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“Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying”

By | September 25th, 2017
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

With ‘A Lonely Place of Living’ starting this Wednesday, we thought it would be a fun idea to take a look at the story it’s title is homaging. It was a story of Bruce coming to terms with Jason Todd’s death and saw the introduction of Tim Drake, the third Robin. But the question is: Does it hold up? Let’s look.

Batman #441 Cover by George Perez

Written by Marv Wolfman & George Perez
Penciled by Jim Aparo & Tom Grummett
Inked by Bob McLeod
Colored by Adrienne Roy
Lettered by John Costanza

Following Jason Todd’s death, Batman is pushed to the limits. Meanwhile, Dick Grayson goes on a journey of self-discovery as he returns to the place where it all began. As the Dark Knight and Two-Face face off, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake discuss the future of Batman and Robin.

Robin. The Boy (?) Wonder. For nearly a century that moniker has been on many characters, mainly five in the main universe (Stephanie counts. She counts.) It’s meant different things for different people, but one aspect always seemed consistent: Batman will always need a Robin. Whether it was to provide an audience viewpoint, bring levity into Batman’s grim world or to simply save the Dark Knight from himself, it is a relationship almost as important as the one between Bruce and his dead parents. That relationship takes center stage in ‘A Lonely Place of Dying,’ which introduced the Robin that help crystallize the moniker for the next twenty years: Tim Drake.

Following the death of Jason Todd in the aptly-named ‘Death in the Family,’ Batman was not in a good place. He essentially turned the Dark Knighting into overdrive, pushing himself to physical and mental exhaustion, become more aggressive, putting his relationship with Alfred and Dick on more frigid terms than ever before. On top of that, Harvey Dent is being pulled more and more into crime by “Big Bad Harv.” On top of that, someone has been following both Bruce and Dick on their separate ventures, photographing them and collecting information.

Time’s a funny thing and it dilutes one’s memories of something, like how this story was actually a crossover between “Batman” and Wolfman/Perez’s other book “The New Titans.” You may have heard of their run on that; it was kind of a under-the-radar book. But yeah, Dick’s comrades from Titan Tower also factor a bit in this story, tying in with Dick’s continued distance from Batman. But it does further enhance the idea that Dick Grayson going back to being Robin would be a bad idea. It would be regressive, not only for Dick as a character, but the mythos as a whole.

The main importance of the story is an examination of Robin and iconography important to (at least Dick’s) origins plays a great degree into the story. Dick has made a return to his home and the “birthplace” of Robin, Haley’s Circus, to try and get a little perspective after Jason’s death. It gives a little look into Dick before his parent’s death and shows that he hasn’t changed that much, just gotten better. He’s still a bit of that light in the dark.

But let’s get into the bigger matter in this story: the introduction of Tim Drake. When introducing a character you plan to be around in the long-term, it needs to feel impactful. Feel meaningful. Wolfman, Perez, Aparo & Grummett go a bit more subtle with the buildup. For the first issue and a half of the crossover, we only get brief snippets of Tim. A hand there, the fact that he rides a bike as opposed to driving a car to get around indicating that this, well, stalker (Timmy was a stalker. That’s something I’ll never forget) may be a kid and his research on Batman and Robin. In fact, when we finally get a physical look at him, watching Dick in clown makeup on the trapeze again, it’s not some big, full-page moment of Tim Drake being shown, but small panels intersected with panels of Dick moving until we finally see the full face of the soon-to-be Robin deducing who is subject is.

Continued below

Speaking of deducing, one of the biggest accomplishments that Wolman/Perez achieve with this story is establishing one of Tim’s most recognizable traits: He’s very smart. We see the boy analysing people, putting two and two together, use reasoning to reach conclusions. It’s what led him to figuring out that Bruce Wayne is Batman and Dick Grayson is Nightwing, something very few have been able to do. They also establish a bit of naivete in spite of that intelligence. He continues to assume that everything will be okay if Dick just became Robin again, even as it becomes more and more apparent that is not the case. Finally, even though he’s incredibly smart, he’s not exactly up to par when it comes to physical encounters, really getting incredibly lucky at times.

One particular trait of Tim that I want to examine is this: outside of Tim being smart, Tim is a fan of Batman & Robin. Not unlike the previous example, probably the greatest example, of a legacy character, Wally West. It is a delicate thread to needle when writing a character that is a fan/audience surrogate. There’s always the potential to make the character insufferable or flat. That said, while we get just the beginnings of the character here, the creative team never goes overboard with making Tim idealized. In fact, by the story’s end, Tim isn’t automatically accepted by Bruce. It shows that this is going to be a process for him to fully become Robin.

Jim Aparo and Tom Grummett perform art duties on “Batman” and “New Titans” respectfully with Perez helping on layouts. Their styles mesh very well, keeping a detailed but never going overboard style. A standout moment, at least to me, was when we are looking through the perspective of Tim’s camera at Batman. John Costanza’s lettering works well in tandem to emphasize “panels as still moments in time” with the “Snap Whirr” of the camera. (Also, if you don’t remember that camera’s used to do that with film, go away, child). There are some weak aspects, like it being difficult to differentiate Dick and Tim. While that’s a fault with DC as a whole because heavens forbid one of the Robins not be a black-haired, blue-eyed white boy, but even here their hairstyles tended to blend.

The art team also do a good job creating visual duality. Even if he isn’t the central focus, Two-Face is the central villain and the visuals, both in character expression and paneling, play well in compare and contrasting Bruce and Harvey. Whether you have a two paneled page of the pair, Two-Face depicted down low in his apartment contrasted with Batman up high on a gargoyle on some building or another page that stood out for me visually: A six-paneled page of the two former friends, each on a separate roof top. The narration matches one another as they consider their plans, but that’s not important. Visually, they are fully symmetrical, down to their expressions (hideous acid burns not-withstanding). That technique is used in quite a few places that doesn’t require dialogue to commune just how different and similar these two are.

At its core, ‘A Lonely Place of Dying’ still holds up a lot. There is some outdated factors like clothing and hairstyles. Also, you kind of really have to acknowledge that Tim does come from a life of privilege (Jack and Janet Drake in a flashback kind of rubbed me the wrong way). But at its core, it’s about Robin. What it is. What it was. And what it will continue to be in the years to come as Tim grew into it and defined the role for an entire generation.


//TAGS | evergreen

Ken Godberson III

When he's not at his day job, Ken Godberson III is a guy that will not apologize for being born Post-Crisis. More of his word stuffs can be found on Twitter or Tumblr. Warning: He'll talk your ear off about why Impulse is the greatest superhero ever.

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