Last week I read GoGo Monster, which was an excellent story that may or may not have involved ghosts. This week I wanted to catch up on a book that Rusty recommended long, long ago and I read about (and recommended) here. So I read 28 DAYS LATER VOLS. 2-4, written by Michael Alan Nelson with art by Declan Shalvey, Leonardo Manco, and Ale Aragon, published by BOOM! Studios.

When we last saw our heroes they were trying to get to London to learn the truth about the infection that caused the zombie plague. Unfortunately, they were trapped in Scotland with no car, no supplies, one machete and nine bullets. In short, things weren’t looking good. But our adventurers are going to London and nothing is going to stop them! Nothing except increasing levels of bad guys along the road. Our heroes manage to find a pocket of survivors but they aren’t all that friendly. Then they manage to find a city of survivors and they really aren’t that friendly. Heck they even manage to find a couple of scientists with military support who are studying the infection in order to weaponize it. They really, really aren’t friendly. This is the story of the world’s longest and worst road trip ever!

Nelson continues writing the fast-paced zombie story which he set up in the first trade. Unlike other zombie comics, there’s never a “let’s sit around and analyze our feelings and moan about the loss of the world” issues. Nelson quickly moves the characters from one event to another and uses quiet times walking down the road for character development. This creates a balance between the action and plot without slowing down the pacing. Nelson does a great job of exploring the concepts of the 28 Days Later world, too. In this world, only England has zombies, not the rest of the world. It’s very believable that the military would try to capture some zombies. It’s very believable when survivors question why nothing is being done to help them. It all flows together very naturally and that keeps you turning pages to see what is going to happen next.

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Last week, I read Doom 2099, which was a good collection of Warren Ellis’ early work. Keeping in my recent theme of reading established, well known authors, I decided to try something from a writer who never seems to get all the credit he deserves. This week I read THE MASSIVE, written by Brian Wood, illustrated by Kristian Donaldson and Gary Brown, published by Dark Horse, collecting issues #1-6 of the series.

(See all volumes of this series in our TPBs & Graphic Novels category!)

In the future, a series of catastrophic climatic events has destroyed the global economy. Civilization collapsed and people are struggling to survive. For the crew of a ship called The Kapital things are slightly better. They have food and water but they have lost their sister ship, The Massive. They are traveling the world looking for their friends and family and just trying to survive at the same time.

In The Massive, Brian Wood again shows why he is a master storyteller. Plot wise, this is your standard end-of-the-world-by-giant-storms story. It would have been so easy for him to show all the destruction and all the misery and make this book a giant cliché. But Wood doesn’t do that! By placing the cast upon a boat he is able to move them around the world and have them deal with real issues (like finding water) without seeing all the destruction. He can show how society has started to crumble without getting into the gory details of it. He doesn’t deal with starvation or other obvious topics, instead dealing with isolation and a sense of loss. The characters try to answer questions about keeping a moral code developed in a civilized world in an increasingly UNcivilized world.

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Last week, I read Preacher Vol. 1, which was a great collection by a fan favorite author. This week, I decided to read something by another fan favorite, which is why I read DOOM 2099: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION BY WARREN ELLIS, written by Warren Ellis and John Francis Moore, illustrated by Pat Broderick, David Klein, John Royle, Steven Pugh, Ashley Wood, and John Buscema, published by Marvel, collecting issues #24-39 of the series.

Doom has somehow been taken from the present and thrust into the dystopian future of 2099. He doesn’t know how he got there but he is determined to find out why! Issues #24-25 wrap up that storyline with plot by Moore and script by Ellis. Starting with issue #26, Doom decides that he needs to save the world because it is on the verge of collapse. The only way to do that is to take over the source of all the world’s problems: the USA. He does so but the megacorps that ruled it do not like revolutions. So they plan on taking ownership of America back and making an example of Doom for the entire world to see.

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Last week, I read Jennifer Blood Vol. 3, which was a twisted, violent comic that I couldn’t stop reading. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading books from some of my favorite writers and artists. The selections have all been excellent so this week I decided to test myself. I wanted to see if one of my favorite series was as good as I remembered it to be. This week I read PREACHER VOL .1, written by Garth Ennis, illustrated by Steve Dillon, published by DC Comics/Vertigo.

(See all volumes of this series in our TPBs & Graphic Novels category!)

