Batman vs. Peacekeeper-01, Duke Thomas and More in Bat Chat

Welcome back to Bat Chat! This week, Batman faces off with Peacekeeper-01 while the Unsanity Collective prepares for war and the true extent of how far Simons Saint will go to ensure order in Gotham is revealed in Batman #110 with a lead story written by James Tynion IV, drawn by Jorge Jimenez, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles.

Also this week, Duke Thomas steps into the spotlight in the first of a series of one-shots focusing on Batman supporting cast members in Batman: Secret Files — The Signal #1, written by Tony Patrick, drawn by Christian Duce, colored by Luis Guerrero and lettered by AndWorld Design.

Matt Lazorwitz: So, these are two comics with a lot going on in them. Lots of plots, lots of characters.

Will Nevin: Boy and howdy. Batman is positively breathless. I don’t know if it was good or bad, but it was definitely something.

Gotham’s Burning

Matt: So, we have three different plotlines here, not including the Scarecrow frame: Batman Vs. Peacekeeper-01, Simon Saint playing Mayor Nakano like a fiddle and the Unsanity Collective knowing the jig is up. There’s also some Ghost-Maker and Harley stuff, but that plays mostly into the Batman stuff.

Will: It’ll be a cold day in a global warming-induced heat dome before I give two shits about what Ghost-Maker does. But, yes, to your point, this was awfully busy, and I don’t think the pacing quite worked out. I mean, Batman and Peacekeeper-01 are duking it out, while Gotham media is dutifully reporting all of the information of the Magistrate program? Yes, Nakano ordered it leaked, but that stuff is still reported in drips and drabs. Not a bigass dump. Whole thing came off as fake and silly.

Matt: Yes, I wonder how long that fight was. I mean, it seemed to go on for a while, but a fight that goes on for a while is minutes, not hours, and it seems like the Nakano stuff is over hours.

This issue also, I think, answers a different timing question. In those talking heads, we hear it’s been “a few short months” since A-Day. This means that Detective, which sees Bruce just having moved into his new brownstone, takes place before this. Not a big thing, but if you’re reading all the books, this at least means all these explosions aren’t happening in the same day and a half.

I think we can just say the Unsanity Collective stuff is happening, and is setting up what’s coming in the next couple issues. The parts of this issue that frankly interest me most are Simon Saint and Peacekeeper-01, their interactions and what that means for the future of Gotham. It’s the most Tynion this book has been, I think, the Tynion of his creator-owned work and The Joker, if not all the way there.

Will: I’m not a Tynion expert in, say, the way I have consumed the bulk of Sean Gordon Murphy’s work (Pro tip: don’t do that), but as an avid fan of Department of Truth, Nice House on the Lake and Joker, when I compare those three series to his Batman run, my conclusion is that his work here is largely dumb. The other stuff? Smart. And I don’t know whether he’s just goofin’ off in Batman or whether it’s a directive from editorial to aim for the unwashed masses, but there’s a real disconnect between this series and his other work. That said, I think you’re right — this issue has some promise in that it’s trying to bring together all these disparate elements, even as the pacing is all wonky. Probably the smartest thing yet in this Batman run was on that first Scarecrow splash page: “The fear state is nearly upon us.” What if Crane’s ultimate play here is the creation of a police state in which everyone is constantly afraid? Seems like his utopia. And that’s an idea worthy of what Tynion can do — and it ties together the Bat books and Future State in a way that actually makes sense.

Matt: This is also Tynion at his most critical of the system. Nakano has been … I guess a rube is probably the best description of his behavior up until now around Simon Saint, but here he’s just a sucker. Saint is taking over, and Nakano is handing him the keys to the kingdom. And he’s loving it.

What do you think of how Peacekeeper-01 is written? I like the concept there, this absolute scumbag who is everything wrong with policing, so wrong that he couldn’t even make it onto the nightmare that is the GCPD, and now that he’s given power he immediately starts to abuse it. But is his dialogue too on the nose for you?

Will: He does have a touch of the “villain explains his intricate plot directly before attempting and failing to kill our intrepid hero,” doesn’t he? It’s interesting how he hates Gordon even though he wasn’t a cop, but that might go for all “blue lives matter” types in the city. I also thought it was interesting how Harley had the inside scoop on what a creep he was as a guard — but isn’t it Batman’s job to know everything about everyone?

Matt: True, but I like that Harley is there for more than window dressing. Also, if we go all the way back to Scott Snyder’s “Endgame,” Joker got a job at Arkham under an assumed name and Batman didn’t pick that up. I think we just have to take this as a trope, because looking too deeply into it will lead toward madness. That’s a shite excuse for plot holes, I know, but every story gets one. Sadly this isn’t the only one.

