Batman 300 and up (reviews by shaxper)

[shaxper]

Detective Comics #595

"Our Man in Havana"
writer: Alan Grant (and John Wagner?)
pencils: Irv Novick
inks: Steve Mitchell
colors: Adrienne Roy
letters: Todd Klein
asst. editor: Dan Raspler
editor: Denny O'Neil

Grade: D-


Yuk.

So this issue is an obligatory Invasion tie-in (I'm so glad DC has toned down these tie-ins in recent years), and a phoned-in effort is the result. Breyfogle skipped out on this issue entirely, and after delivering a semi-thoughtful introduction (even though the English teacher in me caught the sloppy parallel structure that I wouldn't normally expect from him) Grant pretty much goes for plot points and easy dialogue with absolutely no creative flare showing anywhere in this story. Alien invasions are an even poorer fit for Grant than they are for Batman (and both he and Maxwell Lord too willingly concede on that latter point in this story).

The truly sad part is that, while Breyfogle is cutting class and Grant is turning in D work he wrote the night before, Irv Novick puts surprising effort into this story. If you've been reading these reviews from the beginning, then you probably know that I absolutely detest Novick's work, yet this issue wasn't bad. It wasn't good, mind you...just not bad. There were maybe two semi-lousy panels in the entire story. I consider that a triumph for Irv. This is probably, in some small part, due to Steve Mitchell's inks, which actually make Novick's Batman look good at times.

This issue also contains DC Bonus Book #11. I honestly can't believe they were still doing these try-out stories. Last time around, both the art and writing were abysmal. This time around, the art is just pretty bad (about a degree below Novick on a normal day), and the writing is truly a joke. Writer Jeff O'Hare literally lost me on panel two, as panel one shows Batman beating up a thug, and panel two says "Meanwhile..." What? We're transitioning to a new scene already? What was the point of showing us the first one?

An honest question: Did DC actually gain any serious talent from any of these bonus books? It seems to me that they only used writers and artists that they already had too many doubts about to place on a regular title.

Really, all that's worth discussing in this issue is Denny O'Neil's initial response to the Jason Todd vote in the letters column, which was strangely absent at the end of Batman #428 (all we got there was a quick note from asst. editor Dan Raspler asserting that he'd voted for Jason to live). There are a few passages in it that are worth discussing:

Cynic that I am, I, and most of the rest of the DC staff, thought our audience would vote negatively if only to see if we'd dare to go through with killing yet another major character."

Yet, in the postscript to the Death in the Family tpb, O'Neil claims that he voted for Jason to live and didn't want him to die. Yet the vote was his idea, and he suspected fans would kill Jason off if given the chance. I suppose it's possible that he put his personal opinions aside for the sake of the fans, but it sure looks like he only claimed to want to save Jason so as not to appear as the bad guy in this situation.


And, at 7:45, it looked like he might make it, with 5,221 for him and 5,259 against. Only 38 calls difference.

There must have been a last-minute surge of Jason-haters. When, at 8:30, I finally spoke to a human being...the final count was 5,271 to 5,343.


An indication of how close the vote really was. I think it's important to bear in mind that, by the end of Batman #427, Starlin had made Jason thoroughly unlikable and unsaveable, had established a running theme that Jason was headed down a path of destruction, and had put him in a situation in which he had no reasonable means of surviving. Starlin really stacked the deck and, additionally, the phone number was only made available to loyal comic book fans buying in direct market shops, not the general masses who would be more likely to prevent a legacy character from dying. With all of that, the end difference was still only 74 votes.

O'Neil goes on to claim that his reasons for doing this were to try out the phone technology and to do something no one had ever done before, yet we know that isn't the whole story. Starlin had been begging for Jason's death for a long while now, and O'Neil himself is far too quick to talk about taking Batman back to his roots and the excitement/unpredictability of separating Batman from Robin after 48 years. Let's also keep in mind that, when Denny was writing Batman, they were solo stories, with Dick away in college. More and more, I'm convinced that O'Neil wanted Robin gone just as much as Starlin did.


