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jpahl32's review against another edition
1.0
I thought I would make this a quick little Halloween read while I was sick in bed. Two months later, having tried to force myself to read just a few pages at a time every few days, I finally got around to finishing Batman: Man-Bat, and threw it to the floor in relief and disgust. While the art style is technically proficient and *maybe* slightly interesting, it is NOT what I like my comic books to look like. The whole story is gross and ugly and ridiculous. I am thrilled to finally be rid of this trash for good.
iliapop's review against another edition
4.0
John Bolton does a beautiful job conveying the body horror of men and women being transformed into bats. His Batman is also wonderfully exaggerated – with giant ears, rippling muscles and a cape that swirls around the panel with a mind of its own. Jamie Delano is one of the greats, a really underappreciated member of the British Invasion in comics. Batman here is presented as a kind of Judge Dredd figure, and parallels are explicitly drawn between him and the Manbat – both of whom are big thinkers who lack emotional intelligence and empathy towards the normal people caught up in their battle of wits. Delano has a great ear for dialogue and a masterful way of quickly establishing characters, and he subtly nods to themes of environmental degradation, corporate skullduggery and mankind's precarious place on the planet. Alongside Bolton's artwork, this truly is a masterclass in superhero comics.
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