Comic Review #26: Batman: A Word to the Wise #1 (1992)

 

Zellers was a Canadian chain of department stores. They started all the way back in 1931 and were created by Walter P. Zeller. I wish my last name was Zeller. Z is a cool letter and needs to be used in more words and names. Anyway Zellers was a big place for me as a kid. I don't believe we got a Wal-Mart until the mid 1990s so it was all about Zellers and K-Mart for department store fun! It was a fun place to go to as a kid. It kinda went downhill near the end. At least the one near us in St. John's Newfoundland. They went from like two stores to just one. One was up near the Village Mall and the second was right near my house for the longest time until it went to Stavanger. When it went to Stavanger it kinda went down the shitter. It seemed that they kept all kind of old shit just out there at full price. YES ZELLERS I AM THE ONLY HUMAN BEING WHO WOULD WANT A TALK BOY FROM HOME ALONE 2 IN 2002 SO LOWER THE DAMN PRICE. Sadly they would end up going out of business in 2013 when most of the stores were sold to Target which was a giant failure. I doubt they were even there a full year. The last remaining Zellers stories ended up being closed in 2020 after 89 years. I will forever think fondly of Zellers and their very own Teddy bear Zeddy. I still want a Zeddy and I'm 35 years old.

You might be wondering to yourself "Why in the purple poop covered fuck are you talking about a defunct department store and the Teddy Bear associated with it during a comic book review, Stupid!?" Well you negative nancy I will tell you this in 1992 Zellers had a deal with DC comics over Batman Returns. They had trading cards that they gave away for free AND different shirts than America got! Now that's cool! This Comic book was a part of that deal. It was one of many PSA comics. This comic tackles reading and why you should read. I believe in literacy because when you know how to read you get to read Batman comics and how cool is that?!

This comic was written by Len Wein. I think this is the first time I get to talk about him. I think he might be my favorite comic writer. At least in the top 5. I loved the stories he did. He co-created Wolverine and Swamp Thing and wrote at least a few stories for every single character in the rosters of DC and Marvel. I mean in the 1970s and 1980s. Okay maybe he didn't write any Rex the Wonder Dog stories but he wrote the hell out of Batman and Superman and Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk. He sadly passed away in 2017. The comic was drawn by Curt Swan, Dick Giodano and Carmine Infantino. Three of the best artist in Superhero comics ever! Curt drew Superman for like 35 years. Carmine drew The Flash among a ton of other comics and Dick Giodano drew everything. Even a Hogan's Heroes comic. If that's not cool than I don't know what is!

The comics plot is pretty simple but I still dig it immensely. It involves the Joker pretty much trying to find a rare 1867 Canadian Geography book. They have three of them. One of them is in Newfoundland. It's one of the few times my province ever gets mentioned. It's in a pretty fun Captain America story and the character of Marina from Alpha Flight was from Newfoundland. I also have to sadly mention that Newfoundland appears in some Rob Liefeld X-Force issues. It's a very gross feeling knowing that. He then goes to Toronto to get the second book but a young girl accidently took it. Batman goes to her but he's too late because the Joker is at this place too. That clown bastard never gives up. He gets the book and leaves to go to Calgary to find the third book. 

This is where Batman and the teens go to Zellers to buy some western gear to go to fight the Joker. I'm pretty sure they HAD to mention Zellers once in the comic and this was the best way possible. I just wish Batman was wearing a Cowboy Hat. We finally find out why The Joker was ripping these books apart. ONE of them had a parchment that gave him the right to become the owner of North America. That's right The Joker owns Canada AND America AND Mexico. So you all have to get out or get murdered by a lunatic clown. Batman and the kids finally beat the shit out of the Joker and his gang. Batman shows him that the parchment document is out of date by one day. The Joker had 125 years to find this and he wasted them like a moron. 

FINAL VERDICT: I really enjoyed this comic. The plot has lots of actions and fun interactions between the Joker and Batman. The Zellers moment is a lot of fun to me as a Canadian. I don't know how easy it is to find this comic in America but Canada has many many copies of it. I will have to find the Spider-Man 5 part story where he goes around Canadian cities. That was a comic that was always in our school room and I would totally secretly read the first part instead of listening to Mr. Kelly like 8,000 times. Mr. Kelly was boring. Spider-Man is cool. It's the reason I will end up getting a shitty job but I'm still not sorry I did it!