The plot synopsis (if you really care): Batman goes to Cuba to fight the invading aliens, he flashes back to turning down Maxwell Lord's request for him to help the Justice League with the invasion (both he and Lord seemed to agree he had no place in a battle against aliens), Batman goes on patrol, a routine robbery results in the victims turning alien weaponry on their attackers, Batman intervenes, they're aliens, he figures out that they were smuggling in alien weapons that had come from Cuba, we flash forward to Batman in Cuba, and he takes down the bad guys and blows up the cigar factory out of which they were shipping the weapons, leaving Batman to wonder how he's going to get home (his helicopter blew up in the beginning).


Worthless story aside from O'Neil's comments in the letters column.

[Captain Jim]

Irv Novick puts surprising effort into this story. If you've been reading these reviews from the beginning, then you probably know that I absolutely detest Novick's work,

What? Heresy!

[shaxper]

Batman #429

"A Death in the Family, Chapter 6"
writer: Jim Starlin
pencils: Jim Aparo
inks: Mike DeCarlo
letters: John Costanza
colors: Adrienne Roy
asst. editor: Dan Raspler
editor: Denny O'Neil

Grade: C


The final chapter in the A Death in the Family storyline feels no more a part of it than the previous chapter did. While this supposedly final confrontation with the Joker stems from what he did to Jason, it's an entirely different story with its own plot structure. Yet the "Death in the Family" title probably helped it sell a ton more copies, and DC seemed to be so confident of this fact that they jacked the cover price up to $1.00 for this issue only, even while it contains no additional pages.

For what it's worth, the only chapters in Death in the Family that were actually integral to Jason's death were Chapters 1, 4, and the first half of Chapter 5. Chapters 2-3 are unnecessary filler, and the second half of 5 and now all of 6 are an entirely different story.

It's interesting that, in the very storyline in which the post-crisis Batman continuity finally clearly diverges from that of DKR (Batman doesn't retire when Jason dies), Starlin seems to be making a supreme effort to finally align Batman's characterization with that of the protagonist we saw in DKR. This Batman is full of rage and a thirst for revenge as a result of Jason's death, and his ideological confrontation with Superman in this issue (as Superman is hired by the president to make him follow the law, which, as Batman points out, is not the same as justice) seems to be taken directly from DKR, especially as Batman begins referring to Supes as "The Boyscout."

There's also an attempt to align this story with The Killing Joke as Batman is finally brought to that point he sought to avoid in TKJ in which one of them must kill the other. The alignment is also clearly there as Batman instructs Joker to "give it up," and he replies by pleading, "I can't! I can't! I CAN'T!" which is completely reminiscent of the scene in TKJ when Batman offers Joker a chance to change and Joker sadly replies that it's far too late for him. I must admit this last bit felt very heavy handed here, as Batman must have said "Give it up!" to the Joker a billion times by now, though it's also true that Starlin made it clear both seemed to sense the climactic nature of this struggle before it even began. They both understood this one is to the death with an eerie level of connectivity (the Joker even seeming to look at Bruce Wayne and know who he really is and what he's about to do).

Starlin tries to do some justice to Jason again in this issue, but this time it's over the top and smacks of insincerity on Starlin's part as the following conversation ensues:

Superman: He seemed like a really nice kid.

Batman: He was. Jason was the best.

Since when? I really liked the kid, and even I can't buy that. Of course, Starlin never showed us the good times between Jason and Bruce. Collins gave us the origin, Starlin fast forwarded, left Jason out for most of the run, and then did everything possible to make him troubled and doomed to die. I'd like to believe that the Mike W. Barr stories in Detective, featuring a generally happy and good kid (later revealed to have tremendous pain and anger carefully buried deep inside), fits between the origin and Starlin's run -- the "good" years that would allow Bruce to see Jason as "the best" prior to all of this happening. But there's no sense that anyone was trying to merge those depictions of Jason together. Once Starlin came onboard, Barr's depiction of Jason seemed to get erased from existence.

Aparo's Joker gets a lot more ridiculous in this issue. I swear his chin grew several inches since the previous issue, and that face that constantly leers at nothing in particular is more odd than it is disturbing.

Okay, so the Joker flagrantly brags to Batman that he killed Jason when his entire motivation for doing so in Batman #427 was to keep Batman from knowing he had beaten him with the crow bar so that he could avoid Batman's retribution. I suppose it's possible that The Joker suspected that Batman was there because he already knew, but it's far more reasonable to assume Batman had come because Joker was going to be delivering that "speech" to the United Nations.

