Arctic Attack

Description

While researching the Arctic for a school project, ROBIN learns that something is melting the glaciers and it's not just global warming! With BATMAN'S help, ROBIN discovers that eco-terrorist RA'S AL GHUL is behind the polar heat wave. To prevent an environmental disaster, the DYNAMIC DUO must brave the icy tundra and stop his evil plan.

Robert Greenberger began his career at Starlog Press. He then joined DC Comics as an assistant editor, and eventually became Manager of Editorial Operations. In 2000, Bob became a Producer at Gist Communications, but then returned to comics in 2001 as Marvel's Director of Publishing Operations. In 2002, he went back to DC Comics as a Senior Editor in its collected editions department. Bob joined Weekly World News as Managing Editor until its end in 2007. Since then, he has been a fulltime freelance writer and editor. Bob has written numerous Star Trek novels and many short works of fiction, including last year's The Essential Batman Encyclopedia, and his new book Batman Vault will be published in the near future. Bob lives in Fairfield, Connecticut with his wife Deb and their dog Dixie. Jason T. Kruse is a character animation veteran of the prestigious CalArts University in sunny California. He is the creator of fine comic books like The World of Quest, Volumes 1 and 2, and he is excited to see his TV show based on The World of Quest air internationally. Jason has worked on the films Stuart Little, Cats and Dogs, and The Barnyard, and he has animated and storyboarded various pilots for Disney and Nickelodeon. Jason has also been a character animator and story artist on a number of video games, including Star Trek: Tactical Assault, Master of Orion 3, Cashflow 101 and Cashflow 202, Ratatouille, and its sequel Food Frenzy. Lee Loughridge has been working in comics for more than fifteen years. He currently lives in sunny California in a tent on the beach.

Pros: Complex text, colorful illustrations, classic Batman heroes and villains... Cons: None--if you're a seven year old who loves Batman. The Bottom Line: The Dynamic Duo stops an environmental disaster...and a supervillain besides. My seven year old son used to struggle with reading. He was off to a slow start, but as he became more fluid, I still wanted to find things that he was interested in reading. That's included some picture books and some chapter books, and now I've found something in between. The DC Super Heroes series of books includes twelve Batman books and twelve Superman books. Each is sixty pages long, with about five chapters in each book. The text is more complex than a picture book, and has one full-page, full color illustration every six pages. The first book we found is Batman: Arctic Attack by Robert Greenberger, with illustrations by Jason Kruse and Lee Loughridge. The book is in the style of Batman: The Animated Series, which has been off the air for almost a decade, but this 2010 book uses those designs instead of more recent Batman cartoons. It's a classic look, and works well for the stories being told. Robin is in the Batcave doing his homework when he finds out that the glaciers of the Arctic are melting faster than they should be. When Batman and Robin go investigate, they find their old enemy Ra's Al Ghul trying to flood the Earth, destroying humanity so he can build a new Eden. Batman and Robin have to stop him of course, and Robin ends up playing a bigger role than the Dark Knight in foiling Ra's al Ghul's plot. My sons (ages seven and five) both enjoyed the story, and I liked that it was an interesting enough adventure with enough mystery to keep the older boy reading to the younger. With characters they already know, and text that has some challenging passages, it's a good book for readers who have mastered shorter words and sentences, but still need some support. The end of the book has a Gotham City Police Department case file on Ra's Al Ghul, a short glossary, and even discussion questions and writing prompts. My son asked me some of the questions, and it opened up a conversation that went beyond the book. If your kids are still in the early reader stage, and are fans of Batman or Superman, these are good books that will entertain and maybe educate a bit too. The other books in the series each feature a different classic Batman villains, so whether your kids like Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, or Catwoman, they'll find them here.-- "Epinions.com"