Batman: Manbat # 0 - Batman: Manbat TPB

I don't normally read Elseworlds (between me and Punchinello, we find them a bit extreme and the writers don't often pull the AU concept off well) but this one is pretty good for a one-shot story. It is about a pair of animal activists who break into a genetic compound in the middle of nowhere, only for *SPOILER* to disrupt their plans, though a special serum was stolen in the process... Batman soon finds out that the thief has been kidnapped by a family of man-bats, specifically Kirk Langstrom's family.

Forgetting about the Elseworlds part of this 3-part story, Dr Kirk is quite different from his other portrayals. Here, he is misanthropic and perhaps somewhat nihilistic, as his plan is to wipe out the human race and replace them with a superior race; man-bats. Or anthropomorphic bats, technically.

The artwork is awesome, it is done in an almost-photo-realistic style (there's no real bat anthros for comparison, of course!) in tradtional/real media, as paintings. It is very dark on terms of atmosphere and the colour scheme(s) itself. The content is particularly gruesome, ignoring the laboratory animal abuse scenes in the beginning. Being a horror-fan, I quite enjoyed certain panels later in the story! Nothing is toned down or 'hidden' in the form of silhouettes/shadows, which is great.

I can not find anything else to comment about, as I enjoyed this Elseworlds story for a number of reasons. The Horror theme, the characters, the artwork, etc. I found it worth buying, especially for those who like horror, dark & somewhat realistic story-lines (animal abuse) and an Elseworlds story with substance!