Andy and Mike are back and this time they are looking at stories from two different decades but written by the same writer. Doug Moench had two distinct runs on Batman. In the eighties he followed Gerry Conway on Dark Knight writing duties and continued the "Triangle Era before the Triangle Era and without triangles" storytelling style by working on both Batman and Detective Comics. He left the book after Batman #400, but came back to the Batman title in the early nineties just before Knightfall. He would stay on that title until No Mans Land and is one of the rare Bat writers to leave the character and then return.

First up on the docket is Batman #367 and Detective Comics #534, which has a pre-Crisis and even pre-Robin Jason Todd dressed in a fancy costume helping the Batman as he battles Poison Ivy. It's a standard Ivy plot for the time, but this doesn't stop these issues from being entertaining. The guys talk about how skimpy Poison Ivy's outfit is, the very seventies television/Hammer Horror feel to the story, the subplots, and the differences between Don Newton and Gene Colan's art.

Then they jump forward to 1995 and talk about Batman #525, which was an Underworld Unleased crossover issue. Not that you would be able to tell that as it has nearly nothing to do with the larger event going on. The story focuses on Mister Freeze and his Underworld Unleashed upgrade, but the bulk of the commentary is about Kelly Jones's art. Mike was not the biggest fan of Kelly's style back in 1995, but that has changed in a big way over the past three decades.

It may not seem like it, but Andy and Mike do like feedback even if they are crap at getting to it. The most direct way to do this is to email them, which you can do by directing your thoughts to overlookeddarkknight@gmail.com. You can also leave a comment over on their Facebook page. You can also leave a comment at the new web home of the show, The Bailey Planet.

Next Time: Andy and Mike jump back to the early nineties and talk about Venom. Not the Spider-Man villain, but a storyline fromBatman: Legends of the Dark Knight that would later become important to the Knightfall storyline.

Andy and Mike are back with more Elseworlds fun with stories that take place in the 1930's and the late 1800's!

And boy was it a mixed bag.

First up is Batman: Dark Allegiances, written and drawn by Howard Chaykin. This story, the one set in the 1930's, has a self-made Bruce Wayne fighting against corrupt politicians and a racist secret society with a dash of fascism thrown in for good measure. For a story set in the early part of the 20th century and published a little over three decades ago there is a really "now" feeling to it that Andy and Mike make a meal of. They also talk about the two-fisted action, men in suits, women that know their own mind, and the guest appearance from Hitler. There is some contempoary policial talk during this section if you have a problem with such things, but when the sub-text in the story is text in real life it's hard to avoid.

Next up is Batman: Two Faces, which has the elevator pitch of "Batman meets The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde". Bruce Wayne is a wealthy socialite that has an interest in fighting crime. The death of a friend at the hands of Two-Face pushes Bruce to create a serum that makes him stronger, faster, and better and he becomes the Batman to bring Two-Face down. A new villain named The Joker complicates matters and a final face-off leads to a shocking revelation. Andy and Mike had issues with this one, but they wonder if maybe starting with a strong story made this one look worse by comparison.

The wrap things up with a conversation about the difference between Marvel's What If stories and DC's Elseworlds and the contemporary comic fan scene where they manage to not sound like two old men yelling at clouds.

It may not seem like it, but Andy and Mike do like feedback even if they are crap at getting to it. The most direct way to do this is to email them, which you can do by directing your thoughts to overlookeddarkknight@gmail.com. You can also leave a comment over on their Facebook page. You can also leave a comment at the new web home of the show, The Bailey Planet.

Next Time: The guys take a look at two Doug Moench written Batman stories. One from the eighties and one from the nineties.

This time out Andy and Mike continue and finish their look at The Demon Trilogy by talking about The Bride of the Demon and The Birth of the Demon. Though, when you really think about it, it's not a trilogy in the traditional sense. It's kind of like saying that RoboCop 1 through 3 is a trilogy. It's three films (or graphic novels in the case) but it's not one big story by any stretch of the imagination.

Not that they compare these two stories to the second and third RoboCop films. At all.

Anyway, the guys start with The Bride of the Demon, but much like Andy's assessment of Batman Begins (there is an awful lot of begins before you get to the Batman) there is an awful lot of the Demon before you get to the Bride. They discuss the story's ecological themes and how that was right at home when this graphic novel was published in 1990, the fact that Tim Drake does not feel like Tim Drake in this story, how the story itself doesn't feel like a Batman story from 1990, the weird dynamic between Ra's Al Ghul's bride and Talia, how this doesn't really feel like a follow up to Son of the Demon, the many Neal Adams homages, and more.

Then they discuss Birth of the Demon, which they enjoyed more for a variety of reasons. Maybe it was the Denny O'Neil writing. Maybe it's the Norm Breyfogle artwork. Maybe it's because the origin Ra's is engaging and makes you root for him throughout the flashbacks. Maybe it is the part of the conversation where Andy and Mike realize that this story makes the events of Knightfall questionable. Maybe it's the idea of Richard E. Grant playing Ra's Al Ghul in a movie. Maybe it's because it just a great story. You decide.

It may not seem like it, but Andy and Mike do like feedback even if they are crap at getting to it. The most direct way to do this is to email them, which you can do by directing your thoughts to overlookeddarkknight@gmail.com. You can also leave a comment over on their Facebook page. You can also leave a comment at the new web home of the show, The Bailey Planet.

Next Time: More Elseworlds fun with a take on Jekyl and Hyde and a Howard Chaykin story from 30 years ago that has a really now feeling.