Starlin still isn't writing a funny/clever Joker. His speech to the U.N., right before he tries to kill them all, isn't his style at all as he preaches quite seriously about feeling disrespected, abused and belittled by society. Really the only thing close to a gag he delivers in this issue goes as follows:

Batman: You always know the exact wrong thing to say, don't you?

Joker: That's what makes me so special.

and soon after:

Joker: Okay, Let's Mambo!! Gone! I hate it when he does that. But he does make life worth living. I'm all A-tingle. Won't be able to sleep a wink. Can't wait...

This second bit really sounds like a hack trying to write the Joker without having the least bit grasp on his outlook and sense of humor. "Let's mambo!!" is the best you can give him while he's trying to gun down Batman?

(continued...)

[shaxper]

Starlin's commentary against the U.S. is so one-sided that it's absurd here. CIA director Ralph Bundy's advice to Batman is particularly pathetic; I can't imagine a patriotic agent actually speaking these lines:

Guys like us should just do our jobs and let the big shots do theirs. They know what's doing and they say hands off Iran's new U.N. ambassador! Understand?

The idea of the U.N. (which Starlin seems to carelessly blur with the U.S. govt. here) allowing the Joker in as a diplomat AND not subjecting him to any security check whatsoever (he had two giant metal canisters strapped to his chest!) while also somehow having security lax enough to allow the Joker's henchmen to plant bombs throughout the chamber, just seems utterly absurd to me. As much as Starlin came across as a raging liberal in "The Cult" (and don't get me wrong; I'm kind of a raging liberal, myself), his paranoid view of foreign governments and belief that the U.S. coddles and empowers them to this extent feels like the perspective of some extreme right wing dude wearing camouflage and living in a shed in the woods.

And speaking of "The Cult," though Starlin never once mentioned the events of that story in the Batman title (unless his reference to having been in the sewer on a recent mission way back in #421 was supposed to be acknowledging the story), he now has Bruce mention that he's still recovering from what Deacon Blackfire did to him. AGGHHH. That single line, spoken in a single panel, completely messes up the post-crisis Batman continuity I'd constructed up to this point. Starlin's internal continuity doesn't work all because of this reference to the events of "The Cult" having happened recently. Check out the continuity again:

__________________________________________________ ______________
The Post-Crisis Batman Timetable

Year 1 -- The Year 1 storyline. Additionally, the replacement commissioner at the end of "Year One" is fired or forced to retire
Year 1 -- Batman switches to the yellow chest symbol

Year 2 -- The Year Two storyline

Year 3 -- Dick is taken in by Bruce at age 12, becomes Robin at age 13

Year 3-9 -- Most of Batman's rogues gallery is active for some time prior to Dick's retirement, but presumably not until after the events of Year Two (since it's implied that Reaper is Batman's first supervillain), including Two Face, Penguin, and Joker.

Year 9 -- The first Robin is retired and presumed dead by the general public, at age 19 after 6 years with Batman and an implied long history of repeated confrontations with members of the rogues gallery

Year 10 -- Bruce takes in Jason. Dick attends one year of college, drops out, becomes Nightwing, and "started a new life as leader of" the New Teen Titans (this seems to imply that he formed the team after becoming Nightwing and never led it as Robin).

Year 10.5 -- Jason becomes Robin six months after Bruce takes him in (Dick confronts Batman about Jason being the new Robin 18 months after his retirement; the preface for Death in the Family states that Jason became Robin 18 months after Dick retired).

Year 11.5 -- the present day of Batman #416, which takes place one year after the confrontation between Dick and Bruce over Jason becoming Robin.

This makes the current events of Batman take place in Year 11.5 or Year 12, but "The Cult, Book 4" explicitly states that Batman has now been active for ten years. The only way this works is if "The Cult" takes place at the beginning of Jason's career.
__________________________________________________ _______________

...of course, Starlin just killed that explanation with a single entirely unnecessary line from Batman.


