Gordon Gets It and Hyper-Specific Scooby Nostalgia in This Week's Bat Chat

The forces hunting Joker circle closer in The Joker #7 as the Court of Owls makes itself known, an old ally reappears in Santa Prisca and Jim Gordon has a meal with a new ally in a lead story written by James Tynion IV, drawn by Guillem March, colored by Arif Prianto and lettered by Tom Napolitano.

Harvey Dent’s political crusade takes a turn, and Batman sees the ramifications of some of his actions in Batman ’89 #2, written by Sam Hamm, drawn by Joe Quinones, colored by Leonard Ito and lettered by Clayton Cowles.

And we learn the secret of the first meeting between Batman and the Scooby Gang in The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #6, written by Sholly Fisch, drawn by Scott Jeralds, colored by Carrie Strachan and lettered by Michael McCallister.

Will Nevin: This is the part where we do an opening bit, right?

Matt Lazorwitz:

Will: Fine, then. Don’t help.

A Date with Madame Halloween

Matt: This issue is very much Joker without Joker, and I am OK with that. A lot goes on here, and some of it is stuff I have been waiting to see for quite some time.

Will: We’ve said it before, and we’ll hit it again, I’m sure: Joker is named Joker only because DC wouldn’t go for Gordon. This is Jim’s story, the lion in winter faced with one last challenge. And maybe one more chance to GET SOME.

Matt: Hell, yes! Inspector Hallows and Jim are definitely flirting, and I am here for it.

Will: Excuse me, we’re going to use her nasty name here: Madame Halloween.

Matt: True, true. The two of them have great rapport right out of the gate. Jim takes no shit from her, and vice versa. It’s a great dynamic. And as we know from “Year One” and his second marriage to Sarah Essen, Jim likes a strong partner, and I think Madame Halloween is a great addition to the hunt for the Joker.

Will: The madame and the overall tone — of not just this issue but the whole series — really crystalizes the difference between this series and most (if not all) of the Batman line. This is grounded and serious and real, even in a world of caped nonsense. This is a comic book for grown-ass adults, and I wish we got more of it. And it’s not “adult” in some dumb Batdick way either — it’s just good and meaningful. As Tynion nears the end of his Batman run, it’s a shame it wasn’t more like this.

Matt: And speaking of both the grounded nature of the story and new people joining the action of the book: Thank you, Tynion, for remembering Alfred has a daughter who is justifiably pissed that Batman got her dad killed. It’s bothered me that we haven’t seen any of Julia Pennyworth since Alfred’s death, and bringing her back because she wants to make sure Bane is remembered as the scum he was? Perfect choice.

Will: Her entrance wasn’t a James Bond reference *at all.*

Matt: No, why would Alfred’s superspy daughter reference that guy?

Will: Guess that cool shit was just a coincidence.

Matt: And if all that weren’t enough, we get some forward momentum on the Court of Owls front. That Talon that’s been stalking Babs finally makes his move, and while Barbara and Steph acquit themselves well, it’s Cassandra Cain who takes him down. It’s been a good couple weeks for Cassie, having taken out a Talon and the big Bat himself in last week’s Batman. Not bad for a character that DC ignored for a number of years there.

That moment where Babs makes an observation about the Talon feeling pain is interesting. I wonder if we’re seeing a factioning within the Court. The last time we saw them was in Dark Knights: Metal, where they were working for Barbatos, which was never followed up on. I think Tynion has too many balls in the air to dig into that weirdness, but maybe I’m wrong on that one.

Will: What if we’re dealing with a faux Talon? A fake Court? That would be a fun twist. Also, I don’t think you can count that as a real win over Bats since he was hopped up on Scarecrow freakout crank.

Matt: I’ll give you the latter. And I was thinking something along those lines about the Court. Whether Cressida is in the know on that, or if she thinks she is working for the original Court? We’ll have to see.

Will: She seems entirely too clever. Like Simon Saint, a fall cometh.

Harvey Dent Is Two-Faced Before Becoming Two-Face

Matt: So, we were both down on the first issue of Batman ’89. I think the art problems remain the same. The story is leaving me with some real questions about if Sam Hamm knows how to write for comics as opposed to cinema.

