I found Batman/The Shadow: The Murder Geniuses to be a little hard to follow in places. It seemed as though the author was being deliberately vague in the backstory department in order to help promote suspense. It worked but it also made the story a bit confusing at times.

Batman isn't sure what to make of The Shadow - good guy, bad guy, something in between - as he seems somehow connected to several murders of clebrated good-samaritan citizens in Gotham. Batman's preliminary investigation shows that The Shadow's alter ego is supposed to have died nearly fifty years ago, yet he seems in remarkably good shape for someone who is both dead and over 100-years-old.

There is also a mysterious, seemingly mythical figure who keeps appearing at the murder sites... is this creature acting in partnership with The Shadow? A minion? An entity of evil all its own? That is the story that unfolds.

I suspect those who have a better knowledge of The Shadow (this is only the second thing I've read featuring that character) and the "rules" of the character and his world will enjoy and undestand the story more than I.

I have gone back and forth with the rating on this one. I feel it deserves more than 3-stars but I truly don't see it as a 4-star effort. Since I can't give it 3 1/2 stars I am posting it at 4-stars. I thought it was interesting and somewhat unique but not all that compelling, something along the lines of a brave experiment that didn't quite come together, I applaud the effort if not the final result.

***Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this title.

This is probably my favorite comic in 2017! I love Batman and I just found out about the Shadow this year; now the two superheroes are together in a story told by a team that include Scott Snyder, a writer who have written some of my favorite Batman stories.
The prologue in the beginning was well done; I did not even know it was a prologue until the end of it said “end prologue.” Certainly it left readers with anticipation with the introduction of a new villain whose appearance is mysterious, dark and intriguing. The mask this villain wears make the character impersonal and therefore more villainous. Adding to the suspense is the strange line that the villain said right before the prologue ended. I thought the prologue also drew interests not only with the ending but also on the first page in which I expected Bruce Wayne was the one that was going to be introduced in an event but it was someone else instead. What a way of making readers question their assumption and pay more careful attention to the story. It won’t be the last time there’s these kinds of moments in the story either. As the story progresses we are left to question about Batman’s relationship with the Shadow but one also is cautious with what the Shadow has to say since there’s a rather dark and sinister side to him, one that doesn’t win us nor the other characters with full confidence.
In the beginning Batman erroneously assumed that the Shadow is his suspect of various murders taking place but it turns out that Batman was wrong. From the information that the Shadow and his former associates shared Batman starts to realize there are darker and more evil forces at work, one in which is darker than any of his previous villains. This villain is so dark it makes the Joker into a joke (pun intended). And the Joker does appear in this story, teaming up with the main villain but we also see other villains of Batman joining in what they perceived was the demise of the Batman. Here I thought the story gets quite epic. As that is going on we see one of the other drama going on in this story is the battle of two different worldviews of fighting evil. You have on the one hand Batman’s philosophy of not killing anyone while on the other hand you have the Shadow who comes out with his sinister laugh and guns blazing against those who are evil. Batman often thinks in terms more positive compared to the Shadow. While the Shadow knows what evils lurk in men’s heart, Batman is the guy who is willing to save the Joker and even take a bullet for him. It certainly leaves a lot for readers to think about concerning these two polar approach of fighting evil.
I love the illustrations and the colors. I also enjoyed the drawing in this book. It helped set the mood for the story. Both the drawing and the colors made this story believable as far as comic books is concerned, without making it cheesy. I give this volume a five out of five and a two thumbs up.
NOTE: This book was provided to me free by DC Comics and Net Galley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