The final climactic battle in this issue between Batman and Joker, the one that Starlin has spent the last issue and a half building toward, that he seemed to feel was so important to depict that it usurped the need to give any closure to Jason's final fate, ends far too quickly and randomly. Batman literally touched Joker ONCE, abandoned him when it looked like he might kinda' sorta' be done for, and then acknowledged immediately after that he didn't really expect him to be dead. What the heck was the point of all that? I've previously mentioned that I suspect Starlin was looking to off the Joker along with Robin (both being fantastic aspects of the Batman mythos that didn't fit his grounded vision of Batman), but this is the lamest, half-ass "I'm killing him, but I'm really not killing him if anyone wants to bring him back" ending possible. I wonder if he and O'Neil had a discussion about this and O'Neil forced him to pull his punch with the Joker, or if this was a decision he reached on his own. Clearly, the Joker was too profitable a character to get rid of, especially with the Burton movie about to hit screens.

For what it's worth, Denny O'Neil posts the exact same statement from the letter column of Detective #595 into this issue's letter column, again giving an initial reaction to the vote to kill Jason off.

All in all, this is a nice issue if you were a fan of DKR and Killing Joke and were waiting to see those works have an impact upon regular continuity. To me, though, this felt like something that was shamelessly and obligatorily thrown out there to keep the fan boys who loved those works buzzing, not a work that possesses any true integrity of its own. Mignola's cover and that one haunting Aparo image of a bullet-riddled Joker attempting to laugh aside, this "final" Joker story did absolutely nothing for me.

[shaxper]

Detective Comics #596

"Video Nasties"
writer: Alan Grant (and John Wagner?)
pencils: Edwardo Barreto
inks: Steve Mitchell
letters: Todd Klein
colors: Adrienne Roy
asst. editor: Dan Raspler
editor: Denny O'Neil
creator: Bob Kane

Grade: C+

It's interesting that, in this issue, rather than give the formal credits at the beginning, they simply list all the names of the people involved, followed by the word "present." Did they mean to imply that Bob Kane was actually present and somehow involved in the making of this issue? I doubt it.

Okay, so I'm disappointed. Based on the covers of this and the next issue, I honestly thought Grant was going to try to salvage Moench's Film Freak, a great character concept that was handled poorly. Of course, I should have realized that Grant hasn't handled a single villain he hasn't himself created in these pages (though that will eventually change with Etrigon and the Clayfaces). For the most part, Grant's been trying to give us sicker, more realistic villains, and the villain in this issue certainly fits that profile -- a porn rental store owner who organizes and films senseless beatings (and murders?) for profit. It's a good idea (the story, not the business), but beyond the initial shock and repulsion that people might indeed pay to see something like this, I didn't find too much to love about this issue.

I was, however, certainly bothered by portions of it. Here are the minor details:

-The first victim is a college kid hanging out in an all-night classic cartoon marathon festival with his friends. Now, I can accept that he was there in order to do research for his paper, but you're telling me his friends just happen to go there for fun on a regular basis? Clearly, they didn't come to keep him company or they would have left with him. And, of course, it's insultingly convenient that he's exploring the link between cartoon violence and real world violence just as he's about to be videotaped while being beaten for the viewing entertainment of others.

-Is crime in Gotham really so rampant that a bunch of thugs could just start beating a guy in an alley that's clearly visible from the road? Maybe it really is time for Batman to retire DKR-style if he's having that little success in striking fear into the criminal element.

-Whenever Batman finds a possible clue and says, "Probably nothing--just a long shot," you know this is going to be that 1 out of 100 times that the long shot works out. It probably wouldn't bother most readers, but I hate cheap narrative conveniences like this, and I think Grant is too excellent a writer to be leaning upon them.

- Grant suddenly attempts to explore the relationship between Bruce and Alfred, and I don't care for what he comes up with. Here's the conversation they have:

Bruce: What is it about us, Alfred? What makes us such easy prey for violence and depravity?

Alfred: I'm only a butler, sir. Far be it for me to play the psychologist...besides, I'm sure you understand the repulsions--and attractions--of violence far better than I ever will. You are, after all, something of a specialist on the subject!

Bruce: I serve JUSTICE, Alfred. I meet violence with whatever it takes to overcome it. I take no pleasure in it!

