Bendis & Derington's Batman Story Is Worth The $5 Price Tag

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the lead stories in Batman Giant #3 and Superman Giant #3.

Three months into their existence, it looks like DC's Walmart-exclusive line of 100-page giants is turning out to be a smart gamble. The line of monthly magazines -- Batman Giant, Superman Giant, Justice League of America Giant, and Teen Titans Giant -- offers a solid blend of new stories that get to the heart of what people love about their favorite superheroes while providing a (mostly) good selection of reprints to intrigue people who either never read these stories the first time around or simply haven't read them in a while. (For the record, as someone who'd never read "Batman: Hush," I'm enjoying it monthly in the pages of Batman Giant.)

But it was September that was going to be the make-or-break moment for the line. While the new story at the lead of Teen Titans Giant by Dan Jurgens and Scot Eaton has been running since #1, the true "main event" new stories of the line arrived in this month's issues of Superman Giant and Batman Giant. First, there was the debut of Tom King and Andy Kubert's "Up In The Sky" arc, which saw Superman learn of aliens kidnapping a little girl who happens to idolize him and grapple whether or not he should leave Earth to find her. It's perfectly fine, if a little table-setting-y as opposed to jumping straight into action, but like with the bulk of King's DC work, it's the longform game that matters.

The real test, as far as most are concerned, is this month's first chapter of "Batman Universe" by Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Derington. Bendis not only shocked the comics world by jumping exclusively to DC after two decades and change at Marvel, but by taking over both of Superman's main titles.

Given his noir-soaked body of work, many were expecting he'd take over Detective Comics or a similar Batman title. Having him end Derington -- an instant star, after his and Gerard Way's relaunching of Doom Patrol for Young Animal -- not only tackle Batman together, but in the pages of a magazine sold at the biggest of the big-box stores in the world, speaks volumes as to the amount of confidence DC has in them.

Was all that hype worth it? Well, frankly, yes. Despite only having 10 pages to work with, the first chapter of "Batman Universe" sets up an intriguing mystery that leaves the reader wanting more.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Bendis%20%26%20Derington%20Spin%20a%20Perfect%20Classic%20Batman%20Story']

The story opens with Batman getting chided by Alfred for blowing off another social engagement (at Wayne Manor itself, no less), while closing in on Riddler to foil his latest plan. Said plan - -which our hero was clued into by a riddle posted on the dark web simply asking, "When is the Riddler not the Riddler?" a quandary that Alfred admits he finds incredibly disappointing coming from the villain -- turns out to be hiring a bunch of professional stuntmen to rob a hotel in Riddler costumes.

When Alfred deduces this, he confirms to Bruce that, as they're stuntmen, it's okay to cut loose a little bit Thus, we get Derington drawing one heck of a fight scene that just pops right off the page. Seriously, one look at it and a reader will wonder why Derington hasn't drawn Batman before.

Regardless, the fight ends when Batman finds the real Ed Nygma attempting to abscond with a Fabergé egg, on loan to a Gotham museum from Russia. But all Nygma can utter is his riddle from before. After being knocked out by a shockwave from an unknown force, Batman wakes up to find the Riddler has disappeared. At a rooftop confab with Commissioner Gordon, Batman learns that the egg was apparently originally owned by none other than DC's top cowboy character, Jonah Hex.

This is huge for quite a few reasons. First, it hints at the wide-spanning nature of "Batman Universe" as promised by the title, and promises a centuries-old mystery. Second, it seems that, in the continuity of the DC Universe as told in the Giants line (it's still unclear whether or not it's in the DC Rebirth timeline, and honestly, given the goal of this is to appeal to non-comics readers, that's for the best), the New 52's conceit of Jonah Hex having lived in Gotham might still be true.

Either way, the end of this story's first chapter promises an intriguing mystery that's more than apt for a creative team of this caliber.