Jesse Custer is a preacher in a small Texas town. He’s having a crisis of faith when he is possessed by something. This “something” is very powerful and gives him the “voice of God” which makes people literally obey his commands. In the meantime, God has decided he’s had enough and left Heaven. Jesse is determined to find out what happened to him and find out why God has abandoned his throne.

Preacher was originally published from 1995-2000 and due to the subject matter it quickly gained notoriety as a series that was pushing the envelope. There was never any shortage of controversy from issue to issue and it took all of one reading to figure out if you liked it or not. The series is almost 20 years old so you have to wonder if it’s still as edgy now as it was then. I can happily report that it is. When I read it the first time I didn’t understand what all the excitement was about. Now that I am older I can see why this upset people but it didn’t stop me from reading it.

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Last week I read Tales from Beyond Science which was a fun EC-style story collection with some fantastic art. Since I double checked one of my favorite artists last week, this week I decided to double check one of my favorite writers which is why I read Jennifer Blood Volume 3, written by Al Ewing, illustrated by Kewbar Baal and Eman Casallos, published by Dynamite.  

I loved Jennifer Blood Vol 2, but I was curious if Ewing could still do something with the concept. I’ve noticed that all writers have one good story arc in them for any given character. A good writer can make even the dullest of characters, and the worst of plots, exciting for six issues. It’s the great writers that can make books exciting over 12 issues. Ewing has exceeded all my expectations and elevated Jennifer Blood from a good series to an absolutely amazing series. It is a masterpiece of writing and visual storytelling that is so far above 90% of the books on the stand these days that it’s incredible.  

Last time we left our heroine Jennifer, she had blown up the neighbor’s house, killed a couple of people (who deserved it), and maimed a couple of detectives (one who deserved it and one who didn’t.) Now that all her tracks are covered she can get back to her normal life. Everything is normal except for that whorrrrr… woman down the street who seems to have an unhealthy obsession with Jennifer’s husband. Very unhealthy indeed because Jennifer will do anything to protect her family. Anything at all.

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Last week I read Wolverine: The Best there Is, which was a hyper violent Wolverine story with little continuity to mitigate the violence.  After reading a book that was essentially Wolverine Max without the swearing, I needed something completely different and I found that in Tales From Beyond Science, written by Mark Millar and Alan McKenzie, illustrated by Rian Hughes, published by Image.

Have you ever wondered what the old EC Tales From The Crypt would be like if they were written today?  What twisted concepts would be developed?  What short story silliness would modern writers create?  Well wonder no more because Tales From Beyond Science answers all those questions and many more!  In fact, because it’s science-based you will learn things like the truth behind spontaneous human combustion, the Bermuda Triangle, and the lost 13th month.  The best words to describe this are ‘entertaining’ and ‘educational.’

Besides the incredibly silly premise, I wanted to read this because of Rian Hughes’ art.  I’ve been a big fan of his since way back in 2011 when I read Yesterday’s Tomorrows. Hughes’ art continues to shine and is worth the price of admission.  His art is very clean in the ‘style atome’:  it’s thin lines with very little shading created by ink and most of the depth is achieved through color.  Besides the art, Hughes’ sense of design is perfect too.  Each story has a completely different feel because he plays with the panels and structure of each page.  Amazingly enough, for all the experimentation, the stories are perfectly readable.

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Last week, I read Harbinger #1-8, which opened one of the best superhero titles on the stands. I enjoyed it so much that I needed to read more superheroes. I decided to try a story I knew would be over the top, ultra-violent fun: WOLVERINE: THE BEST THERE IS VOL. 1: CONTAGION and VOL. 2: BROKEN QUARANTINE, written by Charlie Huston, illustrated by Juan Jose Ryp, published by Marvel.

The premise is simple: Wolverine’s enemy blackmails/convinces Wolverine to let him “experiment” on Wolverine’s healing factor in order to save his terminally ill son. The book then proceeds to torture Wolverine in ever more creative ways for 3.5 books, until finally Wolverine takes revenge in issue #6. Once Wolverine returns home he gets infected with a space techno-virus, then some nasty space bugs, before encountering the villain from the first arc again. Lots and lots of violence ensues.

These two trades collect Wolverine: The Best There Is #1-12, which I believe were universally… reviled. So why did I read it? Well, I loved Huston’s writing on Moon Knight (which I talked about in the first ever ‘Best Book’ post) and I love Ryp’s art so I took a chance. And, for the most part I liked it because it isn’t your typical Wolverine story. Which I imagine is why everyone else hated it.

