Packaged under the meant-to-be-evocative title "Dark Moon Rising," writer and artist Matt Wagner's Batman mini-series, Batman and the Monster Men and Batman and the Mad Monk, look to the character's early years, a lá Frank Miller's graphic novel, Batman: Year One. But where Miller's sensitivity when considering of Young Batman took from hard-boiled cheeseballs like Mickey Spillane, Wagner is more akin to Edgar Rice Burroughs or Lester Dent, proudly boyish in his treatment — even if we do get to see Bruce Wayne's latest ladyfriend in a moment of post-coital bliss. If the results lack the "significance" of Miller's over-elevated Dark Knight books, in their own way they're even more fun: comic book versions of forties Monogram B-pictures.

Both Monster Men (currently released as a trade paperback collecting all six issues of the limited run title) and Mad Monk (just beginning its six-issue DC Comics run) focus on a Bruce Wayne still so new to the crimefighting biz (in the first series, we get the debut of a Batmobile) that he's actually optimistic about the fact that he has a "girlfriend." Said object of his doomed affection is one Julie Madison (a briefly seen player from early Detective Comics), whose father is on the hook to shady underworld types. (This is Gotham City, after all.) Though Bruce and Julie are going at it hot and heavy, it's clear Dad's gonna eventually gum things up as we watch him deteriorate into full-blown alcoholism over the series.

The heavy in mini-series one is Dr. Hugo Strange, who gets to play mad scientist to the hilt: genetically manipulating criminally insane inmates of Arkham Asylum into knobby, cannibalistic giants. Strange is abetted by a sinister Hindu named Sanjay who hopes that the professor's unconventional researches will help his invalid brother. (What? Strange couldn't find a hunchback for his second-in-command?) To finance his researches, the mad doctor is in debt to the same gangsters holding a leash on Julie’s father. Gotham City is just one big small town.

As written by Wagner, Strange is the type of arrogant, insecure baddie whose response to a rich bitch's sneering put-down is to toss her and her drunk boyfriend into a cell with his flesh-eating creations. Kind of puts a lie to the guy's assertions that he's doing his vile researches for the good of humanity, but, then, long-time Bat readers knew that was a crock anyway. Besides, it's no different from what George Zucco would've done. As the various players — Strange, Julie's Dad, gangster Sal Maroni — dance around the subplot of illicit loans and IOUs, we the readers mainly look forward to a final confrontation 'tween Batman and Strange's monster men.