It’s a big week here at Bat Chat with Matt (and Will!). We’re back in the future Gotham with the new Batman doing some detecting, Cass Cain and Stephanie Brown are in the Magistrate’s jail, while Catwoman and Ivy make a new friend and have a night on the town in Future State: The Next Batman #2 with:
“The Next Batman,” written by John Ridley, drawn by Laura Braga with breakdowns by Nick Derington, colored by Arif Prianto and lettered by Clayton Cowles
“Batgirls,” written by Vita Ayala, drawn by Aneke, colored by Trish Mulvihill and lettered by Becca Carey
“Gotham City Sirens,” written by Paula Sevenbergen, pencilled by Emanuela Lupacchino with breakdowns by Rob Haynes, inked by Wade Von Grawbadger, colored by John Kalisz and lettered by Becca Carey
And back in the present, the Phantasm begins hunting in Gotham while Catwoman and Joker have a heart-to-heart in the future in Batman/Catwoman #2, written by Tom King, drawn by Clay Mann, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Will Nevin: Brother Matt, I want you to think back in the misty watercolored memories of … say 10 or 11 months ago. When we could still go out to places like buffets and — this is a real specific cultural reference here — church potlucks. Do you remember those days? What a time. Anyway, here’s my question to you: When you got a plate of food, were you careful about not having weird food touch? (Anything with gravy is fine; I’m talking about the weird stuff, foods that should never go together, like macaroni and cheese and creamed corn.) Or were you an animal?
Matt Lazorwitz: Oh, the food stays very, very separate. Being from New Jersey, Chinese food buffets are common, and you don’t want the brown sauce of, say, a chicken and broccoli mixing with the cream sauce of coconut shrimp. That way lies madness.
WN: This is why we work well together: We agree on the big issues. I’ve always had a deal — food doesn’t touch, and you eat one thing at a time. Period. But to bring this to something that makes sense and is actually relevant to Batman comics, I felt like the books this week — both Next Batman and Bat/Cat — were a nice spread of appetizing ideas, things that I normally like or even love in Batbooks, that unfortunately got mushed together in something I didn’t find too appealing. Matt, what I’m saying is that my macaroni and cheese touched my creamed corn and now I’m sad and not very hungry.
The Next Batman #2
WN: See, this right here. This is the primary example of a thing I liked (the idea of a simple, street-level crime story) smooshed together with something I hated (the tiresome Batchase and the clunky writing). What a cool thing we could have had with our new Batman detecting a thing — alas, it gets swallowed up in the awkward “man helps you plan one crime and then makes you go away” that seems like a weird mantra.
ML: This is a lot of stuff happening in a shorter than average story that is part of a non-ongoing series. I think a lot of the ideas in this book are from fine to very good, but we’re not allowed to stay with any of them long enough to get a good feel for any of them. The detective angle is great, especially since we’re seeing Jace Fox, the new Batman, isn’t Bruce. He isn’t this guy who can look at a crime scene and immediately get the perfect answer, but has cunning, street smarts and someone to work with who is tech savvy. These are all good things. But we spend way too much time with the Magistrate chase to really dive into this.
WN: Some stuff in there should be decompressed and allowed to breathe, and other stuff is the opposite; it’s such a weird vibe for a book. I think you’re right on part of it — these “Future State” books have got to haul ass through some big ideas and get their new creative teams some time to shine. Gotta be exhausting. But I think another part of that is on Ridley because I’m just not sold on him as a comic book writer. I *hate* cliches, and I especially hate lay people trying to write their way through a legal issue, so I double, maybe even triple, hated the scene with Nakano.
ML: Yeah, that scene felt really superfluous. You’re telling me we’re going to have time to pay off a legal battle over superhero law in two issues? A legal battle that mixes in mother/son drama? That’s a whole arc. And I am a lay person, so I can’t speak to any of that, but I would have rather seen those pages go to either Jace and Vol, his tech support, or more about the GCPD/Magistrate dynamic, which is slowly coming into focus, but two pages could have answered a lot there.
