by 
Updated on February 26, 2023
Tiny Titans #35
Written by: Art Baltazar and Franco
Art by: Art Baltazar
This issue sees the Titans deal with alternate Earth counterparts, and starts off with a hilarious bit of banter between Talon (the guy in the red-and-gray costume) and Robin about being counterparts of each other. This leads to Robin “not getting” the concept, which soon leads to Raven opening a portal to some random parallel Earth (and one of the funniest bits of dialogue after she’s done: “call me after you mess things up”). Cue debating between the various parallel-Earth-Titans over which Earth’s Titans are wearing “evil villain colors,” an amusing cameo by the Monitor and Anti-Monitor of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” fame (as bickering adult roommates/siblings here), and more.
As usual, a hilarious outing, though of course kids won’t have any idea who the two guys with odd-sounding names (Monitor and Anti-Monitor) are; wonder if making them hall monitors at the Titans’ school would’ve been more appropriate (though they were amusing here).
The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #2
Written by: Sholly Fisch
Art by: Rick Burchett
This issue features a Christmas themed story. Billy Batson and Mister Tawky Tawny (the civilized talking tiger of Captain Marvel comics fame) are visiting Gotham City to do some Christmas shopping (do the stores in Gotham cost less/have a better selection than the ones in Fawcett City? Bit of a trip just to do Christmas shopping…), but soon find the entire town has come under the control of the Psycho-Pirate, who’s hijacked the local airwaves in order to spread his emotion-controlling powers over the entire city. Billy changes to Cap, tracks down Batman, and the two team up to stop the Psycho-Pirate.
An OK story, though feels short. I enjoyed seeing the rest of the Marvel Family show up (Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Junior), though they have yet to show up on the TV show. I also liked seeing Tawky Tawny, a character who (as Tawny himself notes) doesn’t fit into the current DC Universe very easily tone-wise. (Another reason the Shazam cast should still be on their own Earth, and not on the same one Superman and Batman, and a billion other heroes are on…).
For Batman’s side of things, the flashback scene where he’s talking to someone on a scooter named “Jason” is apparently another obscure DC Comics reference: Jason and his sister appeared in a late 60s “Showcase” three-part storyline called “Jason’s Quest,” about a pair of twin siblings separated as young children, with Jason on a quest to find his sister/deal with mobsters after the both of them. Until this issue, they apparently haven’t appeared since the flower-power era. I never even heard of them until now; at first, I thought the guy on his bike might be a reference to “Swing With Scooter,” a DC teen humor title from the 60s (about a British teenaged musician and his scooter, which he was nicknamed after).
Both this and the “Tiny Titans” issue feature as backup stories the same “Young Justice” preview that’s appeared in several other Johnny DC titles. The “Young Justice” TV show apparently premieres on Cartoon Network this Friday night (at 7 PM EST), so I’ll finally get to see how it holds up (though the backup story didn’t impress me much).
