The Webcomics Weekly #154: Batman Comes to Webtoon (9/14/2021 Edition)

The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life! This week, Batman comes to Webtoons as part of the first Webtoon produced content based on DC IP. A move that can only mean great things for the SEO reach of this hear column. Now excuse me as I try to figure out how to just write “Batman” every other word, tastefully. The “Wayne Family Adventures” might be the biggest new webcomic, but we also have coverage of “Evelyne and the Occult” a strip that Sir Christopher Lee might have appreciated. “Plundercats” continue to plunder their way through space. “Lavender Jack” gives us name for those green rings and a JAM episode featuring a cadre of artists.

The Bat family was the house that trauma built. Tim Drake, Red Robin’s mother died when he was just 13 and his father was paralyzed. Depending on which origin you go by Jason Todd was street urchin who got caught trying to nick the bat-mobile’s hubcaps. Also, he was murdered by the Joker and brought back to life as the Red Hood, his trauma runs deep. Cassie Cain’s trauma was that she was trained from a young age by assassin’s David Cain and Lady Shiva. Cassie was deprived of human interaction and was often depicted as mute. Stephanie Brown had the traumatic experience of having to fight her criminal dad Cluemaster as Spoiler. Damien Wayne was grown in an artificial womb, son of Bruce and Talia and was famously trained by the evil League of Assassins to be a successor to his grandfather Ras al’ Ghul, which I imagine was quite traumatic.

Newcomer Duke Thomas, the Signal, witnessed the Joker turn his family into evil zombies with his laughing gas. But no one knows trauma like Bruce Wayne, beginning with powerlessness to stop his parent’s murder at the hands of Joe Chill, Also, we can’t forget when Bane famously broke the Bat over his knee, paralyzing him, or the countless other times Batman has been met with the sick, twisted designs of one villain or another. Recently he even lost his lifetime father-figure Alfred.

Though the family is built on shared trauma, they do have a bond that transcends anything the dark twisted minds of Gotham’s criminals can thrust upon them. WEBTOON has partnered with DC for a lighter, more airy rendition of the Bat family, where Alfred is very much alive, and they fight over the last cookie at the dinner table, playfully, like any tight knit family might. The first three episodes of “Batman: Wayne Family Adventures” are up and is written by CRC Payne and inked by StarBite.

It’s moving day for young Duke Thomas “AKA The Signal Gotham’s Newest Vigilante” as his character card says on the first panel. As is the custom with a lot of WEBTOON content each character is introduced with a character card beneath them when they first appear. Damian “AKA Robin. He’s still working on his people skills.” A bit of an understatement. Jason Todd “AKA the Red Hood. Death and resurrection leave some lasting scars.” Tim Drake “AKA Red Robin. Genius. Detective. Coffee addict.” Cute little detail. Cassandra Cain “AKA Orphan. Trained since birth as a living weapon.” Jim Gordon, no AKA of course but “Gotham police commissioner, he’s seen it all.” And I’m sure he has, especially if we count “The Killing Joke” as continuity. Barbara Gordon “AKA Oracle. Librarian by day and vigilante by night. Stephanie Brown “AKA Spoiler. Kicks butt. Takes names. Love’s purple.” She certainly does wear a lot of the color.

The cards add a certain whimsy to this hybrid webcomic-DC young adult comic. It is a frequent device of WEBTOON content creators. The whole comic has the look and feel of a Batman fanfic, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As they gather around the table for food and welcome Duke to the family, they give off a very “Disney Christmas Carol” vibe. It also seems to have more in common with the “slice of life” category of WEBTOON than “action” or “superhero.” The humor is basic and childish, but it is still fun. With Babs having a flashback of hitting a bad guy with her bat, from her wheelchair, as Oracle, in front of her unsuspecting father.

It’s hard to believe that this comic comes from the same corporation that is bringing us a much darker version of the Bat Family, HBO’s “Titans.” “Titans” depicts a much older Bruce Wayne, as a manipulative sociopath, whose method of fathering his family borders on abuse. This version of Bruce is younger, far more fatherly and warm. A treatment he rarely gets even in the comics. Batman actually smiles. The tone also reminds me of the line of YA graphic novels that DC has been coming out with in the last few years on characters ranging from Raven to Swamp Thing. Gritty realism isn’t likely what the creative team behind this comic is going for it seems they seek to show the joys of the Bat Family more.

I think this series has some potential, but I do think there needs to eventually be more clearly defined conflict to strengthen and cement that bond between Bruce and his extended family. Damian mentions that all the family float in and out of the mansion and makes a comment that certain people are not represented, perhaps because they are no longer with us. Damian points out that the family portraits need to be updated. He says “Minus Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown, Luke Fox and Kate Kane. Father has been meaning to get the portrait updated.” But as we see in these issues, Babs and Stephanie Brown make an appearance. It is yet to be seen what’s become of the rest of the clan.

The art appears to be a cross between the Japanese influenced style most popular on the app and more of a DC influenced rendering of these iconic characters. Certainly, there is a lot of variation between character designs for different comics on the app and there is also a fair amount of variation between each artist for DC. But there is a default picture in your head that comes to mind when you think of Bruce Wayne and there is also something that comes to mind when you think of a typical webcomic on WEBTOON. This design seems to embody the best of both worlds. In fact, while I think the story does need more work, particularly a noticeable conflict, I think the art is quite impressive, at least in its character designs. The quirky tricks that Damian plays on his newest sibling are cute. This is worth checking out for that alone.