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Last week, I read Spooks Vols. 1-2 which was a fun adventure story. Behind the scenes here at Best Book there are often animated conversations about the books I read. The conversations mostly revolve around the fact that, yet again, I’ve read some really strange book. It annoys my friends that I don’t read more mainstream things. So this week, based upon a recommendation (and books, too) from Jim Martin, I read HARBINGER #1-8 written by Joshua Dysart, illustrated by Khari Evans, Phil Briones, Barry Kitson, and Lee Garbett, published by Valiant.

Peter Stanchek is a psiot. He has Professor X style mental powers without any of the control. In an effort to keep all the voices out, Peter self-medicates, which tends to cause him powers, not to mention get him in trouble with the law. Peter’s powers haven’t gone unnoticed and a secret government agency is hunting him, so when a mysterious Mr. Harada offers Peter a chance to learn how to control his powers and help the world it seems too good to be true. Can Peter learn to trust his new friends? Does Harada really mean him well? Or is Peter just too damaged and antisocial to be anything but a destructive force?

I will be the first to admit that I had really low expectations for this book. I was never a fan of the original Harbinger series in ’92, which I felt was static paint-by-numbers superheroes. WOW! I couldn’t have been more wrong. Dysart has written one of the tightest, more-realistic-than-most superhero books I’ve read in a long, long time. In the original, Peter Stanchek, our hero, was a normal kid with powers and a king sized sense of right and wrong. In the new version, Stanchek is a really messed up teenager with anger issues, authority figure issues, trust issues, and that doesn’t even begin to address his drug issues. There is nothing more interesting than a conflicted individual and Stanchek covers all the bases. Heck, most of the time he gets the bigger moral questions right but even that’s not a gimme. When he finally starts to build his harbinger team he doesn’t choose superpowered kids from stable homes! Oh no, our “hero” builds his team from the bottom feeders of society. It’s awesome. There aren’t any shiny, colorful costumes to be found here. There are only damaged individuals with far too much power.

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Last week, I read Scene of the Crime, which was everything you would expect from an Ed Brubaker book. This week I needed something simpler. I needed entertainment that wouldn’t challenge me mentally but would hold my attention. I found that in SPOOKS VOLS. 1 & 2, written by Xavier Dorison, illustrated by Christine Rossi, published by Cinebook.

In 1895, some of America’s most prominent citizens are dying under mysterious circumstances. When the captains of industry are in danger, there’s only one man who can help, Morton Chapel. Morton and his Specialists in the Odd and the Occult — his SPOOKS — quickly find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens the President of the United States. The only question is can they solve the mystery in time to save him?

This is what I call a fluff book. It’s not full of deep meaning. It’s not trying to stretch the comic book medium. This is meant to be pure entertainment and in that regard it succeeds masterfully. Dorison has written an action-packed tale that moves the reader quickly from event to event with just enough mystery to keep the reader guessing where the story is going. The action sequences are well executed and while I never doubted the heroes were in danger, there was enough suspense to make it fun.

In true fashion, the team is comprised of highly talented individuals whose specialized skills make them the best at what they do. While this is something of a cliché it was executed perfectly. The villain was bad as bad can be and had a sufficiently grandiose plan so that it was believable the team was needed. Finally, the mystery and hints of the occult were just right. The mystery wasn’t dragged out so a reader could get bored. At the same time, the mysticism wasn’t so over the top as to make the story silly.

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Last week I read The Milkman Murders, which was one heck of a twisted horror story.  After reading it, I felt as if I was covered in grime.  Since I was already feeling dirty, it seemed like the perfect time to read some gritty crime noir, and I found a perfect example in Scene of the Crime written by Ed Brubaker, illustrated by Michael Lark with inks by Sean Phillips, and published by Image.

Jack is slightly better than your average down on his luck private eye.  He’s got a host of issues but he doesn’t get beat up on a regular basis. Alex just wants to find her younger sister Maggie who has disappeared.  In short order, Maggie is found, then found again dead. What terrible family secrets will be unearthed while trying to find the killer?