Alfred (thinking to himself): Take no pleasure in it? Hmph!

Bruce (thinking to himself): Only a butler? Hmph!

I don't enjoy this antagonistic relationship. Really, I just think Grant should stay away from Bruce's head. He's had little interest in Bruce up until now, spending far more time on introducing fascinating villains with Batman serving as little more than the hand of justice that finally puts them away. I like Grant better that way. Every Copper Age writer seems to feel some compulsion to get into Bruce's head, and too many writers are trying it without the proper skill and sense of restraint. I'm willing to bet that Grant's work on Shadow of the Bat will be far stronger because it gives him the luxury of not having to focus on Batman at all.

-Does Batman normally employ both Alfred and his Bruce Wayne identity in his detective work? I'd imagine it wouldn't take long for this to thoroughly compromise his dual identity, especially when the wealthiest man in Gotham pays off a shoe store clerk for information on another customer and then goes to a porn rental store asking about ninja action flicks.

-Of course the villain has an unusual tell-tale deformity to allow Bruce to easily track him down. Another lame convenience.

-Why does Bruce decide to wait for the cameraman to make another move and then catch him in the act? This guy is just a shmoe looking to make some money, not a hardened criminal. A quick Batman shakedown would scare him straight and get him to surrender the information about his employer without taking the risk of allowing him to harm another innocent victim before Batman intercedes.

-What's up with the obligatory boxing match scene? Are we really supposed to believe Bruce finds the time to drop in at the local inner city boys' club on a regular basis when we've never heard of him doing so before? The lines about the benefits and anti-violence purpose of youth boxing feel absurdly heavy handed and (once again) convenient to this story.

-Are we going to find out next issue what happened in that last panel, or are we just supposed to assume it's the effects of a concussion?


Losing Breyfogle again for this issue is a sincere disappointment. O'Neil claims he'll be returning in a few more issues (wonder what the prolonged absence is about?). Barreto isn't bad, but he's certainly not as good, and those blank backgrounds (particularly on page 5) bugged me.

I'm starting to become a fan of Steve Mitchell. I really like the heavy shadows he lays onto Barreto's art (he did this for Novick last issue, as well), which is never over the top. It's the kind of visual that's so thoroughly Batman -- it wouldn't work in most other comics. Inking is one of those aspects of comics I still haven't developed a full appreciation for yet, so it's nice to now have two inkers I know I like (Alfredo Alcala being the first and primary one).

O'Neil talks about the Burton movie in the letters column this time. It's the first time it's been mentioned by him in these books (as far as I've noticed). At this point, it's about to begin shooting in England. Surprising to me, though, was that, when listing the primary cast, O'Neil stated that Vicki Vale was being played by Sean Young. I guess there was a last minute change? Edit: did some research. Young broke her arm early on in filming and was dropped. She tried out for Catwoman in the second film and was turned down. After that, she apparently made her own Catwoman costume and attempted to confront Burton and Keaton while wearing it.

Also in the letters column, O'Neil complains that Detective doesn't get anywhere near as many letters as Batman (and seems to be insulting the quality of letters he's therefore forced to print here. Nice, Denny). It's sad that this probably indicates that Batman is strongly outselling Detective at this point (which has frequently been the case for decades). I hope O'Neil doesn't accept this as proof that spectacles including poorly rebooted origins and meaningless deaths are more profitable than consistent quality art and writing. Eh, he probably believed that from the start anyway...and it's sadly true anyway.

Oh well...


The plot synopsis in one ridiculously long sentence: a college student is watching a classic cartoon movie marathon in a theater with his friends as research for a paper he is writing, he leaves and is assaulted by hooded men, beaten, and video taped while it occurs, Batman sees the struggle from the Batmobile and intercedes, the cameraman escapes, Batman reviews the video tape of the beating with Gordon and a nameless detective and finds a clue that might be a "long shot," the cameraman returns to the adult video store that he works at and reports back to the man who hired him to make the film, the employer is angry but gives him one last chance, all while someone who is not shown practices boxing in the next room while claiming to be tougher than Schwartzenegger, Stallone, and Norris, Bruce and Alfred debate about using violence to deliver justice, Bruce figures out from the video that the cameraman has a built up custom alligator boot, he and Alfred investigate local shoemakers who offer that service, Bruce bribes the right one for the name and address of the cameraman, he goes to the adult video store to scope him out and positively identifies him by his boot, decides to catch him in the act later as Batman , goes to the local boysclub to watch kids box and talk about the benefits of boxing, this is somehow interesting enough to be broadcast on local television, where the cameraman's employer watches and mocks the message, the employer then goes into the next room and asks the enormous brute there to make sure Batman doesn't interfere with the next video shoot, Batman interferes with the next video shoot, the brute attacks him, Batman starts to take a beating, and then the sky appears to go crazy in the final panel as Batman remarks, "The sky! What in the name...?" To be continued...