A crossover which in many ways gets off to exactly the right start; Batman thinks he’s on the Shadow’s trail, when all along the Shadow has been leading him by the nose, because Batman is in fact his backwards pupil. The whole master of disguise, suddenly disappear in mid-sentence bits with which Batman wows the rubes? The Shadow does likewise to him. And Rossmo draws a suitably puppyish and generally baffled Batman, constantly getting dressed down by the superior crimefighter. “The weed of crime must be plucked, Batman. Your garden grows wild. I would have these creatures dead. We’d be facing two instead of twenty if not for your childish rules.” And indeed, when Batman makes yet another of his idiotic attempts to save the life of his murderous frienemy the Joker, he gets himself lethally wounded. Cool! So now the Shadow can save the day without this idiotic Poochie figure cramping his style, then? Alas, no. They somehow tape Batman up, and he makes a ridiculous deductive leap as an effort to show that his methods also bring something to the table, even though the criticisms he then adds make no sense whatsoever. The Shadow starts shooting to wound. And to be honest, he’s never been quite right – Rossmo doesn’t make his face imposing or hawkish enough, and the degree to which his coat and scarf flap around go somewhere past expressionist, and start getting reminiscent of that drawing of Cerebus as Spawn where he had distance markers along his cape. Yes, some of this sort of bullshit is fairly inevitable in an inter-company crossover (though the <i>Doctor Who/Star Trek</i> one managed a fairly good job of holding on to the awareness that literally everything from <i>Who</i> outclasses anything from <i>Trek</i>), but that coat is just silly, such that when I showed my wife she did the Graham-Chapman-stopping-a-sketch-for-being-too-silly voice from <i>Monty Python</i>. Now <i>The Shadow/Graham Chapman</i> - there’s a crossover I’d like to see. Still, there were some fun bits along the way, especially the Joker/Shadow laugh-off.

A complicated story that has just the right illustrations to get together with, another very suffering Batman in a very dense and complex history.

Una storia molto complicata con i disegni perfetti che l'accompagnano, un altra storia complessa con Batman sofferente.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

I enjoyed it, I’m only familiar with The Shadow through the old radio dramas that I’d hear when we’d come home late, listening to public radio, so if there was ever backstory given on him I don’t remember it so getting this was fun, how he became who he is and how he’s preparing to pas the mantle forward. Tying the Shadow to Batman was an interesting choice, that he’s seen as a possible heir to the Shadow title was intriguing but I think Batman has enough on his plate being just Batman. The team up was fun and crazy, the Stag was an interesting villain, whose backstory was unfortunately really lacking, but was interesting nonetheless. Could have done without the Joker I think, had enough going on in the story already but it is what it is.
Interesting read, can’t wait to talk to other readers about it.

Minister Blizzard??

The art was pretty cool. And the working of The Shadow into the DC mythos was a neat idea, but ultimately really confusing. Is this supposed to be an Elseworlds?

I think the idea was better than the execution. They tried to go too “high concept”. I always like working in ancient myths and biblical ideas, but when it makes the story too hard to follow, it doesn’t work. And the most interesting characters were too short-lived. I would hope a Batman/Shadow crossover would be more interesting. I think I’d only recommend it for die hard Shadow and Batman fans. It’s not something that’s easy to follow if you don’t know the worlds - particularly Batman’s world.

I think 3 stars fits both for Netgalley (<i>I Recommend This Book: Maybe</i>) and Goodreads (<i>liked it</i>).

Another crossover for the DC Universe. This time Batman hunts the elusive Shadow before finding he must team up with him to battle against The Joker and an even greater foe to stop the opening the very gates of Shamba-La. A well writen and beautifully drawn graphic novel that deserves a place among the better titles.

My husband and I read this together, and it was just as easy for me to read knowing nothing about comics and batman as it was for him knowing much much more than I do. It was a fun and quick read and I was sucked into the story from the very begining.

I enjoyed this comic, the combination of the Shadow and Batman, bot heroes have a similar back story was an interesting team-up. I look forward to future volumes of them teaming up.

I had a difficult time following the story on this. I will admit that much of my difficulty is probably tied to my very, very limited knowledge of The Shadow, but with how the story was set up I really felt like The Shadow being so confusing was more a failure on the part of the writers than it was on me. There was a lot of opportunity to make his power set and lore more clear than they did, especially since it constantly suggested that he either was a mentor to Batman, or that he at least regularly took the guise of important figures in Batman's life.
The villain, The Stag, was largely uninteresting because its motivations were unclear. The Stag was also devoid of any personality in that it [spoiler] ended up being an entire army, [/spoiler], plus only ever said one thing over and over. The alliance with Joker was really bizarre in that any details of plans or the like seem like they'd be impossible to work out because even with the Joker the Stag just said the same line over and over. Also, it seemed very random that basically all of Batman's villains all showed up for one of the confrontations.
The more I think about this story the less I like it and the less it makes sense to me. This is really a shame, because both Steve Orlando and Scott Snyder have written some very enjoyable comics. This, unfortunately, is not one of those.

