Watching the Walmart Giants 6 "January 2020"

I honestly don't know how much longer I'll be checking in with these things.  A lot of what drove me initially was the original content, in extended arcs, from Tom King and Brian Michael Bendis, and the recent selections have suggested that DC just isn't interested in pursuing the equivalent at least in the immediate future.  Some of this is because of reader apathy, not only in seeking out, like I did, the original releases, but the repackaged material released directly to comic book stores.  And I think that's really down to readers just not expecting that DC would've provided substantial material, even from King or Bendis, which I vehemently disagree with, having read the material myself.  King's Superman was exactly on par with his best, and was my favorite comics material published last year by far.

Still, we have some solace.  As I've been talking about recently, the recent releases do have Mark Russell.  But his material is episodic.  I don't know if there are plans for this to change, or if in fact DC abandoned the idea of serialized original content entirely, possibly because of the bad press one of King's entries received (ironically, some of the only press the Walmart Giants received aside from announcements for line revisions).

Ironically, I'm about to talk about another piece, from Russell, that did just that, too.

Batman Giant #3

• New story from Mark Russell and Ryan Benjamin, featuring Bruce Wayne becoming entangled in a scheme to entrap Wayne's upper crust colleagues, who are caught in some of their seedier deals.  The original solicits suggested it would be another Joker story, like Russell's previous Giant tale, but Joker is more a supporting act in this one, while Batman is caught up attempting to play a game of entrapment against these colleagues from both angles, in and out of costume.  The ending is a tad ambiguous.  One panel suggests Batman might actually be shredding some evidence that could be used against him, after it's been revealed that his colleagues routinely launder their dirty money through Wayne Enterprises.  Either way, it's a nice bit of storytelling, a worthy examination of how complicit Batman might actually be in the very crimes he's committed to fighting, simply because his secret identity is billionaire Bruce Wayne.  (If it were Ollie Queen, he'd attempt giving up his wealth, but surprisingly that's never really been considered with Batman.)
• New story from Frank Tieri and Scott Eaton featuring Two-Face's obsession with his lucky coin, which sort of hinges on his awareness of how it cripples him and still deciding to blame Batman for his ill-luck.
• Reprint of Batman #3 from Snyder, Capullo, and the New 52.
• Reprint of Detective Comics #855 featuring Kate Kane's early solo Batwoman adventures.
• Reprint of Nightwing #3 from Rebirth, featuring Batgirl and Raptor, the eponymous "Better Than Batman" of the arc, attempting to give Dick a better mentor figure.  But turns out he's kind of, well, a dick.

Birds of Prey Giant #1
I begin to suspect that the new wave of giants are going to be a lot of first issues without a second issue, except for a select few.

• New story from Gail Simone and Inaki Miranda featuring the team.
• New story from Robert Venditti and Isaac Goodhart featuring Harley Quinn (in case you were in any doubt that this giant was geared toward readers anticipating the upcoming movie).  I'm not really a Harley fan, but this one does a decent job of spotlighting her motives.
• New story from John Layman and Cully Hamner (a solid duo right there) featuring Huntress outlining her familiar personal crusade.  Would be somewhat easier to understand if she were, as she was on Earth 2, still the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.  Here she struggles to stand out, though she had a good running start in the '90s.
• Reprint of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #14 from Rebirth.  There's an ad for the collections from the original '90s comics, but it's surprising they didn't actually reprint from them.
• Reprint of Black Canary #9, the New 52 series featuring Dinah as a bloody rock god.  I was always curious if it was actually worth reading more, but I'm still undecided after this.
• Reprint from New Talent Showcase, with an artist who probably should not have been showcased.