DC Icons - The Irresponsible Reader

by Marie Lu, Will Damron (Narrator)
Series: DC Icons, #2

Unabridged Audiobook, 8 hrs, 39 min.
Listening Library, 2018
Read: April 27 – 30, 2018

Let me get the Audiobook portion out of the way quickly — Damron does a capable job. He didn’t particularly wow me, but I had no complaints about his work. I could see myself really getting into a book he narrated.

This is essentially Gotham, season 9. Bruce is on the eve of graduation, turning 18 (yet his guardian, Alfred, is still treated as if he has any standing in his life), and finds himself on the wrong end of the law and serving probation by doing community service at Arkham Asylum. While there, he becomes fascinated by an accused murderer — she’s part of a criminal/political (technically a terrorist group, but the label was never used) group targeting Gotham’s one percenters.

The line between the Bruce Wayne of this book and the Dark Knight we all know is pretty weak. You’ve got Alfred, Lucius Fox, Bruce’s dead parents, Gotham City — sure — but there’s nothing that distinctively Batman about them (as used here). Even when you throw in Harvey Dent as a troubled youth with a strong trust in the legal system as one of Bruce’s best friend and numerous references to bats, and you’re supposed to thing that you’ve got yourself the building blocks of the Caped Crusader. But it’d have been incredibly easy for this to be any other rich youth with a knack for electronics. This doesn’t have to be a Batman story, it could be almost any generic YA hero.

If you want to read an inexperienced, fallible, Batman (as seems to be the case here), read Miller’s Batman: Year One or Barr’s Batman: Year Two — they treat the character the way he should be treated. This book just wasn’t. I got about halfway through (maybe a little over halfway) before I just couldn’t take it anymore and decided to move on.

I liked the Wonder Woman installment in this series just fine — why didn’t this one work for me? Well, while Diana wasn’t the hero we all know — she was still clear in her purpose, driven to do right and capable. Bruce is none of those things — which is odd, because he’s typically been depicted as driven and single-minded since childhood. That’s the Bruce we all know, and should’ve seen here.

I can see why some people will enjoy this, but I just can’t bother to finish.

Wonder Woman: Warbringer

by Leigh Bardugo, Mozhan Marno (Narrator)
Series: DC Icons, #1

Unabridged Audiobook, 11 hrs. and 55 mins.
Listening Library, 2017

Read: September 12 – 15, 2017

So this YA Wonder Woman novel starts off on Themyscira, where 17-ish year-old Diana is struggling to find her identity in the shadow of her mother. In this novel, Themyscira is populated by more than just ancient Amazons, they’ve been augmented by women throughout history who, while dying in battle, call upon a female god. They are then transplanted to Themyscira as a sort of feminist Valhalla.

Diana rescues a young woman from a boat explosion she witnesses, bringing her to the island (but not letting anyone know about her). This starts to destroy the island and the women who live there — and Diana receives quite the prophetic word about this girl. She’s a descendant of Helen of Troy, and like her ancestor, her mere existence promises to bring war throughout the Earth. Unless Diana can bring her to a certain place in the next few days. So Diana grabs a certain lasso, a couple of bracelets and takes off.

Basically, what ensues is a Rick Riordan-esque journey to get Alia to the goal. Sure, they start with a heck of a detour to New York City — which is pretty fun detour for the reader. While in NYC, they pick up a little entourage to accompany them. There are people who are trying to kill the Warbringer (not realizing there’s a way to cure her) before World War III erupts and a few minor figures from Greek mythology show up to make things more difficult.

There’s some really good interaction between Diana, Alia and Alia’s BFF (name escapes me). The action scenes are pretty good. The big twisty reveal wasn’t. There seemed to be some inconsistency about how familiar Diana was with things in the modern world, but on the whole, the book worked well enough I could ignore that. What worked in this book, worked really well. The things that didn’t work, also didn’t ruin anything

As far as the audiobook part goes — Marno does a fine job. Initially, I thought she sounded too much like Hillary Huber, but the more I listened the more I decided I was silly for thinking that. I do think that she could put a little more excitement in her voice during the combat or chase scenes (see the aforementioned Huber for an example), it really didn’t seem matter what was going on in the scene, her reading was the same. But aside from that, I had no complaints.

I’m not saying that i loved it, but I’d absolutely read/listen to the sequel that’s hinted at in the last chapter. Good story, interesting characters, and a pretty good narrator. All the elements for an entertaining 12 hours are there — a good way to spend some time, and a promising beginning to this new series. Although, the next is Batman, and so you have to guess that the third will be everyone’s favorite Kryptonian Boy Scout — hopefully they move beyond DC’s Trinity soon, I’d quite enjoy something like this about The Flash, Green Lantern, etc.

—–

3.5 Stars

Tag: DC Icons

Batman: Nightwalker (Audiobook) by Marie Lu, Will Damron: aka Gotham Season 9, just didn’t work for me. DNF’d.

Batman: Nightwalker

Wonder Woman: Warbringer (Audiobook) by Leigh Bardugo, Mozhan Marno

Wonder Woman: Warbringer