Based on the creators attached, is it any surprise this is a great book?  In comic book circles, Brubaker is a superstar so it’s a gimme that this would be good right?  Not necessarily!  You see, Scene of the Crime is Brubaker second major work, and first four-issue miniseries.  When this was first published by Vertigo in 1999, Brubaker wasn’t much of anyone.  I picked this up because I like to see creators develop so I assumed this would be very rough with hints of what the future would hold.  Boy was I wrong.  This is one of the most complete stories by a (relatively) new writer that you will ever read.  It’s amazing how tight this story is.  Brubaker already knows how to work scenes and develop characters and do all those things that normally take writers years to learn.  This isn’t vintage Brubaker because the story is so solid that it reads like he wrote it last week.

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Last time I read Cherubs which was a fun action packed story from an established creator.  This week I finally settled in to read The Milkman Murders, written by Joe Casey, illustrated by Steve Parkhouse, and published by Image.   It’s taken me a while to get to this book because Joe Casey’s writing is something of an enigma.   I always seem to love his stuff from Image, WildCats and Godland, but his mainstream work (Superman and X-men) leaves me ice cold.   I’d heard about The Milkman Murders, and since it isn’t mainstream I took the chance.  I am glad I did.

Barbara is your typical mild-mannered housewife: she dreams of a having a Leave It to Beaver family and the life that only exists in dreams and 1950s television.  Her reality is composed of a daughter that hates her, a son with a sadistic streak, and a husband with anger that tends to explode.  So what happens when an act of violence destroys Barbara’s dream?  How will she reclaim her dream and finally gain control of her life? 

In the span of 4 issues, Casey crafted one of the grimiest, nastiest, disturbing horror stories I have read in a long time.  The first issue starts out simply enough by setting up the premise and establishing the event that changes Barbara’s life.  Issue 2 deals with Barbara’s break down and decision on how to regain control over her life.  Issue 3 is the execution of the plan.  Up to this point, Casey crafted what I consider a typical horror story.  It was setting, bad event, and then craziness ensues.  The problem was that there was one more issue to go!  And that fourth and final issue is what puts this series over the top.

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Last time I read O.M.A.C. Vol. 1 which was a throwback to simpler superhero stories.  After reading it, I wanted something similar with lots of action but more humor.  In other words, I wanted another light read that would entertain me.  I found that in Cherubs written by Bryan Talbot, illustrated by Matt Stafford and published by Dark Horse.

It all starts when a pack of Cherubs get bored in heaven.  Who knew that Cherubs are more like Sid Vicious style punks than angels.  After they witness Abbadon the Archangel kill the council of angels, thereby committing the first murder in Heaven, the cherubs decide to stop him.  Actually, they end up framed so they really need to clear their names!  Traveling to Earth they enlist the aid of Mary the exotic dancer to help stop Abbadon’s evil plans.  Did I mention that Mary has a heart of gold because don’t, deep down, all exotic dancers have hearts of gold?  Needless to say, nothing goes quite as planed… if there was a plan that is.  Maybe Heaven’s worst little boys can stop the apocalypse or maybe not. 

Bryan Talbot, author of such great books as Tale of One Bad Rat, Luther Arkwright, and the current Grandville series, is at the top of his game with this story.  Talbot has been a master story teller for a long, long time, but for the most part his work has been fairly serious.  I knew he could script great action sequences but I wondered if he could pull off the comedy part of this “supernatural comedy-adventure.”  I shouldn’t have worried because Talbot’s humor skills are just as good as his action ones.  This story is packed with parodies of all your favorite supernatural characters from Scooby Doo to Harry Potter.  He also stuffs the story full of classical Heaven-Hell references too!  It’s his characterization that really pulls the story off.  The Cherubs are more like 5 Stooges than Angels and Talbot instills them with just enough personality to make it entertaining.

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Last time I read Ed the Happy Clown which was more fun than a book like that deserves to be.  But, after going that far out into the comic book wilderness I really needed something…dare I say…normal this week.  I wanted to read an action packed story that would require little thought and less commitment.  I found that in OMAC Vol. 1: OMACTIVATE, which collects all 8 issues of the New 52 series, written by Dan DiDio, illustrated  by Keith Giffen and Scott Koblish and published by DC.

Kevin Kho is your ordinary, non-descript, socially inept scientist at Cadmus.  At least, until he is transformed into the massive OMAC by Brother Eye!  Part Hulk, part Spider-Man and all in homage to Jack Kirby, this is an adventure that you don’t want to miss.

