Jerry Bingham

This is a reprint collection made up of material from several different comics. I have reviews on my blog with illustrations here, here, and rel="nofollow" target="_top">here.

Black Panther vol. 1 #14-15: "The Beasts in the Jungle!" / "Revenge of the Black Panther!"
T'Challa is setting up an embassy in the United States to bring an end to Wakandan isolationism, and he ends up working with the Avengers to battle the villain from his very first appearance, the Klaw. I didn't feel like the Klaw's plan made a lot of sense even by supervillain standards, and it was very jarring to me for T'Challa to be palling around with the Avengers. (I know he'd appeared in a lot of issues of Avengers by this point, but I haven't read most of those.) I get that Klaw is Black Panther's first villain, but... he kind of sucks, right? Writer Ed Hannigan does bring back a couple characters from Don McGregor's run: Monica, Kevin, and Windeagle cameo, foreshadowing a much-deferred resolution to the Klan storyline.

The Invincible Iron Man Annual vol. 1 #5: "War and Remembrance!"
After the cancellation of Black Panther vol. 1, Black Panther popped up here and there across the Marvel universe. One of those places was "War and Remembrance!", an issue of Iron Man where Iron Man/Tony Stark comes to Wakanda to set up some kind of tech deal, but at the same time who should return but... Killmonger! Keen to begin his takeover all over again, he defeats T'Challa and takes over the country, but of course we soon learn he killed only a convenient Life Model Decoy. Then at the end we learn that Iron Man foe the Mandarin was somehow responsible for Killmonger's resurrection. It's nice to see McGregor's run back in play after it was ignored during Kirby's, but this story is just fine. Like, it is not bad but I am not sure it has much going for it either. It is much more a Black Panther story than an Iron Man one, though, so I can see why it was included in this Black Panther collection.

Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four #10: "Law of the Jungle"
This retells the story of the Fantastic Four's first meeting with Black Panther. In this version, Reed Richards and the FF are taking receipt of a shipment of vibranium for science purposes—but what they don't know is that this isn't a legitimate export, but smuggled out of Wakanda. Black Panther attacks them, but the FF soon realizes what's up and travels to Wakanda to make amends and help defeat the smugglers. I haven't read much of Jeff Parker's comics work, but I always enjoy what I read; this has a good sense of fun to it, lots of little touches in terms of characterization and comedy that really elevate it. (My favorite is the Thing and the Human Torch playing good cop/bad cop.) My main complaint would be that it's very much a Fantastic Four comic, not a Black Panther one; the trip to Wakanda and battle there is over pretty quickly. But this isn't really a complaint about the story, more a complaint about the decision to reprint it here. (But I guess it makes sense; it's a nice one-issue version of the FF/Black Panther meeting, as opposed to the original 2½-issue one.)… (more)

Batman: Birth of the Demon reprints Mike W. Barr and Dennis O'Neil's trilogy of Ra's al Ghul stories with art by Jerry Bingham, Tom and Eva Grindberg, and Norm Breyfogle. DC originally published the stories as Son of the Demon, Bride of the Demon, and Birth of the Demon. DC reprinted this collection to serve as a prequel to Grant Morrison's Batman & Son, though the connection is somewhat loose. Ra's al Ghul links all three, though they are more self-contained than the collection would indicate to the reader.
Mike Barr's Son of the Demon is the strongest story in this collection, featuring Batman's marriage to Talia al Ghul and partnership with Ra's to fight a common enemy. Jerry Bingham's art perfectly matches the tone of the story and his original cover to the paperback collection, included at the end of this volume, looks like the poster to a "James Bond" film as befits the Barr's plot. In hindsight, certain elements meant to set the story in the real world date it, such as the U.S.S.R. and Mikhail Gorbachev, but they are brief and work for the narrative. Barr's Bride of the Demon is a close second, with a story pitting Batman and al Ghul against each other alongside an underlying ecological plot, timely in the early 1990s and still relevant in the 2010s. Like the previous story, this one recalls Ian Fleming's "James Bond." Tom and Eva Grindberg have their own artistic style, but they maintain a basic continuity with Bingham so that these two stories work well together. If the first and second stories can be read as two parts of a larger thematic whole, then Dennis O'Neil's Birth of the Demon stands alone, primarily focusing on Ra's al Ghul's backstory. Norm Breyfogle's artwork, though gorgeous, does not fit this tone of this collection. O'Neil, an expert Batman storyteller, evokes Edgar Rice Burroughs' "John Carter" series more than Ian Fleming.
DC's reissue of these stories as a single volume features cover art by Andy Kubert. The modern style does not match the tone of the interior stories or artwork, though. Finally, this edition contains a printing error: the climax of Son of the Demon is missing one page; the printer substituted a page from Bride of the Demon in its place. Fans of Batman or Ra's al Ghul will find plenty to enjoy here, but the arbitrary nature of this collection means that the stories are a bit disjointed at times since the reader consumes them as one.… (more)