[Cei-U!]

Just out of curiosity, shax, has post-Crisis Batman made any use of his former mastery of disguise in his investigations? Because you are, of course, right that the pre-Crisis Batman rarely poked around looking for info as Bruce. That's what Matches Malone was for, and crazy bag ladies and hard-of-hearing police department janitors and... well, you get the idea. As a scripter, O'Neil used to write lots of those kinds of scenes but it sounds like editor O'Neil has abandoned that and other, similarly subtle aspects of the World's Greatest Detective's m.o. in favor of wild coincidence and convenient hunches.

Cei-U!
I summon the shoddy plotting!

[shaxper]

Just out of curiosity, shax, has post-Crisis Batman made any use of his former mastery of disguise in his investigations?

Not once, to my recollection

As a scripter, O'Neil used to write lots of those kinds of scenes but it sounds like editor O'Neil has abandoned that and other, similarly subtle aspects of the World's Greatest Detective's m.o. in favor of wild coincidence and convenient hunches.

You give Denny too much credit. I doubt he gave most of the Detective scripts anything more than cursory read.

[foxley]

There's certainly some disguise work, and solid deduction, coming up. Batman #431 contains good examples of both.

Scripted by James Owsley now that I check the credits. He only did two issues of Batman but seemed have a good handle on Batman as detective.

Edit:
I couldn't remember anything else Owsley wrote so I looked him up. In 1993, he changed his name to Christopher Priest (the creator of Quantum and Woody).

[shaxper]

Edit:
I couldn't remember anything else Owsley wrote so I looked him up. In 1993, he changed his name to Christopher Priest (the creator of Quantum and Woody).

That's awesome to know. I was expecting Owsley to be a nobody filler writer (which he probably was at the time), but it's nice to know that he's someone with talent.

[kevink31593]

This makes the current events of Batman take place in Year 11.5 or Year 12, but "The Cult, Book 4" explicitly states that Batman has now been active for ten years. The only way this works is if "The Cult" takes place at the beginning of Jason's career.
__________________________________________________ _______________

...of course, Starlin just killed that explanation with a single entirely unnecessary line from Batman.

Have you considered that, if "The Cult" does take place when Batman has been active for ten years, that "The Cult" actually does take place in Year 11? After all, Year 11 is ten years after Year 1. Seems to me your timeline works just fine. So far.

Of course, you're going to get frustrated later on when you get to the 1992 LOTDK annual where Jim Gordon and Sarah Essen where married in the then present day, and Bruce had still been Batman for ten years. And even MORE frustrated when you get to No Man's Land, and Bruce has STILL been Batman for ten years.

[shaxper]

Have you considered that, if "The Cult" does take place when Batman has been active for ten years, that "The Cult" actually does take place in Year 11? After all, Year 11 is ten years after Year 1. Seems to me your timeline works just fine. So far.

Being in year 11.5 and having been said to be active for ten years is a bit of a stretch, but it's probably the best explanation we're ever going to come up with. Thanks.

Of course, you're going to get frustrated later on when you get to the 1992 LOTDK annual where Jim Gordon and Sarah Essen where married in the then present day, and Bruce had still been Batman for ten years. And even MORE frustrated when you get to No Man's Land, and Bruce has STILL been Batman for ten years.

Yep. Already heard about this.