It’s safe to say there were very few good reviews of this series when it first came out.  I don’t know how the story read in single issues but I have to say, this was AWESOME collected!  No, seriously it was.  DiDio channeled Kirby perfectly and produced the most Kirby-ish Book since Joe Casey/Tom Scioli’s Godland.  This is over the top non-stop action and silliness.  And not necessarily in that order!

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Last week, I read Last Days of an Immortal which was an intense science fiction story about the meaning of immortality. As I was trying to decide what to read this week, I realized that everything this year has been ordinary. From superheroes to biography, all of it has been fairly straight forward. This week I needed to read the strange, if not outright bizarre. I needed something that would make me laugh; maybe not cry, but certainly chuckle from the sheer insanity presented on the page. I found that in ED THE HAPPY CLOWN, written and illustrated by Chester Brown, published by Drawn and Quarterly.

So, how do I summarize Ed the Happy Clown? Well, it’s different, strange and very funny. But once you get past the fact that Ed really isn’t all that happy and Ed’s private parts have been possessed by the Ronald Reagan of another dimension, and the man who couldn’t stop going, and the rat eating pygmies who worship the private parts god, then it’s not all that strange at all. In fact, it makes perfect sense that the Mayor imported rat eating pygmies from a third world country to deal with the city’s vermin problem. Dropping the pygmies from an airplane wasn’t the best decision but getting the pygmies was. Trust me, it all makes sense in context.

This is one of those collections in which you can watch the author grow as a writer and artist. EtHC started in the early ’80s as a self-published mini comic before being picked up and continued as a regular comic. In other words, this collects about the first decade of Chester Brown’s work. What makes that so amazing is Brown’s talent, although very raw, is evident from the very start and grows in leaps and bounds as the story progresses.  

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Last week I read Kiki of Montparnasse, a biographical comic which deserved the awards it won. This week, instead of reading another award-winning story, I decided to read something from an award-winning author. The trick was to find a book in which both the writer and artist were highly respected. I was lucky to find that with LAST DAYS OF AN IMMORTAL, written by Fabien Vehlmann, illustrated by Gwen de Bonneval, and published by Archaia.

In the future, through the miracle of science, Elijah is immortal. Because of his age and wisdom, Elijah is one of the best conflict-resolution negotiators in the known galaxy and has brokered deals that averted wars between civilizations. Because of his skills, he is called in to stop a conflict between two species, which is threatening to engulf the empire. It’s all in a day’s work until one of his prize students decides to give up his immortality. What happens when you live so long that you can no longer remember all of your friends? What happens when an immortal questions his immortality?

Vehlmann has crafted one of the finest science fiction stories I have read in a long, long time. There are some very heady concepts about immortality and what it means to be immortal, and at the same time it asks questions about the nature of communication. These two themes are woven together so that one question supports the other until Vehlmann brings it to a very satisfying conclusion.

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Last week, I read Vol 1 Hell Yeah! and Green Wake, which were both excellent. With the recent Oscar nominations announced and award season upon us, I decided to read something award-winning. I wanted to read a book that  had won The Fnac-SNCF Essential prize (the fan favorite prize) at Angoulême, which is the European equivalent to San Diego. I chose the 2008 winner, recently translated to English, KIKI OF MONTPARNASSE, written Catel Muller, illustrated by Jose-Luis Bocquet, published by Selfmadehero.

Every generation has a woman that captures its imagination in either good or bad ways. This is true of Lindsay Lohan, Pamela Anderson, Mariel Hemingway, Marilyn Monroe and many others. Before all of them, and one of the greatest in the new age of photography and motion pictures, was Kiki. Kiki was the queen of Montparnasse in the 1920s and model and muse to a generation of artists. She was inspiration for Kisling, Foujita, Picasso, and, most notably, Man Ray. This is the story of her rise and fall.

Muller and Bocquet have done a fantastic job of bringing to life a woman who was obviously a force of nature. But they don’t focus solely on her oversized personality or get bogged down in the minutiae of her life. The story is a series of snap shots of Kiki’s life told in one year increments. By doing this, Muller and Bocquet are able to show the events that helped to form Kiki into the person she was. The first part of the book, Kiki’s rise, is full of hope as she manages to escape a life of poverty. It’s also when Kiki is her happiest. The second part, as Kiki starts her slow and steady decline, isn’t sugar coated but neither is the bleak ending of her life sensationalized. Her flaws are laid bare but in a nonjudgmental way that makes you care for Kiki even more.