Will: Do go on, Brother Matt, because while the art is still strangely disconnected from the thing it is purporting to be, I’m really warming to the overall narrative.

Matt: This issue is another case of main character without main character. I don’t mind it necessarily, but it feels strange for an entire issue to go by without any Batman action except for the first couple pages. It’s only a six-issue series, and I’m concerned about pacing. That said, there are some great bits to the issue. I like Drake, this world’s proto-Robin, think these Batmen are a solid (if a bit ham-fisted) commentary and it was great to see Catwoman, although again the unnecessary costume alterations made for a strange choice.

Will: At least Catwoman gave us a clear sign this comes *after* Returns, which I guess is a logical assumption to make but not one I had gone with. And yes, the pacing of this thing is a big worry since Hamm is trying to tell a fairly interesting story (I’m real sold on this iteration of Harvey, by the way) in such a limited space. This is the sort of thing that could have been an ongoing — and I guess there’s always the potential for more stories — but I want to be sure to blame DC editorial at least a little.

Matt: Oh, the deeper we get into this story, the more interesting Harvey becomes. The direct reference to his code switching, his confrontation with Bullock, the fact that he does seem to have the best interests of others at heart while still being self-serving in a lot of ways? That is a well-rounded character!

Will: This could go south in the next issue for sure if he loses his edge and nuance in favor of the Forever/zany villain interpretation, but the arc in this issue alone is great. “I’m a normal, shitty, self-serving pol who stumbled into an authentic moment? Gee, that was weird” is a neat story to tell in the Batman universe, and to place that directly before Harvey’s fall? Cool and tragic AF.

Matt: I feel like Bruce’s regret about an innocent bystander being shot is played well here. And the fact that his reaction is “Let’s throw money at the problem” makes for some very interesting commentary, and makes an argument against the “Why doesn’t Batman just give away all his money to fix Gotham?” bad-faith argument.

Will: Let’s go back in time and fix this book. Twelve issues and a different artist. What else do we need to change?

Matt: I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s rare to find a comic I feel could use some decompression nowadays, but I want Hamm to have the time to let this story breathe some, and I’m not sure if it will have the chance to explore a lot of the interesting things he’s setting up.

It’s Not a Red Herring

Matt: OK, so Will, are you at all familiar with A Pup Named Scooby-Doo?

Will: Insofar as it’s a Muppet Babies sort of thing? I got the concept down at least.

Matt: I was curious how this issue landed for you if you were unfamiliar with that iteration of the Scooby Gang, since it was mired in a lot of the in-jokes of that show.

Will: Those jokes whistled right on by, *but* I thoroughly enjoyed this. Stupid as hell, but I liked every bit of it — especially the super deep cut nod with Harvey Harris.

Matt: I loved seeing Harvey Harris! Not to mention The Roman, Maroni, Rupert Thorne, Rex Calabrese and even a little Henri Ducard nod.

In the original Scooby-Doo Team-Up series, every sixth issue was a deep-cuts issue, or some big wild thing, like all of DC’s ’50s adventure teams (Challengers of the Unknown, Time Masters, Cave Carson’s Crew, Sea Devils), all the DC canine heroes, or all the ape heroes and villains. This deep-cut fest definitely fits that pattern.

Will: I liked how they went with the classic B:TAS look for Thorne — like anyone could pick him out if they had seen some of his episodes.

Matt: The melding of art styles here was interesting: the Gang right out of their cartoon, Thorne from B:TAS as you point out, The Roman in a simplified but distinctly Long Halloween style, Harvey Harris with a touch of gritty crime comic, and Bruce in the traditional style of the book.

Will: I like ambition when it comes to art, and I really like ambitious art when it’s executed well — this could have easily been something half-assed, but instead, they went whole ass on this book. Good on them.

Bat-miscellany

The inclusion of a Punchline backup in Joker continues to be confounding.
Part of the Scooby-Doo Team-Up issue had Bruce learning all these lessons in this one adventure that would affect his life and times as Batman moving forward. It reminded me a lot of the often forgotten, but delightful and similar in theme, ’80s movie Young Sherlock Holmes.
“I shall become Chickenman!”

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.