[shaxper]

Batman #430

"Fatal Wish"
writer: Jim Starlin
pencils: Jim Aparo
inks: Mike DeCarlo
letters: John Costanza
colors: Adrienne Roy
asst. editor: Dan Raspler
editor: Denny O'Neil
created by: Bob Kane

grade: B+

It's Starlin's final issue, after almost two years on the book, and he still struggling to find a distinct take on Batman in this issue. Whereas the first half of his run took an interest in exploring where the line is in vigilantism, he got a bit too distracted with trying to find reasons to make Jason unlikable/killable, and now he's here at the end, finally finding his Batman.

What he tries to end with is more of that alignment with DKR that we first saw in "The Cult" and began to notice again in the final chapters of "A Death in the Family." Gordon describes Batman as having, "an almost maniacal drive to save innocent lives and punish criminals" in this issue. That's Miller's characterization alright, and when we get to the flashback of Bruce's parents' murder, the panels are taken directly from DKR chapter 1, page 23. They were even watching The Mask of Zorro before the mugging, which was also a DKR contribution.

Later, as Batman takes down the gunman in this story, we get that Miller-style narration in which Batman assesses and predicts the moves that he and his nemesis will make, almost like a computer. An example:

"The smokes pellets will provide all the cover he needs. And their psychological effect on his prey is extremely predictable. First comes anger. Then fear. And finally carelessness."

However, just as in "The Cult," which I called Starlin's "liberal answer to DKR," this Batman is still an altruistic hero despite the rage and cold calculation. He still tries to save the gunman's life in the end. Really, the difference between Starlin and Miller is in Batman's motivations. Miller makes Batman pissed/obsessive. Starlin makes Batman's rage ultimately directed at himself for wishing his parents dead before it happened, and makes his mission to fight crime more a duty of penance, a means of repeatedly telling them he's sorry.

I LOVE that interpretation of the Caped Crusader; it makes the morbid, Gothic mood of the character so much more understandable/appropriate. Miller's character should have become the Punisher, not a dark cloaked soul standing alone amidst dark towers and gargoyles at night. This character has substance (grief is far more interesting than rage) and, most importantly, this character can still be considered a hero, whereas I'm not entirely sure the same could be said for Miller's enraged sociopath.

Still, the modifications Starlin makes to Bruce's origin story really bothered me. I can't imagine Bruce dedicating his life to saying "I'm sorry" to an alcoholic father who hit him. The entire premise of Batman really only works if you can view Thomas and Martha Wayne as the kind of saints that any parents would appear to be in the eyes of a pre-adolescent who lost them too soon. The Bruce I imagine would have blocked out such sordid details about his father and not worked to recollect them later on.

The "I'm sorry, daddy! I didn't mean it!" at the end was too much...it felt more silly than tragic when contrasted against the mature darkness of The Batman. Still, I found most of the rest of the visual contrast in this issue (adult Batman versus childhood Bruce) powerful. Normally, the origin story gets told either on its own or while Bruce is "Bruce". To contrast who Bruce was versus the dark figure that Bruce has truly become felt fresh and powerful to me.


The minor details:

- This real-world villain feels lifted directly out of a Grant story. Grant would have made him more interesting, warped, and reflective of our times though.

- Aparo's surprised faces are beginning to bug me. Page 3, panel 6, in particular, has a face so exaggerated that it looks like the Joker.

- What was the point of the woman trapped in the middle of the road? I didn't understand why the police couldn't just close down the road to get her out, she was never actually shown, and she added nothing to the story, yet she was the major focus when Batman first arrived on the scene.

- Gordon asking, "By the way, is Robin with you tonight?" felt silly to me. Clearly he's not there, and even Starlin has established that Robin doesn't come out on every mission. It makes a nice connection to the previous storyline, but it's an unnatural line of dialogue. Maybe Gordon should have said something like, "Funny, I thought Robin would be with you tonight" or something.

- In my mind, the last issue was all about showing how Jason's death led Batman to become a darker, more Miller-like Batman, but Starlin appears to be backing off from that here, showing a Batman who has always been Miller-like, and yet who can still be a good guy through and through. Too bad the majority of people who stopped in to read DKR and "A Death in the Family" probably didn't bother to read this issue or notice the subtle changes it was going for. With "A Death in the Family" Starlin cemented into public consciousness a Batman that he doesn't actually seem to want.

- On page 7, can a sniper rifle really shoot through a steel door??

