This Valentines Day, DC Comics continues their tradition of publishing a holiday-themed anthology with Crimes Of Passion #1.
The theme of this year’s 80-page Valentine’s issue is a return to the dime-store, pulp romance paperbacks of late 19th-century and early 20th-century. The issue features stories from some of the top DC creative talents like Steve Orlando, James Tynion IV, Ram V, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, and many more, and spotlights some of the more emotionally troubled heroes and villains such as Batman, Green Arrow, Catwoman, and Pied Piper.
The lead story, “More Than Maybe,” is written by Steve Orlando (Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter) with artwork by Greg Smallwood (Moon Knight) and delves into the romance between Bruce Wayne and Gotham Socialite Linda Page. The two must face the hypnotic threat in the form of the disgraced doctor Tito Daka (from the original 1943 Batman serial) who is taking advantage of its innocent elderly residents in a nursing home.
In an interview with SYFY.com, Orlando explained why he chose Linda Page for the story:
“Just like with Andrea Beaumont in Mask of the Phantasm, in Linda Page, Bruce sees someone that’s aspirational, even to him. He sees someone who cares just as much as he does, but didn’t need a personal tragedy to do so. He sees that fighting to help those in need doesn’t have to be a shadow crusade, fought in alleyways. It can be one battled in the hallways of soup kitchens, on the front lines of charity. But the tragedy for him, as it will always be, is that Batman is the living symbol of his anger.”
Heres a look at pages from Orlando and Smallwood’s “More Than Maybe”
These stories of passion and crime lands on shelves on February 5th, 2020.