I've long been a fan of both Batman and The Shadow so I was very excited to read this. Despite a few minor things that bothered me, I really enjoyed it. The thing that bothered me the most was that I really didn't like how some of the faces were done (specifically Batman and Alfred to name a couple). I loved most of the artwork for this series but a few faces just didn't feel right to me. The sad part about it is that some of the artwork is just beautiful and amazing but I would get involved in it and then see one of the faces that just wasn't right to me and it would pull my attention back to that. Another, very minor, thing that bothered me was the inclusion of the Joker. The enemy that Batman and The Shadow are fighting throughout the book is a new one, invented by the series. I liked that. Then the Joker comes in and it made me feel like they put him in since he's been very popular in the past few years. I wouldn't have minded if The Shadow was fighting one of his own villains (this is a reboot after all) and that villain joined forces with the Joker but the new foe felt look he could sufficiently occupy the time of both crime fighters.
All of that being said, I did really enjoy this book. Like I said, the artwork is great and the story is actually probably even better. It was very well written. The whole thing was rather well done, despite my niggling complaints. If you like either of the heroes, definitely check it out.

Snyder brilliantly combines the mythos of two of American cultures iconic crime fighters- The Shadow and Batman to construct a story about family, ethics, and the importance of humanity in battling crime and evil. As Batman helps The Shadow reconnect with his own humanity, Batman's code of conduct that heroes do not kill no matter what is vindicated. It is a fantastic cross-over that should excite fans of Batman and The Shadow.

Batman/The Shadow: The Murder Geniuses is an incredible crossover comic with two great heroes taking the lead. The Shadow brings the fight with his antithesis the Stag to Batman. With dark colors and graphics, most of the story is told visually as the Stag teams up with the Joker in an ill-fated attempt to reach Shamba-La. Shadow must earn Batman's trust as the Stag kills his way through the best of mankind to open the portal until there is only one left on his hit list- Bruce Wayne. Action packed and visually pleasing, the graphic novel delivers a high octane and engrossing tale of the Batman and the Shadow. My unbiased and voluntary review is based upon a review copy from Netgalley.

I received an advanced copy of Batman/The Shadow: The Murder Geniuses from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Batman/The Shadow: The Murder Geniuses is the complete tale of our two heroes in their struggle against a common enemy. The combination of two longstanding DC characters is breathtaking and brilliant. If you’re looking for a Batman series where another character can actually keep up with the way Bruce Wayne thinks, then this is the story for you.

For those that don’t know him; The Shadow came to DC in the 1930s, and has been a pretty popular hero in the past. He has many talents and claims to fame, and many students have trained under him; most recently is our own Bruce Wayne (while he was working to become Batman).
There’s a new killer in Gotham – he appears to be targeting specific people, but the pattern is unclear. The first kill (that we’re shown at least) is the city’s biggest philanthropist, and he just so happens to be a friend of Bruce Wayne (naturally). The second killer I was actually quite fond of – Lamont Cranston, the man in charge of feeding all of Arkham. He seems to genuinely care about the inmates and their specific dietary needs. I knew the moment I started liking him that he was doomed to die; it was actually a pretty brilliant ploy, as I’m now emotionally invested in seeing the killer taken down.
There’s some confusion about who the killer is, as the killer appears to have done a wonderful job framing another character (you can probably guess whom), sending Batman off on a wild goose chase for a bit. I’ll admit that I was fooled as well; having assumed the mask of the killer being shown was just another one of The Shadow’s faces.
Bringing the Joker into this story was actually really interesting – he’s drawn and portrayed in subtly different ways than standard, but I really enjoyed the changes. He seems a bit more focused on revenge (not even his in this case) than with toying with Batman – though perhaps that’s just part of his con. I did love the obvious jealousy the Joker showed when Batman focused the fight onto the killer; it’s everything I would expect from a Joker/Batman confrontation.
One of the highlights (for me, at least) was the conversation/confrontation that occurs between Alfred and the Shadow. I never would have anticipated that event, but man was it wonderful. Alfred is one of those truly underrated and underappreciated characters, but it’s moments like this where he really shines.
I loved the way that Orlando and Snyder wrapped up the plot arc. I sincerely was worried about what was going to happen next (especially for The Shadow). I hope this team-up occurs again, and in this case I’m referring to both the characters and the creators!