WN: The tech stuff also rang of a writing problem, a bad pattern of coming up with a label for a complex idea and then relying on that label excessively. You know who else does that?
ML: Who also does that?
ML: Yup. Figured that was where we were going.
WN: Ridley is not that bad — no one else working for DC could be. I’m just saying … it’s a problem to watch out for and a sign that maybe he needs a few more reps at this.
ML: It’s a fair criticism. I think this all comes down to this being 10 pounds of plot in a 5-pound bag, and none of it getting enough time to cook. And while Laura Braga does a good job on art, I wish this was Nick Derington again. I think, for flow’s sake, this would have served better as two double-sized issues of The Next Batman and the backups would have gone in their own anthologies, so Derington maybe would have had more time to complete issues.
Batgirls
ML: So, I’m curious, how much recent but pre-Hickman X-Men have you read? Specifically, are you familiar with the “Age of X-Man” event?
WN: Matt, you know I can’t read. How many times do I have to tell you that?
ML: How soon I forget. Well “Age of X-Man” was an alternate-world story where love was a crime (there was a lot more to it, but we’re talking broad strokes here). And Vita Ayala wrote one of the minis set there, Prisoner X. So Ayala is now your go-to for alternate/dark-future prison stories.
WN: I like the concept here, and I think a lot of it hangs together — prison dramas can be fun as hell. But there was a lot of dialogue here — to an excessive, exhausting point. Ten percent less would have been 30% better.
ML: I was not slighting Vita on using the concept again, mind. This is a staple for a reason. I didn’t mind the chattiness — and it is a chatty story — since so much of it was Stephanie, who is one of those characters who tends to run at the mouth. If Cassandra had been talking more than she did, I would probably not have been as forgiving.
WN: You’re a gentleman, sir. I did like the character work here dating to Tynion’s Tec run; Spoiler has been on the outs before, so it would make sense she might be an outcast once again — even if it is just a setup.
ML: It fits with her characterization from pre-”Flashpoint” as well. Spoiler has always tried to prove herself to Batman, and Barbara was the mentor who believed in her more than anyone, so having her be willing to do anything to save one or both of them absolutely fits.
I like both of these characters a lot, and Vita gets their voices down and runs them through their paces. There are all sorts of fun cameos from other prisoners. And the setup for the second half is one of the better cliffhangers, both with the prison riot and who the secret prisoner really is.
I do have one question for you, my man: How much continuity do you feel is going on between these stories? I have this feeling like DC just said, “Tell the story you want, and use who you want to,” since characters are in two places at once, or the timeline is fuzzy enough that it feels like it, unless we’ll get some clarity of whether this takes place before or after “Arkham Knights” next issue.
WN: That feels like the whole point of DC Infinite Frontier — to make it so that continuity is more squishy and organic rather than a rigid, unbending thing (that and to tie into the new service which comes with an app that includes customizable reading lists, a feature that I’m not at all mad about or anything). So I think if you want this story to take place before “Arkham Knights,” it can. If you want it after, that works, too. If you want it to take place in a separate universe, then that’s the way it is. You’re in charge.
Gotham City Sirens
WN: I’m going to be totally honest here: didn’t dig this at all. The story is structured in such a way that it’s almost a MacGuffin, but the purpose/nature of the MacGuffin isn’t explained until the end of the piece. Silly slog of a thing.
ML: Yeah, this was the height of “meh” for me. Ivy felt out of character, Catwoman was not in character, unless Future State: Catwoman makes her way jokier than Ram V has been portraying her in her own book lately, and DeeDee was not interesting enough to grab my attention. I like Slam Bradley, and I like the idea of him being a bartender, but that little cute character bit isn’t enough to hang a story on. This was a pass for me.
