Books like Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham

Twenty Three Skidoo! It’s Batman in the Roaring ‘20’s!On occasion, comic creators like to take favorite characters and drop them into different time periods for some non-continuity escapades. Here it’s Bats up against H.P. Lovecraft’s Lurker at the Threshold. The Threshold being Gotham City, so, as always it’s not quite the bee’s knee’s in fair Gotham, because it going to be a tentacle-apooloza!Right-o!Basically, Bruce Wayne’s been away from Gotham City for twenty years, scouring local sea ports for teen-aged boy wards (Dick, Tim, Jason) and honing his Bat-skillz. Most recently, he’s been visiting Antarctica, looking for the missing Cobblepot party. A Mr. Freezee-Cone has unearthed the Lurker and Cobblepot hangs back to cavort and do the Happy Feet thing with some penguins.Apparently, long ago in colonial times, distant relations of Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen, Kirk Langstrom and some other guy killed someone named Prinn after a satanic rite, setting off the ultimate revenge 200 years later, with Batman, predictably at the center.Bottom line: Some of the fun lies in seeing how Mignola re-invents some of Batman’s rogues – Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, Talia and Ra’s al Ghul. Some of the fun is sucked out of this volume, by some the worst facial renderings ever.I’d recommend this for those of you who want something a little different in their Bat-reading.Fair warning, Bats: Walking into a huge, monstrous, tentacly vaginal orifice that used to be the better half of Harvey Dent is never a good life choice.