- Page 9, the offices of "O'Neil and Raspler: Creative Consultants"

- Batman is beaten far too easily in this issue, constantly missing his mark in a fight with an inexperienced gunman and getting far too blinded by the flash of a gun, wandering around almost drunk and entirely unable to move for nine panels after.


In the letters column, O'Neil is now using the same "From the Den" writeup in Batman and Detective, so there's nothing new there, but he does explain Starlin's (at the time, temporary) departure from the book to begin a "Gilgamesh II" epic saga. Someone posted in this thread a few pages back that Starlin had been fired from DC for killing Robin, which didn't sit right with me at the time and still doesn't (can't find the post right now). Can anyone back-up or clarify this statement?

The Owsley and Byrne issues have all been planned at this point, as well, though I'm surprised that O'Neil refers to John Byrne as "famous horror novelist John L. Byrne." Unless this is a different John Byrne, I had no idea he'd written novels (and what an odd way to introduce him, rather than mentioning Man of Steel or the X-Men).


The plot synopsis in one ridiculously long sentence:

A laid-off banker with a sniper rifle goes to a rooftop to kill innocents before killing himself, Batman intervenes, the Sniper says "I wish you were all dead," which causes Batman to recall his origin (now revised) in which he tells a drunk and abusive Thomas Wayne that he wished he was dead, later prompting Thomas to apologize and reconcile by taking Bruce out to see The Mask of Zorro, after which the fatal mugging occurs, Batman tries to take down the gunman but is unable to stop him from moving into the sightline of the police snipers on the ground, and they kill him.

[Cei-U!]

I'm surprised that O'Neil refers to John Byrne as "famous horror novelist John L. Byrne." Unless this is a different John Byrne, I had no idea he'd written novels (and what an odd way to introduce him, rather than mentioning Man of Steel or the X-Men).

It's "our" John Byrne, all right (his middle name is Lindley). His prose career at the time of Batman #430 consisted of exactly one book: 1988's John L. Byrne's Book of Fear (he would go on to write two more, 1992's Whipping Boy and 1997's Wonder Woman: Gods and Goddesses).

Cei-U!
I summon the literary lion!

[Chad]

Batman #430

the Sniper says "I wish you were all dead," which causes Batman to recall his origin (now revised) in which he tells a drunk and abusive Thomas Wayne that he wished he was dead, later prompting Thomas to apologize and reconcile by taking Bruce out to see The Mask of Zorro

I already expressed my unfavourable opinions about what Starlin did to the Joker in 428, but I've got to add, his Superman as government stooge in 429 is just as atrocious. I can begrudgingly accept that a writer would want to emulate Miller's work (especially so soon after Dark Knight/Year One) but to want to intentionally swipe his mistakes? And here we've got issue 430 in which Starlin depicts Thomas Wayne backhanding his son across the face as if this flashback will add, I don't know, gravitas (?) to his story. Yeah maybe, but someone really needed to remind Starlin that these characters exist beyond his single issues and DC may need to use Joker, Superman, Thomas Wayne again (the latter in flashbacks obviously). Whatever having Thomas Wayne strike his son in Batman 430 does for this particular tale, it still impacts so many other Batman stories given that event's proximity to the night of the Wayne's murder.

I actually used to rate Starlin highly as a Batman author (just behind Alan Grant). Now, I have no idea what I was thinking. I still can't help but admire some of the elements he incorporated into his stories (in this issue for example, I liked Batman's admission that sometimes, he relies on nothing more than a little voice in his head to tell him when danger's about to strike) but man did he work hard to damage a lot of legendary characters. He's killed Robin; written the worst version of the Joker in a story that demands to be referenced time and time again; pissed all over Superman; and now has added Thomas Wayne's "WILL YOU GET ME SOME DAMN BOURBON!?!?!" to his legacy. He can't get off this title soon enough for my tastes.

[Cei-U!]

Making Thomas Wayne an abusive drunk is yet another example of Starlin copying Miller's moves: Frank'd done the same thing with Battling Jack Murdock over in Daredevil a few years previous. I object to both recharacterizations equally.

Cei-U!
Whose dad never once backhanded him, even when he'd been drinking (never saw him "drunk") and I was obnoxious!