Spider-Man and Batman (Disordered Minds) [Comic]

J. M DeMatteis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1995

Spider-Man and Batman (Disordered Minds)

Product Details

• Comic
• Publisher: DC Marvel Comics (1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785101926
• ISBN-13: 978-0785101925
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 6.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #569,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, J. M. DeMatteis was a professional musician and rock music journalist before entering the comic book field.

Although he's written almost all of the major DC and Marvel icons--including memorable runs on Spider-Man and Justice League--DeMatteis's greatest greatest acclaim has come for sophisticated original graphic novels like Seekers Into The Mystery, Blood: A Tale, The Last One, and Mercy. The autobiographical Brooklyn Dreams was picked by the ALA as one of the Ten Best Graphic Novels and Booklist, in a starred review, called it "as graphically distinguished and creatively novelistic a graphic novel as has ever been...a classic of the form." The groundbreaking Moonshadow was chosen (along with Brooklyn Dreams, Blood and other DeMatteis works) for inclusion in Gene Kanenberg, Jr's 2008 book 500 Essential Graphic Novels. "While Sandman may be the best known fantasy comic," he wrote, "Moonshadow is arguably the finest."

More recently DeMatteis has had great success with the acclaimed children's fantasy Abadazad --which Entertainment Weekly, giving the series an A grade, hailed as "...one of those very rare fantasy works that can enchant preteen kids and 40-year old fanboys..." and Publisher's Weekly, in a starred review, called "an appealing blend of Spirited Away and The Wizard of Oz." Abadazad began life as a CrossGen comic book before morphing into a three-book series, a unique blend of prose, illustration and sequential art, published by Disney's Hyperion Books For Children.

His success in the comic book medium has led DeMatteis to work in both television (writing live action and animation) and movies (creating screenplays for Fox, Disney Feature Animation, directors Carlo Carlei and Chris Columbus and producer Dean Devlin, among others).

DeMatteis's latest work includes the fantasy novel Imaginalis, published in July, 2010 by HarperCollins, and a variety of television and comic book projects.

DeMatteis and his family live in upstate New York. His blogs can be found here at Amazon.com and at www.jmdematteis.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Buy it for the novelty only..., June 18, 2008

By 

SpyderDan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spider-man and Batman (#1, 1995, Vol. 1) (Comic)

"Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds" was published in 1994 and it was created by the veteran Spidey team J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Bagely. It's a decent book that is really only worth buying if you're a die-hard fan of either title character or the creative team.

The story revolves around a new piece of technology that promises to tame the most psychotic of super villains. It's a chip that's placed inside the brain to calm down a psychotic criminal. The chip is first tested upon Cletus Kasaday aka Carnage and when the operation seems to be a success, the chip's creator parades him across the country bragging about it. The first stop? Gotham City, of course, where the plan is to apply the chip to the Joker. During the press conferance both Kasaday and Joker are on stage, both docile, except it turns out that Kasady was faking the whole time. He turns into Carnage and takes off into Gotham on a killing spree while taking Joker with him. Spider-Man, who was skeptical of the chip all along, had followed them to Gotham and naturally, he teams up with Batman to stop both villains.

The story here is rather clunky as DeMatteis has a hard time finding a reason to team up Batman and Spider-Man. The chip is really only a McGuffin, an excuse to see the two heroes together. Also, the Spider-Man side of the story works a little better than the Batman side. What I mean is that DeMatteis seems more at home writing Spidey than Batman. The web slinger's dialogue sounds more like him while Batman's seems stiff. Joker is well-written however and Carnage...well, he's there, trying to kill everyone in sight. He was never exactly a deep character anyhow.

The story isn't very long and is quite predictable. It's pretty obvious that the chip wasn't going to work and it's not a surprise to find that Carnage was toying with everyone. His motivation for doing so was clever (he desperately wanted to meet the Joker). Batman and Spider-Man have the typical confrontation when heroes meet. At first, Batman tells him to leave and that doesn't need nor want Spider-Man's help. Naturally, Spidey doesn't leave town and Batman eventually changes his mind once he realizes what he's up against. The climactic battle is a little anti-climactic as Batman surprisingly takes down Carnage quickly and unsurprisingly, Spider-Man has no trouble with Joker. The decision to use Carnage is not that inspired to be honest. It seems as if the no-brainer was to use Joker and then Carnage was the only Spider-Man villain that was equally psychotic and yet dumb enough to trust him.

The bright spots are the character studies that DeMatteis does. You might not realize what a parallel exists between these two heroes until they're pointed out here. DeMatteis shines in this respect and it's the best part of the story.

Mark Bagely's pencils are quite good here. As usual, his Spider-Man and supporting cast is excellent and his take on Batman and Joker has a classic feel to it. He's helped out by gorgeous coloring and inking by Scott Hanna and Mark Farmer. The art might be the highlight of the book for me and I don't often enjoy books solely for the artwork.

All in all, this is a novelty. Despite the amount of talent gathered here, the end result isn't much. Die-hard fans should give it a look but it's nothing special.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best team-up ever., May 19, 2002

By 

K. Bergman "berggonecrazy" (Orlando, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spider-Man and Batman (Disordered Minds) (Comic)

If anything it was worth it just to see Mark Bagley draw Batman and see Spider-man fight the Joker.

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Good Story, January 17, 2012

By 

Mystique1985 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spider-Man and Batman (Disordered Minds) (Comic)

I don't have that much to say but this is one of the best superhero cross over stories I've ever read. Mark Bagley is my number 1 favorite Spidey artist of all time. I'm a huge Carnage fan and Mark drew Cletus very very well and very attractive. So does the other characters he draws. I definitely recommend this book to both Spidey and Batman fans