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I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and had a chance to check out the 2012 Year in Review last week. I wanted to start the new year with something fresh and exciting but that didn’t happen. I made the mistake of cleaning up the piles of books in my reading room and discovered several books I forgot to read. So, instead of shiny and new, I read old and forgotten, which is why I read HELL YEAH! VOL. 1: LAST DAYS ON EARTH, written by Joe Keatinge and illustrated by Andre Szymanowicz, and GREEN WAKE VOL. 1, written by Kurtis J. Wiebe and illustrated by Riley Rossmo, both books published by Image.

In Hell Yeah!, Benjamin Day is your typical son-of-a-superhero teenager. He’s moody, occasionally sullen, and out to prove he’s someone while not alienating his girlfriend. His life is mostly normal until his girlfriend from an alternate universe shows up warning him that he may be the only Benjamin Day left in all the multiverse. Is his alterna-girlfriend actually trying to help him or kill him and what does his girlfriend in this reality think?

Keatinge wrote another favorite of mine, Glory so I wasn’t really taking much of a chance on this book. Keatinge crafts a tight superhero story with plenty of action, mystery and a couple of subplots to carry you from issue to issue. The idea of alternate universes and versions of yourself isn’t new but Keatinge executes it perfectly. He creates versions of versions of each of the characters, and even though you don’t have a great deal invested in any of them, it’s fun to see all the variations. By the time the Stan Lee clone shows up kicking everyone’s butt you can’t help but get sucked in even more.

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Well 2012 is finally over!  It was a great year in comics but now comes the hard part: determining some of the best books of the year.  Looking back, there were some really great books and there were some  that were only better than average–choosing the best of the best is never an easy task.

The best new series that I finally caught up with was Unwritten Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity and Unwritten Vol. 2: Inside Man.
One of the last Vertigo series, this continues to astound.  It’s the perfect book for fans of comics and literature.  Everyone said it was great before I finally read it and they were right.

I read more superheroes than normal this year so the The Best New Superheroes Series was really hard to determine.  I finally gave up and gave it to The Strange Talent of Luther Strode and Glory Vol. 1: The Once and Future Destroyer. Luther Strode was a fantastic origin story about a young man gaining superpowers.  It’s got a real world vibe, so it tended to be a little bloody and violent.  On the other hand, Glory was the best relaunch of a character I have seen in a long, long time.  There’s a great mystery, excellent supporting cast, and tons of action.  It’s the best non-Wonder Woman on the stands today.

The best real-life story this year was a tie between My Friend Dahmer  and Nonnonba. My Friend Dahmer is a dark story of a really troubled young man before he becomes one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.  It isn’t gory and it doesn’t glorify Dahmer but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fascinating. On the other hand, Nonnonba is the story of a young man growing up in rural Japan.  Dahmer is a study in the emergence of evil while Nonnonba is a study in hope and growing up.  Both were excellent.

Finally, the Best Book that no one, including Rusty, is reading is still Jennifer Blood Volume 2.  Rusty gave me grief for picking it, but those of us that are reading it (Andy King!) are loving every minute of it.  It’s well worth you investment because it goes against all your expectations.

Well that’s all for this year, enjoy the holidays and see ya in 2013.

 -David Lee

Last week I read Mind MGMT #1-6, which was a fantastic story about a clandestine secret spy organization. I really enjoyed it, but this week I needed something far simpler. Christmas is coming and I have so much going on between work, the holidays and Christmas shopping that I needed to read a fluffy comic that would entertain me but require little to no thought. I found exactly that in The BATMAN/JUDGE DREDD collection written by John Wagner and Alan Grant, illustrated by Simon Bisley, Cam Kennedy, Carl Critchlow, Glenn Fabry, Jim Murray and Val Semeiks, published by DC.  

This book collects several one-shots published between 1991 and 1998, which teamed up Batman and Judge Dredd. The first, Batman/Judge Dredd: Judgment on Gotham, is exactly what you want and expect from a team-up like this. Batman and Dredd beat the snot out of each other for a whole lotta pages, come to an “understanding” in which they only growl at each other so they can team up long enough to beat the snot out of Judge Death. The story is thin but has enough action and humor that you don’t care. The scene in which Judge Death gets a new costume while in Gotham is worth the price of admission alone! Well, that and the sequence of Judge Death as a heavy metal rock star. The whole story is lavishly painted by Simon Bisley. It is incredible! It was Bisley at his peak and the art is so good it defies words.  

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