MISC. MANGA, *Batman: Child Of Dreams

Kia Asamiya is most known in the States with his manga creations of Silent Mobius and Steam Detectives. He's also worked on several American comic titles, like X-Men, Titans, Fantastic Four, and Thor. Aside from the manga adaptation of Star Wars, he's also done an official Batman manga that ran in Japan from 2000-2001. His was the the second official manga based on Batman. The original was popularized in Batman: Brave And The Bold in the theme of a 60s anime series. But, Child Of Dreams took alot of influence from the first few Tim Burton movies with a darker Caped Crusader.

Yuko Yagi is a female reporter from Japan who comes to Gotham with her crew to see about getting an interview with the Dark Knight. They're not in town for one night without getting captured by Two-Face. Batman shows up and stops him, although its later revealed that its not the real Two-Face, but someone who used a special drug to turn him into Two-Face and has a terrible side-effect of draining the life out of them. Batman then has to contend with dopplegangers of Penguin and Riddler, but its a Joker wannabe that causes some serious problems. During this, Bruce Wayne starts dating Yuko who he believes has some connection to the mysterious drug. An assailant dressed as Batman shows up, who is really Yuko's producer, Nagai. This makes the trail of the drugs leading to a Japanese pharmaceutical company which is run by Yuko's uncle, Kenji Tomoko. He suffers from a strange ailment which rapidly ages him physically. Batman suspects he is the one behind the whole thing, and uses some of Batman's DNA to give himself a newer stonger body. Kenji's plan is to get rid of the old Batman, and become the new one making everyone think he was the original all along. The real Bats manages to "boff" him out though, and returns to Gotham.

This was a very impressive manga take on an American superhero. Unlike the Spider-Man manga, Child Of Dreams could very easily fit into the normal continuity of the DC Universe, and not some Elseworlds story. Asamiya's art style is awesome, and really gives the characters more of a profile than you usually see in traditional manga with huge eyes or non-existent noses. The manga takes on Batman rogue gallery is a serious bonus, although you only see pictures of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy in an interview at the end of the book. One of the few downsides to this though it was printed in American in left-to-right as opposed to the regular Japanese format, so Two-Face's scarred half is on his right side. The English adaptation was handled by comics regular Max Allan Collins, who is best known for writing The Road To Perdition. This is currently available in paperback and hardcover format through DC Comics. Totally makes for a great goddamn-Batman adventure!