Doc Savage Meets Batman!

I've not been exactly thrilled with anticipation waiting for DC's latest take on the vintage pulp star Doc Savage. They've apparently brought Doc back and made him the linchpin for a new "universe" of pulpish heroes called "The First Wave".

The cover is outstanding! That I'll give them credit for. But the story by Brian Azzarello and Phillip Noto was just okay. It was difficult for me to following what was going on all the time and Noto's minimal art style made it difficult to know which characters were which all the time. Modern comics leave me cold, and it's for this very reason. They look great across the room, but the storytelling is deficient most of the time.

I'm heartened that the limited series this leads into is by Rags Morales, an artist I have more confidence in.

This meeting between a relatively young Doc and a very young Bruce Wayne/Batman has some clever moments like when Batman as Bruce pretends to be drunk to get a sense of Doc's fighting style. But the bit where he gropes Vicki Vale doesn't work at all, either tactically nor is it in keeping with what I imagine that hero to be, even if this is a gun-toting version of the classic.

I found this a rather blah effort. I'm going to give the limited a try, but if it's not better I'm maybe not going to sample the First Wave.

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