A review by iliapop
Batman: Manbat by Jamie Delano

4.0

John Bolton does a beautiful job conveying the body horror of men and women being transformed into bats. His Batman is also wonderfully exaggerated – with giant ears, rippling muscles and a cape that swirls around the panel with a mind of its own. Jamie Delano is one of the greats, a really underappreciated member of the British Invasion in comics. Batman here is presented as a kind of Judge Dredd figure, and parallels are explicitly drawn between him and the Manbat – both of whom are big thinkers who lack emotional intelligence and empathy towards the normal people caught up in their battle of wits. Delano has a great ear for dialogue and a masterful way of quickly establishing characters, and he subtly nods to themes of environmental degradation, corporate skullduggery and mankind's precarious place on the planet. Alongside Bolton's artwork, this truly is a masterclass in superhero comics.