Over the last 80+ years, the various Batman comics have had their highs and lows. But no Batman comic has ever been as consistently delightful — and certainly not as heartwarming — as CRC Payne and Starbyie’s Batman Webtoon, Wayne Family Adventures. Happily. the lowkey tales of the extended Bat-family will soon be able to grace your bookshelves.
Batman: Wayne Family Adventures will be released in physical book form this August, alongside another DC Webtoon, Vixen NYC, to be followed in October by the first volume of Zatanna and the Ripper. Is it foolish to pay for physical copies of comics that are available online for free right this instant? Maybe, but Wayne Family Adventures is so good I am legitimately eager to give them my money, as Futurama’s Fry says. Whether it’s a mysterious somebody illicitly using one of Batman’s toilets or the increasingly elaborate Wayne family snowball fights — in which Nightwing, Jason Todd, Red Robin, Damian Wayne, Oracle, Spoiler, and more take on their father figure in a frozen battle — Wayne Family Adventures imagines a world where the Bat-family is not a dysfunctional family, and Bruce Wayne isn’t a complete fuck-up, but a flawed dad trying to do his best by the gaggle of children he’s inadvertently adopted. It’s funny and it’s heartwarming and it shows a side of Batman and his found family that is utterly unique, and all the more delightful for it.
ComicsBeat casually mentions that Wayne Family Adventures “seems to have been a hit, with 76 million views thus far,” as if a physical comic selling more than a million copies wouldn’t be a complete miracle nowadays. I think “seems” is a bit of an understatement, although who knows how many people will be paying to buy a trade paperback of a free comic. But I’ll definitely be one of them.