But to end on a positive note, boy howdy is that Jorge Jimenez art gorgeous in this issue. We don’t talk about art as much as story, especially when the art is by the same creator and it’s consistently good, but when the art is this good, I really need to call it out. Jimenez draws a running fight that is easy to follow and really moves, and the flying grab as Batman escapes Saint’s tower is really well done, even if it doesn involve Ghost-Maker. And on that final page, the purely smug look on Simon Saint? That says it all about that character.

Will: 1) I love whenever Harley has something of substance to contribute. 2) I was looking back on Snyder’s run for that THING we’re doing, and it’s crazy to think he only told a handful of stories — and “Endgame” stretches on way too damn long, if you ask me. [Grote’s note: Oh shoot, we’re still doing that?] And 3) it’s so nice to have a pro’s pro like Jimenez after looking at so much fill-in art in the line over the last couple of months. The layouts are especially nice on that fight scene.

The Return of Duke Thomas

Matt: So, let’s begin this with one of my questions: Are you at all familiar with We Are Robin, Will?

Will: Matt. You know I don’t read. I look at the pictures and believe what people tell me. So I’m aware of that as a concept, but not much more. But after “reading” this book, I’m led to believe it was pretty important — at least for understanding what’s going on here.

Matt: It really is. It was a very solid book, but was sort of hamstrung by having to work in a couple events and by the killing of the DCYou initiative by Rebirth. It did a lot of stuff that Marvel has done with its teen hero books the past couple of years first and better, really, by grounding the teen-heroes-being-outlawed thing in a city like Gotham, but that’s a whole other discussion.

As someone who wasn’t at all familiar with these characters, then, how did this issue read to you?

Will: I thought it was super, super busy. I know at least who Duke Thomas is, and I definitely picked up the Batman & The Signal miniseries, but this seemed to split a weird middle ground between reiterating who he is (He works the day shift, has parents who are chronically Joker-ized) and setting him off on a new adventure. Ultimately, I think the character and his world would work better in a series of their own — which I think was at one point the plan, but I suppose the sales just aren’t there.

Matt: I don’t want to argue, but just once it would be interesting if we didn’t agree. Because yes, this was a very busy issue. It had some very cool ideas: Duke and his former teammates at odds, the White Market, Duke’s parents. But none got the page time to be fleshed out. And Duke’s powers are so nebulous, I would have appreciated more time explaining exactly how they work. This has Secret Files in the title: I would have appreciated some data pages to help set up things, and maybe cut most of the scenes with Bruce and my new least favorite character, tech bro Xander Pearl. I don’t interact with that many millennials, but his dialogue had a real, “Hello, fellow youths!” vibe to it.

Will: Some of the dialogue definitely struck me as off — including Pearl’s “bruh” and Batman having precisely zero wit or humor or even emotion. I get that he doesn’t have the same relationship with Duke that he might have with Dick or Damian, but there was not an ounce of humanity in what Batman had to say in this book. Tonal issues aside, there was just way too much dialogue in some spots, especially when Batman was involved.

Matt: A common problem in Batman comics: the hardass drill instructor Batman who wants the best for everyone but doesn’t know how to people at all. Bruce definitely doesn’t have the best people skills, but isn’t this cold automaton all the time.

Will: But see, I didn’t even think he was cold here. More like flat. If he had been an AI program created just for Duke, I would have believed it.

Matt: Oof. Harsh but fair. This was very much Batman as info dump, yes. I wonder where this story is going to be continued, as promised on that last page. I can’t imagine they’ll try a Duke series again; I wouldn’t be against it, but the character didn’t support it when he was new and fresh, and now he’s been out of the spotlight for a couple years. Maybe a serial in Urban Legends?

Will: Duke Thomas Batman backup >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Ghost-Maker Batman backup.

Bat-miscellany

That computer-speak lettering that looks like a ripoff of Star Trek: The Next Generation? That’s ass in a comic. Stop it. And to put it on the same page with graffiti-inspired stuff? Dear god.
Some of the newsspeak in Batman was fine, but other bits seemed off in tone. Less is more — go to the talking head well too often as a writer, and you’re going to be exposed as not a journalist.
While I still am not into the Ghost-Maker backup, I liked that the big crocodile man mentions fighting the Great Ten, China’s premiere superhero team, who were cool characters who never got their due.

Matthew Lazorwitz

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.