A few tpbs I've recently read, with my opinions:
The Golden Age (DC/Elseworlds): Set in the wake of WW2, this series follows the fortunes of various former costumed heroes in the post-war period, as the elation of victory gives way to Cold War paranoia and McCarthyist witch-hunts. Nowhere near as layered and rewarding as Alan Moore's Watchmen or Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, this is a fair-to-middling product of the 90s revisionistic phase. Enjoyable, but needlessly complicated with sub-plots that are hampered by insufficient character development. The art is intended as a homage to 40s pulp comics, but suffers from an overly-dark colour palette, to the extent of being murky and hard to decipher at times. Considering writer James Robinson's excellent work on the mid-to-late 90's Starman title, it's possible that he was hampered by the mini-series format, here. With just 4 issues to tell the story, maybe there wasn't enough time to develop everything as much as it could have been. Still a good read.
Steve Rude's The Moth. Rude's creator-owned character for Dark Horse was something I was pretty curious about. It turns out to be an enjoyable but decidedly minor effort, with great art and so-so storylines. There are some things I'm uncomfortable with (a character who does PR for the US govt, and mentions in passing a visit to France to 'try and persuade them to get a spine' - obviously a reference to the Coalition of the Witless and their recruitment efforts, and recurring bouts of scatological humour), and for the opening run of a new comic, we don't really get to know why our hero chooses to be a moth and so on, but again it was fun. The supporting characters and travelling-circus setting are really the best things about this title. There are enough interesting loose ends left hanging that I'd be willing to read more, but on the whole it's pretty average fare.
The KnightFall Saga: All three tpbs! It's a pity they didn't include a volume collecting KnightQuest, because Bruce Wayne's re-appearance in part 3 seems to come out of nowhere. I notice that the art actually seems to get better from the first volume to the last. This was one of those big attention-grabbing stunts DC pulled in the 90s, and while it smacks of a sales gimmick rather than a real decision to explore new ground with one of DC's most enduring characters, writers Doug Moench and Chuck Dixon manage to bring a certain operatic drama and intensity to the key sequences and confrontations of the series - Batman's pursuit of the Arkham escapees, his defeat at Bane's hands, AzBat's increasing insanity, his own confrontation with Bane, Bruce Wayne's training under Lady Shiva and the climactic Battle of the Batmen. Bread and butter stuff, but worth it for a long-time Batfan. There are probably better places for a newbie to start though, such as Frank Miller's Batman: Year One.