WN: Speaking of bartenders and the next book on the list, are you tired of the Porky Pig gag yet?
Batman/Catwoman #2
ML: I’m jumping right in on this one and want to start off with me being possibly dumb, but I need to call out the thing that sort of frustrated me about issue #1 and got me even moreso in this issue: For all this book’s good, there needs to be a better disambiguation between the past and present sequences. I keep getting thrown out of the story by trying to figure out WHEN we’re set. There are obvious tells, but they’re not in every scene, and it frustrates the hell out of me.
WN: My dude, I am right there with you on this one. To go back to the food thing, I generally like King’s work, and when it’s right, it can be decadent — like a nice, rich red velvet cake. But this constant skipping around? Not so much as a hint of exposition? Two big scoops of lime jello right there on top of my tasty ass cake. Not pleased.
ML: I think I’m so annoyed because I like a lot of what’s going on here. We’re not in Mr. Miracle or The Vision territory mostly; this is King telling a pretty superheroey story: a caper in the past and a murder mystery in the present. The future gives us more of the high-minded stuff, but it’s balanced with Joker stealing and Phantasm hunting. If the book were divided into sections with beginning captions to divide it, I would be happier. I wonder if this is one of those instances where the creators are trying to keep the reader on their toes and focused by not giving easy indicators. I’ve seen that, and if it’s not done deftly, you get this exact feeling: muddy and confused.
WN: “Muddy and confused” are about the best ways to sum up my feelings about this book. I want to like it; the concept of an elderly Joker and Catwoman fighting out some decades-old grudge is inherently interesting. But because they have this preoccupation of avoiding linear storytelling, it all comes off as a mess. Ten more issues of this seems … like a lot. Please, in the next couple of months, settle down and tell your story. We see you’re looking at multiple time frames. We’re duly impressed.
ML: The future segments are the most engaging parts of this book, no doubt. That is also because I feel like it A) gets the most play and B) while still disjointed thanks to the constant jumping in time, you never have to try to figure out when it is because it’s the most clear. Elder Selina doesn’t look like either younger Selina. You couldn’t have given past Selina her Year One era buzzcut? Or her classic Silver Age long hair? I have to stop. We’ve made that point.
I was pleased to see the elder Joker wasn’t being portrayed as truly sympathetic. I was worried, from how he was in issue #1, that this was a truly reformed Joker and Selina was going to have to go through a moral quandary about offing him. Nope! Joker’s still a monster.
WN: When could Joker not be a monster? Perhaps if he was only given some sort of experimental drug that would eventually wear off in a stupid riff on Flowers for Algernon. (Alas.)
ML: That’s a cringeworthy idea no one could EVER do.
All in all, I think this issue just has all the same flaws and features as issue #1. We still aren’t seeing much interaction between the title characters, the time jumps are still a mess, and I’m not sure where it’s going.
WN: And only 10 more to go!
ML: On the plus side, this is some of the best art of Clay Mann’s career. I still have some problems with his embracing of the male gaze; my God he lovingly renders Catwoman’s tuchus as often as he can (the cover alone has a ’90s Image Comics level of body contortion). But the splash of Phantasm is gorgeous, and the designs and acting for the elder Joker and Catwoman are top notch.
Bat-miscellany
- Macaroni and cheese is always the safest bet at the church potluck because it is incredibly hard to fuck up. Casseroles come at your own peril, but you might luck out there with tater tot or hash brown casserole. Don’t waste dessert plate space on store-bought cookies. Get real.
- The Chinese buffet is a gamble for anyone. You’ve got a 50/50 shot of the food being out way too long, unless you arrive right at the beginning of dinner service. Sushi is usually a safe bet, as you can tell if the chefs are making it right then or if it’s been sitting out for a while. (Will’s note: Sushi at a Chinese buffet? LIVING DANGEROUSLY.) Never get egg rolls or spring rolls; they are dry abominations under the eyes of God.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
