Just when I thought we were settling into a nice rhythm of stories, we get these three issues of wildly differing quality. And to top it off two of the three are baffling tie-ins to some line-wide event, or at least across the bat line, that derails us even more. Why DC? Why?
Cover by Scott McDanielWritten by Ed Brubaker
Illustrated by Scott McDaniel
Inked by Karl Story & Aaron Sowd
Colored by Roberta Tewes
Separated by Wildstorm FX
Lettered by John Costanza
An ‘Our Worlds at War’ tie-in! Batman searches for the mysterious alien who has sought refuge in a Gotham Cathedral. Meanwhile, a showdown looms with Lew Moxon’s deadly bodyguard, Zeiss.
In the last 10 issues, we’ve had three major interruptions to the story, not counting the random BKV three-parter, each one a different example of the same problem. First was ‘Officer Down’, a singular story which forced readers to get an issue from every Bat series to get the full story. Then there was ‘Our Worlds at War,’ which is so complicated I barely understand how it worked, more of an overarching directive that wasn’t quite line-wide, and had a number of one-shots that may or may not have told the core story.
Then we had “Joker’s Last Laugh,” which is the most traditional of the events, being a weekly mini-series that the other Bat books tied into. Did you all know that of these three it’s the only one that resembles what we’d consider an “event?” Because I sure as hell didn’t. I thought it was like ‘Fear State’ or ‘Night of the Owls,’ with “Batman” driving the action and the others reacting to it.
All this has served to grind Brubaker’s tenure on the title to a screeching halt. While he makes the most of it, you can feel how these events muscle into the story he’s trying to tell. ‘Sanctuary,’ the two-parter ‘Our Worlds at War’ tie-in we started last time in “Batman” #593, started off integrated well-enough but in #594? There’s an antagonism to the idea built into its very bones.
You can see this in the structure of the issue. We open and close on the main “Batman” plots while the interstitial pages focus on wrapping up the alien stuff. It’s a fine enough story, though very one-dimensional, and both I and Batman were itching to get it over with so we could get back to our regularly scheduled programming. All the intrigue being built up around Mallory Moxon, Zeiss, and Bruce’s father is relegated to playing second fiddle to Batman literally being diverted from that intrigue in order to fight DEO agents pretending to be the FBI in order to get a message from a mortally wounded alien in a church; a message we never see the result of, by the way, nor are we told what issue to pick up to find out what it all meant.
Maybe that last part is because it was removed on DC Infinite where I’m accessing my copies. Anyone who was reading it at the time, or has a print copy, let me know. I’d be curious to see if there was a checklist in the back or a directive as to what issue should follow this one.
Regardless, they are not a great pair of issues and neither is “Batman” #596, though that one fares better since it’s a Bat-line event that Brubaker is able to integrate into the main action. It’s mostly an escalation of Zeiss’ war against Bruce and continues the turn from embracing the bat-family, as BKV and earlier Brubaker had seemed to do, to pushing him more into loner mode.
I don’t love it and Santa Klaus – the jokerized Arkham member who is this issue’s ostensible tie-in to the event – is a real snooze of a subplot. He’s just there to get Batman out of a jam with Zeiss, and does so in a way that makes one remember why “Batman” keeps getting salient critiques about its presentation and treatment of characters with mental illness.
As for “Batman” #595, it’s an interesting one, sandwiched between tie-ins, and is the strongest of the bunch. It still feels aimless and stuck, with a weird thru-line trying to articulate why Bruce doesn’t use guns, but it does move the plot forward and riffs on “The Long Halloween” wherein Thomas saved Carmine Falcone’s life, tying that act instead to the nephew of Lew Moxton.
Continued belowAt first, I thought this was the origin of that piece of “Batman” lore, most recently seen in The Batman, but doing a little digging did bring up “The Long Halloween,” which predates this comic by a good half decade. Even that may not be the first time it’s shown up but is, for my money, the highest profile use Thomas saving a gangster’s life. Fun fact I discovered during this research: Lew Moxton is originally a Silver Age character who, potentially, sent Chill to kill the Waynes. Nice pull, Brubaker.
What hurts the issues too is McDaniel’s art, which is uneven throughout all three issues. It’s never bad but it does have clarity problems, even in fight scenes where he usually does great. Possibly this is due to the new inker, Aaron Sowd, however I don’t think I can lay this at his feet since it is a problem in #594 too, where Story is still inker.
There’s simply too much going on the page and not enough differentiation between layers to create a solid depth of field. Clearly the coloring is not helping, and in parts actively hindering that clarity. When Batgirl is repeated three times in one panel on an overcrowded page beating up a bunch of goons – which, again, is usually done quite well by McDaniel to convey speed and create an efficiency in action – there needs to be a visual separation between them or they’ll just collapse into an incomprehensible mess of limbs and heavy outlines.
To jump back, before I close, to my griping about the constant interruptions; I can see now how dissatisfaction on readers’ parts led to a sort-of falling out with this kind of heavily connective continuity. Sure, it never went away at DC – just look at the New 52 – but you can see how this, and the added weight of decades, changed comics fans’ relationship to cross-title continuity.
Moreover, it becomes apparent how the early 2000s completed the alienation of all but a core-audience that began in the 90s, as it erected massive barriers to newcomers, and made casual fans of singular titles feel confused and out of the loop. Even I, a person who loves the interconnected, sprawling nature of a superhero universe where books affect each other in “real time,” have struggled here.
No wonder this era isn’t looked back on often.
Next time: the road to #600.