The spookiest month of the year may not be here yet but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a look at a comic that’s getting into the spirit, or spirits, as it were. “Evelyne and the Occult’s” focuses on Evelyne, a college-aged goth who has been obsessed with the occult since an almost encounter with a ghost at a young age. Ever since, she’s tried everything to have another one in order to prove that the supernatural exists but her every attempt fails, usually because she’s WAY too intense for the spirits, cuts corners like using a paper Ouija board, or is pulled away before the truly creepy shit can happen.

This premise has a lot of legs, both as a comedy and as a horror story, but the two tones are at odds with each other rather than being complimentary, in part because of the art. In episode 4, where I noticed this the most, InksOwl & colorist Yepes renders the truly horrific bone creature with a scratchier, more penciled, and less bright style while drawing the dog Taquito in a cleaner, brighter, more digital looking manner, which is consistent with the rest of the comic, including the sheet ghosts from the previous page. I like that bone ghost is rendered differently, it emphasizes its otherworldliness and enhances the creep factor, but when placed right alongside the fainting dog who is drawn in a more cartoony fashion, the tonal dissonance ends up hurting the comic rather than helping it.

Moreover, I would love to read a gag comedy with this concept but InksOwl seems more intent to use the comedy aspects to provide a levity to the more pants-darkening moments of the comic, which would work better if either the creepy moments OR the comedy were used more sparingly. I also find that the faces in chapters 4-7 are more limited in their expression than the first three chapters, which in turn makes those episodes, and the new characters, feel dull. It’s a bit like we’re in a holding pattern until the crew can find another new spooky endeavor to get to.

The scenes at the college go on a little too long but once we get the story of the creepy house, I got chills down my spine. InksOwl clearly knows how to pace the scary moments. Their ability to render horror tableaus with ease is readily apparent throughout, in particular in episode 7 with the truly terrifying teeth in the dark. While I’m not overly enamored with the characters around Evelyne, or the swings from great comedy to resonant horror and back, I am invested in seeing her journey, getting some answers to the mysteries being seeded, and in experiencing more moments of spine-chilling, even if me at 3am will regret that decision.

…Yeah. 3am me is gonna regret re-reading that chapter for sure.

This batch of episodes really begins to pull at the threads of who is the Black Note and tie them together. And yet if you look at what ‘new’ information we get it’s oblique, really the idea that Eddie Delany might be the answer to this whole question is the most concrete new lead. I guess the direct connection to the Black Note’s ties to the “Secret Fraternity” aka the Green Ringers is another hard bit of intel. This trio of episodes are more affecting, they create the sensation of progress. That sensation is the same thing I like in a “2000 AD” strip. So even if you math it out maybe a lot of forward progress isn’t really made, but the technical execution of it creates a fulfilling experience. We’re about to get Jack v Note III with essentially the same setup, but now with even more despicable “innocents,” and all I want to do is read more.

That kind of feeling of progress and the actual lack of it is somewhat called out in Episode 75 as Honoria Crabb goes to investigate the man who gave her that scar. It doesn’t go exactly as planned with a very Kingpin-esque run in with Lady Hawthorne. Crabb doesn’t tell Hawthorne she doesn’t already know, nothing we don’t already know. The only new bit is a name for Duchess Okoyo, but we already knew what she looked like. And yet it’s still one of the better single episodes in this season in terms of tension and one-off quality.

Episode 74 is also the jam episode of the season, with Schkade getting pinups from 7 other artists – most of whom have used Webtoon at one point or another – to represent the gossip of Gallery’s rich about the relationship between Jack and the Note. Some of the party goers are clear references to figures like Jung and Frude who try to mansplain the duality of these masked characters, in an excellent Michael Avon Oeming piece. The various pinups reference either genres or events in the series just unknowingly right-wrong. The jam pieces are worth checking out on their own, my personal favorite is Gavin Smith’s Legion pinup. The idea that you could have that ornate inky style next to “Heir’s Game” author Susanna Nousiainen’s romance manga style is great. To put a fine point on the recurring motif of this review, do these pinups tell us anything new? Not really, and yet the execution and storytelling makes me feel fulfilled.

“Plundercats” ho! (Sorry.) After a quick anniversary panel, we spend a chapter in Alfi’s head, which is terrifying and probably a more accurate cat’s-eye point of view than anything we’ve seen so far. This chapter is either a riff on Miette or the author has a terrifying ability to channel a cat’s thoughts. Then it’s back to the main plot, as Ferran and company continue to steal, scrape, and generally try their best to make it in a dog-eat-dog world. (Not literally, just, you know, space is a tough place for an outlaw cat, is what I’m saying.)

Ferran’s crew is off on another dubiously sourced mission to hunt down some data that will be used to … do something important, no doubt? LankyCat manages to capture reaction shots of the space cats looking unimpressed in so many different ways, and you might think it would get old? But I lived with a haughty black cat for close to fifteen years and I continually marveled at her ability to be unimpressed with me, so you know what? These cats are valid as heck. The space stations and ships in the background of these latest pages of Plundercats have gotten more distinctive and detailed, too.

As the cats go about this latest mission, they journey to a “precursor” station, mentioning that it’s over four thousand years old. This type of casually imparted information is intriguing! It hints at backstory without revealing too much and it’s not a big enough plot point to be a stumbling block for newer readers. These pages also show the crew members’ torsos more often, which seems like a small thing to notice, but it helped me differentiate the cats from one another. Enno and Ferran both have a tendency to brood, so knowing that one wears blue and one wears white helps the reader understand which cat is which.

The latest update ends with Enno and Ferran planning a heist with their employer, so we’ll have to wait and see what types of cat shenanigans the crew gets up to in their search for their latest space MacGuffin.