Bat-Mite #2 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Corin Howell, Mike Atiyeh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 1, 2015

A Hawkman For A New Generation!

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Who's ready for a little rib tickling fun?  Hopefully all of you because we're dealing with the ridiculous Bat-Mite and his further adventures in helping superheroes during his exile from the 5th Dimension...... That premise alone is worth the money in my opinion, but will the laughs be there and will they satisfy?  That's the question.  In the last issue, we saw Bat-Mite go from helping Batman, to getting caught up in his own adventure dealing with the terrible Dr. Trauma, who kidnaps people and sells them to wealthy folks, who want a new body.  That's right folks, she's a swapping bodies and since her's is getting a little rough around the edges, she plans on swapping bodies with Hawkman......because that's the obvious choice right?  Let's see if the little imp can save one of my favorite underrated heroes from this terrible villainous plot and possibly see if Hawkman will get a new sidekick.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our story begins exactly where we left off last issue.  Bat-Mite is in a room with a chained up Hawkman, trying to figure out how he'll save the day, as Dr. Trauma watches from a monitor.  This is really funny to me because here we have an all powerful being, perplexed on how to stop a body hopping mad doctor, when all he really needs to do is snap his fingers and make everything right............ so what does he do?  He makes a better Hawkman of course, so the hero can stand a chance against Madam Frankenstein.  It takes awhile to get it right, you know, going through all the Hawkmans from DC Comics' history, but finally Bat-Mite figures he'd start from scratch and instead of having a Savage Hawkman, he'd make Hawkman: The Savage.  A completely retooled hero for a new generation...........well, at least for a 90's generation because this Hawkman looks like a cross between Carter Hall and the classic Lobo.  I guess 5th Dimensional power doesn't make folks not loopy though because this Hawkman is still affected by Dr. Trauma's drugs and the good doctor isn't about to be upstaged by some costumed elf so she sends in her surgical clad goons to take out our little hero..........exactly the same way he'd been taken out twice before in the last issue.  So in case you ever have a problem with a dick from the 5th Dimension remember, just gas their ass.

The two goons then proceed to throw the unconscious Bat-Mite off a ravine into the waters below.......Is this the end of our pint sized protector?  Of course not, that would just be too silly.  Instead we get a moment of hilarious seriousness.  Pulling from The Dark Knight Returns, Bat-Mite narrates why he isn't ready to die, fights off a shark and finally struggles up the ravine........until he realizes that superhero-ing is hard and decides just to use his powers, but once he's back at the Trauma Manor, to his and my shock; Dr. Trauma actually succeeded in swapping her mind into Carter's body.  You go into this book thinking that there's no way that Bat-Mite would allow Dr. Trauma to go through with her plans, but I guess I should have known better.  So Bat-Mite fights the re-imagined Hawkman and before using the same gas that took him out three times before to stop the Trauma Hawk, he stops and contemplates if he could get Hawkster's spot in the Justice League if he's all Trauma-ed up........ and it's pretty funny.

In the end, Bat-Mite uses his powers to convince Dr. Trauma's assistant to switch their minds back and we jump to Hawkman leading all the kidnapped people out of the mansion, not really sure about what happened and how he managed to stop the bad guys.  Hawkman flies off as Bat-Mite watches and even though Bat-Mite switched Hawkman back to his original form.......you know since that new one tried caving his head in, Bat-Mite at least gets the satisfaction in knowing that he helped Hawkman in the man-scaping front.............gross.  As our issue closes, Bat-Mite teleports two the captives back to their home and they offer the little guy a place to stay, but it's not all pinatas and RC Cola here.  We see that Gridlock is watching from an undisclosed location and is interested in this new superhero in Gotham that might try and help humanity...........HOW DARE HE!

That's it for this issue of Bat-Mite and this really hits the funny bone the way that I've been looking for from these six issue minis.  While I enjoyed the first issue, this had more jokes land and I loved seeing Bat-Mite "fix" Hawkman.  Hell, I think we could have had an entire issue where Bat-Mite just goes through different iterations of Carter Hall and I would of loved it just as much.  I could be a bit biased here because of my love for the Winged Warrior, but I think that anyone can get on board with this tongue in cheek roast of Hawkman and the jokes that point towards his irrelevance in the superhero world and towards casual readers' knowledge of him.  I love Corin Howell's art in this book.......... I wish I could say more about it, but really I just love it and like Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.  Definitely a book you should be picking up this week because the art and writing were top notch.

Bits and Pieces:

This is one of those supposedly "funny" books we've been hearing about lately and you know what?  It might as well be called UPS because it delivers........ You like that?  Bat-Mite's adventures in "fixing" heroes is hilarious here as we have Hawkman up as our first victim and Corin Howell's art is perfect for depicting the ridiculousness of this book.  So if you enjoyed the first issue of Bat-Mite, which you should have, go and get this because it's even better.

8/10