We conclude Larry Hama’s run on “Batman” with his first multi-parter and the creation of a brand new underwater supervillain. No, it’s not King Shark. No, it’s not Tiger Shark. No, it’s not – oh now you’re just reaching – The Great White Shark.
It’s the mammoth mammal. The swimmer scientist. The killer whale herself. You know her. You love her. It’s Orca!
…Whaddya mean who’s Orca??
Cover by Scott McDanielWritten by Larry Hama & Scott McDaniel
Illustrated by Scott McDaniel
Inked by Karl Story, Hector Collazo, & John Nyberg
Colored by Roberta Tewes
Separated by Wildstorm FX
Lettered by John CostanzaOrca’ part 1! Orca is a deadly denizen of the deep, and she’s surfaced in Gotham Harbor to snatch a fabulous diamond known as the Flame of Persia from around the neck of a billionaire heiress. But Orca’s motives for the theft are purer than they might seem.
I had no idea that Orca’s first appearance, and in fact her creation, happened in the early 2000s. I honestly thought Orca was a product of the New 52 revamp of everyone’s origins or maybe a mid 2000s Z-list Suicide Squad member that ended up in Gail Simone’s “Sinister Six.” As it turns out, her origin can be found as the focus of “Batman” #579-581. Is it any good? Well, not really.
Yeah, sadly it’s a pretty bog-standard origin story, a cross between Catwoman and Poison Ivy without their striking designs or creative powersets/gimmicks. Orca is just an anthropomorphic Orca. She’s strong, she’s mad at capitalism, and she has pointy teeth to rip up baddies on her quest to take down a business mogul. It doesn’t help that I already knew the twist and so much of the page count ended up feeling like padding.
For the curious, the gist of these three issues is that Batman is trying to recover a stolen diamond for the personification of Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss late 90s style from a new baddie: Orca. Orca’s identity is a mystery but is obvious the second you realize there’s been exactly 1 new important (named) character besides Camille Baden-Smythe – Grace Balin – and that she was introduced with motive and an obvious red-herring about whether or not she COULD be Orca considering she 1) is, like, 3 feet and 200 pounds lighter, 2) uses a wheelchair, and 3) isn’t an anthropomorphic sea mammal with tits.
In a single issue story or even a two-parter, that’s fine, but it’s way too overblown for a three issue arc, especially one that just followed four single issues that really have no connection to this one. Hama, McDaniels, et. al. don’t do much to justify why this adventure needed three issues to tell. Much of the page space is spent hammering home the same points or, like with the alligator girl, on misery porn. We get three separate scenes of Orca bursting onto a boat! It’s not very interesting because there’s little variety in the action and the set-up for the story.
It’s fun seeing Bruce do his detective schtick, though. After the non-stop action of the past four issues, the slower pace is welcomed even if it isn’t done in a particularly engaging way. I always get a kick out of Batman’s covert info gathering scenes. There’s also some philosophizing about justice and the system and whether it is ethical to steal something from someone who also stole it and some big punch-em-ups and a hopeful soapy sci-fi ending where Balin escapes but is permanently transformed and Baden-Smith actually has consequences happen to her & her company. Like I said, it’s pretty standard superhero stuff.
Part of my problem with it is that the moralizing and Batman’s position goes over like lukewarm gravy in 2022. It’s optimistic but not reflective enough of the failings of a system that lets people like Baden-Smythe destroy so many lives for profit and personal gain. I would say he was riding off the Enron scandal but it didn’t start to break until a couple months AFTER this issue was published.
It’s hard to fault Hama too much though. This is how the genre operated and operates, with neat endings to tough questions, and we’re really only now reckoning with how the 80s and 90s gutted our ability to extract justice from companies and white collar criminals anyway. When you’re so close to something, it’s hard to really see it fully. Though it was extra weird to see gentrify used in a positive sense and associated with actually lifting a community up instead of imposing upon them.
Continued belowI didn’t talk much about McDaniel’s art on these issues but that’s cause there isn’t much to talk about. It’s more of the same, though some of the cartoony-ness does feel at odds with the story more than previously. I think the higher visibility of the colors instead of a more shadowy look didn’t help either. It’s not bad, it’s not poorly done, it’s just OK.
It is interesting how Hama leaves the title after having just created a slate of brand new, or newly revitalized, villains. I guess that was the idea for his time on the title, to create new characters for a new era and to redefine what Batman is for a new millennium. Well, I say left but a cursory dig is inconclusive on whether he left because of poor treatment or was fired. The only reference I could find in my brief search was on the GI Joe Forums Hisstank of a CBR interview where he supposedly says they gave him an inch thick binder of things he’s not allowed to do since “Batman” is “for kids” that’s sadly lost to time and the wayback machine. Clearly it wasn’t planned because the cover to #582 still has Hama credited and it would explain why McDaniel’s is co-credited on #580-581 for story.
Whatever happened, this is the end of Hama’s tenure on the team, though the rest would continue with our new scribe, Ed Brubaker. Next time, let’s get ‘Limitless.’
