It’s catch-up week here at Bat Chat. With none of the main continuity Bat titles dropping, we’ll be discussing three out-of-continuity digital first tales: two released physically in the past couple weeks, and one that is still digital for a couple more months.
The annual Gotham Dog Show has two special guest judges this year: Scooby-Doo and Ace the Bat Hound! But a two-pronged plan by one of Batman’s most infamous villains looks to interfere with the proceedings in The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #3, written by Ivan Cohen, drawn by Dario Brizuela, colored by Franco Rieso and lettered by Saida Temofonte.
Batman and the Joker have a nice seaside chat in Legends of the Dark Knight #2. OK, not so much, really. And a new villain with a familiar theme debuts in an issue written and pencilled by Darick Robertson, inked by Robertson and Richard P. Clark, colored by Diego Rodriguez and lettered by Simon Bowland.
Finally, we look at the debut of a digital first DC Universe Infinite title. Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock are in an interrogation room, colloquially known as a Box, with the Joker, who has offered to explain why many of Gotham’s worst were at his home before Batman raided the place, as part of the investigation of a shocking murder. But this is the Joker, after all, so his answers are anything but straightforward. It’s The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox #1 written by Matthew Rosenberg, drawn by Jesus Marino, colored by Ulises Arreola and lettered by Ferran Delgado.
Matt Lazorwitz: So, we have a bunch of books this week. And some of our own commentary on THE DISCOURSE, ey?
Will Nevin: We’re mere *days* late to the discussion, but we’re not changing the schedule for no one (Well, unless we gotta move shit around for us). All I’m gonna say about it is that 1) I had no idea there was an adult-oriented Harley Quinn show, 2) I’ve seen all the discussion I care to see on this topic and 3) I blame all of this on Bat dick. Way to go, DC — good job making adult platforms for your characters only to pull back and look like ninnies. What were you afraid of? That people might actually talk about one of your shows? Stephen Colbert made a joke about Bat dick on his show. You can’t *buy* that kind of mainstream attention for a comic book or downriver streaming series like Harley Quinn.
Matt, I’m starting to think these people are idiots.
Matt: The Harley animated series is a lot of fun. I accept your mileage may vary, but the cast is fun, the plots strike a balance between mature and crude, and the animation is solid.
This is the same goddamn mindset that kept multiple versions of various superheroes from existing across media for years. “Our fans are easily confused. They won’t know what to watch. And little kids might see the wrong thing and then their parents will be pissed.” Trust me on this, bubbie, we’re not in Dr. Wertham times anymore. There are very few people who watch Harley Quinn who also might stumble into, say, DC Superhero Girls, and if they do, they’re either completists, animation buffs or pervs, and all their money spends. This joke would have been a non-issue if you hadn’t brought attention to it. And we’re coming from the same studio that, in Justice League, let Ma Kent make a slip and say that her son, Superman, told her Lois was “the thirstiest woman he’d ever met.” Her. Son. They let that shit slide, but this they don’t. OK, time to move on to better pastures before I get too pissed.
Will: Nothing like going right from that to Batman & Scooby Doo, huh?
Fighting Like Bats and Dogs
Matt: Precisely. We’re back with Dario Brizuela on art this issue, so a major quibble from issue #2 is gone this time, as Brizuela has been drawing these characters on a range from competently to joyfully for much of the past seven years. I enjoyed this issue quite a bit.
Will: Did you spot the Batman: The Movie reference?
Matt: YES! Some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb. As an aside, when I left the job I held for 13 years, my coworkers chipped in and found an autographed photo of Adam West from the movie, of him holding that bomb. It is framed and hangs in my new office to this day.
Will: God bless that man.
Matt: Absolutely. The thing I enjoy about these stories is that the mystery is always there, even if it’s never that hard to figure out, just like on Scooby-Doo TV shows. The formula works for a reason, and as long as you can come in with a decent hook and pay it off with a nice button? You’re pretty much there. There are plenty of twos and twins before the reveal of the villain, so the setup is right, and the final moment where we find out Two-Face’s motivation makes sense in that Scooby-Doo/Batman ’66 logic.
Will: This issue told a great story and — in contrast to #2 — looked great as well. But I’ll tell you a funny thing I noticed: DC has stopped putting this series out in digital chapters.
Matt: Really? What an odd choice. How far did they go? Just through the first two print issues?
Will: Yup! Chapter 4 (the back half of #2) was the last one they released. But if you look carefully, #3 is still primed for a digital rollout (all of the layouts are horizontal, pages could easily be cut in half). I don’t know exactly what this means, but I thought it was interesting.
Matt: That is. As we go, I’m curious to see if we find an issue where that stops, as if the creators were working under the digital assumption for a while and then found out the change was happening so started working differently. We’ll have to see.
But yes, Ace the Bathound and Scooby-Doo, the dynamic duo I never would have expected, but somehow work. And Two-Face in the Ruby-Spears/Super Friends inspired style, also something I never expected, but definitely worked.
Will: This thing? Just an absolute joy.
A Dialogue and a Quiz
Matt: So, second issue of this Legends arc. It’s a bit overwritten, and there are some weird choices, like almost completely ignoring the ricin plot that was established in issue #1, which seems like a loss of real estate when there are only three issues in the arc.
