New from Webtoon and DC - Batman: Wayne Family Adventures

[icon_uk]

DC and Webtoon have announced, and more or less simultanously released the first issues of Batman: Wayne Family Adventures



As the blurb puts it

Batman needs a break. But with new vigilante Duke Thomas moving into Wayne Manor and an endless supply of adopted, fostered, and biological superhero children to manage, Bruce Wayne is going to have his hands full. Being a father can't be harder than being Batman, right?

Honestly, this is everything I've wanted from a Batfamily series in YEARS!



Writing by CRC Payne, art by Starbite

The first chapter has Duke moving in to the Manor, and being shown around by one of his new siblings...





LOVE the body language here (and that Damian is actually drawn with a notably darker skintone, which should be the bare minimum of effort, and yet)

And he's shown all around the Manor, including the basement, no the OTHER basement, of course.




And if you thought YOUR family was competitive over the last cookie... you ain't seen NOTHING yet.



It's just such FUN!

The third chapter has barbara telling, and yet not telling, her Dad abuot her days work, and has one of my favourite Tim and Steph moments in a very very long time!

Look put it this way, it's three issues in, and there's no Nightwing in sight, and yet I'm STILL recommending you check it out! What more of a recommendation do you need.

You can find all the chapters availble here
 

Comments

[thanekos]

It's not completely surprising by now that DC can do comics that aren't just primarily for an audience that likes stories from 20+ years ago being re-hashed/re-litigated - but it still is, a little.

[scorntx]

That does rely on the assumption that the primary aim of DC's writers is pandering to the capricious whims of fans and not just doing whatever they think happens to be a good idea (or pandering to themselves).

[silverhammerman]

I'm not huge on Webtoon or this brand of storytelling, but it's a huge step forward that DC is 1) capitalizing on the whole Batdad characterization which has been popular among fandom for years now, and 2) actually seems to be trying to meet new readers where the they are by releasing this for free on Webtoon, from webcomic creators. It genuinely seems like a no-brainer which people have been asking for for years, but seeing DC actually doing it is huge. Also, while the Webtoon news broke a while ago, them actually announcing this series and releasing it the same day is the kind of shareability that DC rarely courts.

By contrast, the Marvel tease of a Hickman/Shalvey book is the complete opposite. It's from established creators (who have no experience working in webcomics, much less using the vertical scroll format, as illustrated by the lackluster roll out of the Substack comics), presumably building on years-worth of lore with the Krakoa premise, and it's only available to read through a subscription-based app. At a glance Marvel seems to be playing the Goofus to DC's Gallant. I'm not a big Marvel VS DC person, but it's hard not to compare the two, and DC's release seems destined to make a much bigger splash.

[zachbeacon]

I guess I don't know what a WebToon is because my first thought upon seeing that this is DC's first one was "what about Gotham Girls?"

In any case, I think the CW embracing Superdad did a lot to overcome the anti-Batdad sentiment at Warner.

[scorntx]

-presumably building on years-worth of lore-
Hickman is... not really one for building on other people's stuff.
His own, maybe. Sometimes.
But mostly he's in the habit of paving over.

[silverhammerman]

True, but it's being promoted as an "x-perience" so I can only assume it's an X-book, thus at minimum it's likely to touch on the Krakoa status quo.

[lucean]

I'm just most shocked that they actually remembered the Cass adoption.

[lordy_co]

Ditto.

[iamrman]

What? A Batfamily project and somebody actually remembered Cass exists?

[mastermahan]

It remembered she exists AND didn't turn her into a wisecracking, streetwise pickpocket.

[scorntx]

-"The best of them"-
Well, can't argue with that caption. Clearly knows what it's talking about.


Actually trying to work out the Bat-Family dynamics, because there's at least...
Dick, Jason, Tim, Steph, Damian
Bette (who is... Kathy's cousin, so shouldn't she also be Bruce's cousin?), Barbara, Cass
Helena, Duke, Harper (wherever she's got to), Jean-Paul (if he's not being crazy)
Don't know if Luke Fox really counts, because he's already got a family of his own, but he can be another cousin on an as-needed basis.

And those are just the ones I can recall off the top of my head. Assuming some new ones haven't popped up anywhere.
(If they throw in Damian's sister from the Injustice verse, that'd be rad. But using AUs is probably cheating. But she needs some love. Therapy, but also love.)

[icon_uk]

she needs some love. Therapy, but also love.

Don't they all?

[scorntx]

She needs more.
Both therapy and love.

[mastermahan]

Bette IS a Kane, so yes, she's also Bruce's cousin.

There's also the first Batman, Kathy Kane, who was Bruce's aunt by marriage. Which makes it disturbing that they made out.

[jlbarnett]

Bette might be Bruce's cousin only by marriage. Bruce is related to Kate on his mother's side of the family. Kate could be related to Bette on her father's sid of the family

[coldfury]

It's worth noting that it looks like there's six chapters available if you download the app and spend their 'coins'.

I'm not a webtoon user, so I haven't signed up for an account. It looks fairly inexpensive. $.50ish a chapter?

Tempting, but I'm an old fogey. I should probably support it since this looks charming, though.

[melplayspersonal]

I'm extremely amused - whenever I see Batman mentioned on my tumblr dashboard, it's never about sad backstories or gritty fight scenes. No, everyone talks about Batfam shenanigans. So it seems the folks at DC are listening!

I just hope this doesn't wind up in some monkey's paw repercussions.

The Comic We NEED AND DESERVE

[chalicother]

The only complaint I have is that I wish Cass still had her disability or at least appeared to talk without using words.

[leahandillyana]

Is art by Gurihiru? Looks like their style.

[icon_uk]

I don't think so, the style looks similar but just different enough in the faces.

The artist is listed as Starbite, and I can't imagine Gurihiru would adopt an alias.

I can see a Starbite on tumblr and IG, but they don't list this in their credits, so not sure it's the same one.

[jaxjyls]

On one hand they did my favourite thing and included Cass in the family but on the other they did my most hated thing and included jason.

Also seems to have the common problem in fanon writing of reducing characters to one or two traits

[icon_uk]

I dunno, I think the same could be said about the mainstream comics too, except they tend to go "He's moody and obsessive" or "He's bad tempered" or "He kills people... a lot" and that's somehow seen as being more acceptable.

[mistersandman]

It's kind of spooky how this comic is exactly what I wanted to read in 2006.

[kurenai_tenka]

Well, I'm definitely reading this... although the one panel at a time format is a bit annoying.