

Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway Volume 3 is pre-Crisis Batman at his best. 4.5 out of 5 Batarangs.

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