Will: There’s a lot of playing fast ‘n’ loose with the toxin in question. It’s generic. It’s ricin. It’s both. It’s neither.
Matt: I would be fine with that if it felt like a MacGuffin, if it was just that the toxin was in Gotham and Batman needs to track it down without the context of who provided it, just who has it. But having the mysterious Russian as a concern makes me think it should be more a part of the story.
Will: This is the problem when you have a MacGuffin that’s not really a MacGuffin — this is stuff that’s deadly and has consequences for everyone, not just our main characters who are lusting after it. But I think Robertson treats it more like a MacGuffin with all of the vague, shifting details and the feeling that it ultimately doesn’t matter as much as the cast of characters after it. Alas. Tonally, I think there are parts of this that are good — Batman shambling on from one scene to the next, always seemingly like he’s falling to pieces — but the scope is too big here. Why does Robertson feel the need to bring in almost all of the gallery *and* allude to stuff like “No Man’s Land” and “Death in the Family”? It’s too much for most stories, fella. And definitely too much for our easy, breezy Legends series.
Matt: I was thinking the same thing. The timeline is wonky, and I should never feel like timeline is an issue in a Legends story. Joker is talking about Robin, and batman is picturing him, as if we’re in either the post-Dick Grayson/pre-Jason Todd period, or the post-Jason Todd/pre-Tim Drake era, but then Bats thinks about the Cataclysm, the big earthquake that led into NML, which is years later. It just doesn’t line up.
And the issue ends with us meeting… Quiz. Quiz seems like Riddler’s answer to Harley. And while I do my best to not expect anyone to know the intricacies of Batman continuity like I do, Riddler had two comics-created female sidekicks: Query and Echo. Couldn’t we have used one of them?
But that’s splitting hairs, I guess.
Will: I know I don’t talk about this much, but did you know I can see into the future?
Matt: Really now? Fascinating. Do tell.
Will: I’m having a vision. Right now, as we’re working on this. Quiz, as I see her, is actually going to be OK as a little side plot in this meandering story.
Matt: Well, then I look forward to seeing your vision play out!
What’s in the Box?
Matt: So I have a lot of thoughts about The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox. Way more than I thought I would. It has the feel of a throwback to the Batman stories of the ’80s and ’90s, but also has a voice that is a little weirdly Zack Snyder. Now I haven’t seen the Snyder Cut, and don’t plan to any time soon. I have better things to do with four hours. But this Joker is making comments that seem to feel like he believes we live in a society.
Will: I feel like if I wanted to “get” the Snyder Cut, I’d have to first actually watch Justice League, and I don’t want to. You wanna know my first read on this comic? I thought some of the lines — Joker’s specifically — were funny as hell. I don’t always jive with what Rosenberg’s trying to do, but this worked for me. *Especially* Joker as an unreliable narrator. But tell me more about what you’re thinking.
Matt: I think this was generally a really good issue. Rosenberg’s Joker in general has a Mark Hamill voice to him; I can really hear animated Joker saying a lot of this. But Joker keeps making comments about Batman’s fascism. And that generally isn’t Joker’s shtick. To be fair, we know Joker hates Nazis from that bit of The Rocketeer John Byrne cribbed for his Batman/Captain America crossover. But Communist governments are just as bad to someone of Joker’s bent. Republics, too. Pure democracies as well. He wants nothing but unadulterated chaos, so having him use political analogies or comments doesn’t really work for me.
Now, Rosenberg is clearly coming at this from a particular angle: He points out the brutality and corruption within the GCPD a few times, and that’s never a problem. I have some issues with extending that to Batman, as he’s an extra-legal vigilante who does not exist in a real world context, while police are a real thing and should be held to certain standards in how they’re represented, but that’s an argument for another time. What always bugs me about Joker making social points is he’s the worst of the worst and you should never trust him. I don’t want Joker making salient social commentary because he is a disturbed maniac and him making any point immediately undercuts it even if it’s valid.
Will: See, I was too busy literally lul’ing to get to that next level. But you’re not wrong. At no point should we ever be encouraged to “hand it to Joker.”
Matt: But, yes. This was very funny. This Joker really likes jerking people around, and he does it in a pretty hilarious way. And the commentary that is not political, but jibes at his fellow villains or Batman’s weird friendliness? Gold.
Bat-miscellany
- With all the hubbub about Batman and oral sex, the controversy I expected of, “Hey, is Batman: Urban Legends #4 coming closer than ever to actually making Tim Drake canonically bi?” never really happened. As one of the world’s biggest Tim Drake fans, I really hope that before this serial is done, the close-to-text subtext of this issue becomes full-on text.
- Also, kudos to Luke Fox actor Camrus Johnson for his Batwing story in that issue. A solid short that gave some context as to why Luke has been such a hardass toward his brother in The Next Batman stuff. Worth reading.
- Will can’t actually see the future. He’s just read the digital-first chapters of Legends of the Dark Knight, while Matt insists on reading print comics like a luddite.
- Wertham was not, in fact, right.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. 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 podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
