I'm getting to be a sucker for these holiday anthologies on occasion. They're not typically the strictest continuity tales, they're often just a place for stable writers or newer writers to get a short in.
This one was great. Let me break it down.
1. BATMAN.
Steve Orlando writing is what got me to flip through in the first place. Here we get a tale that does something neat, it jumps us back to Batman's earliest days and his girlfriend with the least screentime ever - Linda Page. And it basically rewrites their break-up into something that could fit into any given canon, feeling both modern but also pretty darned Golden Age, with stylish art reflective of that, probably the only story in this Century that's going to give Linda Page her due.
2. WILDCAT.
The Wildcat story isn't really anything special from a story perspective but it does a few really nice things. Riley Rossmo's stylish art feels like it draws a direct 1:1 line between Golden Age Wildcat and Frank Miller Daredevil. Like, an uncanny line. And two, while it's not even remarked upon, there's a twinge of interesting dynamic in the fact that if it's meant to be a Golden Age or 1940s story, the other boxer being black with a white girlfriend, something hardly out of the ordinary now, in the context of the Golden Age still pings your "oh that might be a scandal back then" memories in your brain. Obviously not enough room in short stories to really explore or get into that. But if you want to see Rossmo do a Wildcat that feels like Frank Daredevil, it's gorgeous.
3. PIED PIPER.
Surprisingly good. Not the worst in the pack. Clean, nice, "Flash Family" art. Funny new character who's quite a goon. Looks at some classic costumery. This one's nothing too special but I don't think it's the worst of the lot. Probably only remarkable for being the Gay orientation chapter in this romance anthology, but characters on point, with a healthy relationship guy, a guy with a past who tries to do right, and an unhealthy guy trying to mess things up. Cute.
4. GREEN ARROW & BLACK CANARY.
Thought this was one of the weaker ones. I like their romance fine, it's still one of my favorite DC duos and I liked his poking fun at their 'day jobs' but it comes down to a pretty dopey anti-bullying story with little intrigue.
5. PLASTIC MAN.
This one was more fun. Mostly because of Mike Norton's inspired choices for how Plastic Man shifts and hides and sneaks and bends and transforms.
6. BATWOMAN.
Probably the most conceptually interesting story in the book, as Jordan Clark and Kieran McKeown (whose work resembles Cully Hamner) actually legitimately set out to make this into a reconciliation or patchwork fix for the fallout of the post J.H. Williams DC Editorial decision to split up Kate Kane and Maggie Sawyer and not let them get married, sticking Andreyko with the dirty work, the fallout, and also Andreyko's choice to have Kate get honeypotted by a debutante vampire jewel thief ... which admittedly, as Film Noir and Detective tropes go, happens to like every Detective Super-Hero so was bound to happen to Batwoman at some point, too. But man, Clark & McKeown actually address it all ... it's weird and awkward and maybe inexpertly told and consigned to this little short story in a Valentine's Day Anthology book where nobody will ever see it. And it's actually ... good. I mean Nocturna is a bookmark in it who is on the lam, hiding in the wrong town, and deserves to get punched in the face, but she just talks some poor super-villain crap, doesn't have much motivation here, and exists so Batwoman can punch some of her emotional problems in the face. But the rest is really a nice, intriguing little package that'll never get dealt with or directly referenced ever again in any Batwoman runs, so I suggest anyone that still has feelings about how that whole thing went down a few years back check it out, if only for this - it feels like a weird historical footnote.
7. SLAM BRADLEY.
A nice but pretty pointless addition with nice but pretty pointless art. It's nice to see Slam Bradley, but there's no real continuity nods or anything here. It's not like it's Sam Bradley and it's referencing the current state of Bat/Cat while reconciling the Brubaker years or anything. It's divorced from any meaning other than "Here's Sam ... Obligatory Batman cameo ... femme fatale ... getting old."
8. NIGHTWING & BATGIRL.
Probably the worst of the lot for me. I love the two of them like they're people I really know, I dig Nightwing's Rebirth threads and Batgirl's Burnside threads. I like way more Sam & Diane storylines with them than I probably should. But this still felt unnecessary.
9. CATWOMAN.
Funny. Just plain funny. And Abel's art is really nice. This one is more contemporary and feels like it could be a misadventure Selina had just after leaving Batman in Batman # 50 and running around on her own for a bit trying to figure things out.
10. THE QUESTION.
Yeah this one is the winner. A really out of the blue choice. Honestly, while there's a Crime of Passion in it ... it's not really any kind of a romance. It's like ... a brutal and bleak little Question story that just happens to have a villain who has problematic emotional shit going on. It's Hub City and that stark Film Noir grit, with perhaps a dash of Watchmen style narration putting it into a kind of earlier Vic Sage mold than a later Charlie mold. Ram V keeps it pretty tight, it's a very short, simple little Question story, and the selling point is John Paul Leon doing The Question. It's gorgeous. He colors his own work here.
11A. Bonus Points.
Harley Quinn does not appear in this comic book. I adore Harley Quinn, but I'm not an unreasonable human - this book still gets bonus points for her being nowhere to be found.
11B. Bonus Points.
The cover, while cheeky and ridiculous, also doesn't happen anywhere. It's obviously just meant to riff on those old Romance Comic covers. I do like the cover art a lot.