Joker Enters the Endgame as ‘Shadows of the Bat’ Continues in BatChat (Text Edition)

Everything has led to this. All the forces that have pursued the Joker for the past 10 issues are converging on the Sampson estate, as Jim Gordon has a realization, in The Joker #11, written by James Tynion IV, drawn by Stefano Raffaele, colored by Romulo Fajardo Jr. and lettered by Tom Napolitano.

In Detective Comics #1,048, “Shadows of the Bat” continues as Batwoman infiltrates Arkham Tower and gets a look at the inner workings of the new institution while readers get a look at the inner workings of Dr. Wear in a story written by Mariko Tamaki, pencilled by Ivan Reis, inked by Danny Miki, colored by Brad Anderson and lettered by Ariana Maher. In the backup, “House of Gotham” (or is it “House of Wayne”?) sees our mysterious young Boy at Arkham before moving to a new, maybe safer location. But this is Gotham, so what is really safe in a story written by Matthew Rosenberg, drawn by Fernando Blanco, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Rob Leigh.

Killer Croc comes after Robin, as choices are made and lives are altered, in Robin & Batman #3, written by Jeff Lemire, drawn and colored by Dustin Nguyen and lettered by Steve Wands. 

Matt Lazorwitz: Another week, another three Bat books. Well, four technically, but we’re moving one to next week (Check the notes at the end for more on that). There really is no other property in comics that rolls out this much content on this quick a basis. And isn’t everyone lucky to have us cover it so they don’t have to read the not-so-great books?

Will Nevin: Brother Matt, we typically engage in self love for the weekly column (not so much in the super premium audio BatChat, however!) because we tend to drop books that are truly awful — remember how we quit on Batman: Reptilian? Sure don’t regret that. But some things … well, you’ve just got to see to the end. #sunkcostfallacy

Joker

Matt: This issue really begins the endgame of this book, which is both great and a shame. Great because a writer is telling a story, has it laid out, is gonna tell it and then go. A shame because this is probably the best book DC has on the stands right now and I will miss it terribly.

Will: Yup, as I’ve said before, I can take or leave most of Tynion’s Batman run (actually, leave it, all of it?) but this series was something special. And really, it seems like it’s going to serve as his BatCoda with this idea that we’re finally going to learn who was behind A-Day.

Matt: I still don’t know who was behind it, as it seems it’s not Simon Saint (whom I suspected), so we’ll have to see, but I’m along for the ride. Tynion has laid out an intricate plot throughout this series, and Jim looking at his murder board shows him just how the pieces fit together, even if we don’t see it. And that’s fun! I love to figure out whodunnit before the detective, but sometimes you just sit back and have to let the mystery unfold.

I was a little worried for a page or two there that Jim was going to be sidelined for the rest of the book, with Barbara taking the lead, but that fear was quickly squashed. Tynion has done that a couple times in this run, making me think he was going in a direction I wouldn’t like before immediately diving back into Jim Gordon as a character. And having Barbara there for the final showdown with Joker and The Network will add additional stakes to that finale, and ones that are earned, as Barbara has her own history with Joker and with, I assume, the Talon who is going to show up to make sure things get done…

Will: Not to totally change the subject, but can we emphasize how cool as fuck it is to have a family of cannibals living in Hooper County, Texas? Normally, I’d call this putting a hat on a hat (a human lampshade on a human lampshade?), but I don’t care that this is practically screaming, “Hey, this is a Texas Chainsaw Massacre bit!” It’s flippin’ awesome. 

Matt: This could have gone wrong real fast, but Tynion keeps it in check. The Sampsons are a great counterpoint to The Network: The Network guys we have met are all slick, old money types. The Sampsons are both new money and so much more savage and overt about their desires. And the worldbuilding we get here is a great touch, too. Showing the Sampsons and The Network work out their arrangement? It shows both how long the reach of The Network is and that the Sampsons, while cannibalistic monsters, are far from dumb. They know what game they’re playing here.

Will: And the events feel real in the context of a superhero universe. Were the Sampsons willing to warehouse their Leatherface analog for 50 years if it meant a shitton of money and respectability? Sure. Did that mean Joker/whoever it was behind A-Day could kill him? Absolutely not.

Before we move on from this book, any final guesses on the mastermind of A-Day? Last call for hunches and bets.

Matt: I got nothing. I’m just buckled in and ready for the gas pedal to hit the floor.

Will: Vroom vroom, Batparty starter.

’Tec

Matt: Weekly comics are a tricky thing. Last issue was the splashy beginning, the one that gives us some basic establishing and sets the stakes. Now that we’re into the second part, we need to start building the plot that was promised in part one, but we can’t move too fast for fear of not leaving enough story to tell, while also making the issue worth reading and not feeling like filler; and you don’t have a month or even two weeks for people to have lost the edge of the previous issue’s events. I think this mostly succeeds on those points.

Will: This wasn’t as compelling as last week, sure, but it’s hard to follow up watching everything go to pieces. We’re consistently hard on writers who insist on introducing new characters into the Batman universe — they should play with the toys they already have, goddamnit — but Dr. Wear (Gotta say, can’t help but think of this guy whenever I see the name) is a really interesting guy. Is he a villain? A magician? I’m curious to see how his story unfolds even if I’m not totally invested in the C/D-list baddies who are going to take over Gotham’s shiny new skyscraper.

Matt: The end of this issue’s main story seems to lean toward villain, but we’re early enough in the story that this could be a misdirect. And we still have the as-yet-seen and mysterious Dr. Ocean. We just talked about how solid the mystery in The Joker is, and this book is leaning the same way; not a whodunnit, but a longer-form story with mysterious machinations in the background.

If we hadn’t just seen a whole bunch of stuff with Mad Hatter tech, I would be absolutely assuming that this story was going to reveal that was what was being used to pacify these inmates, but that seems way too easy and overplayed at this point, right?

Will: Whatever it is, it seems like it goes catastrophically awry at some point. Given Arkham and all of its spooky history, maybe it’s literally magic.

Matt: Maybe. One thing that really sticks out to me about this story is how well the Bat family are working together as characters. I’m not going to once again complain about the new-character-palooza that was the past year and change of Batman, but a good part of what was lost in that run was all these characters. Sure, they would pop up here and there, but these are rich characters with complicated histories with each other, and seeing them all working together again is great. We haven’t seen a long-form Bat family story since … Tynion’s ‘Tec run, yes? There were some group bits here and there in King and the Tynion Batman, but it was always shunted to the side for those writers’ particular favorites: Bat/Cat in King and the new characters in Tynion.

Will: This really does feel like a nice ensemble book, well balanced and without a Batman-sized donut hole in the middle. 

Matt: OK, two more things to hit on before we move on. Thing the first: faux Harley. That’s Huntress in disguise right?

Will: That both makes sense and feels better to me than a Sean Gordon Murphy-esque attempt to create a non-queer Harley, so let’s go with it. Next thing!

Matt: The backup, with the confusing “House of Wayne” on the cover, “House of Gotham” in the book. With the reveal at the end of this issue, that makes more sense, I just wish I was sure which was the official title. I figure it was a last-minute decision to change it, so I figure the cover is probably right, since that would have been easier and quicker to change than internal pages, but I’m not sure.

Will: I imagine that hypothesis is correct, but when you’re staring at the idea of “Yeah, let’s change the cover to the title we want, even though we can’t change the art on the page, thereby creating an incongruity,” what the fuck are you doing and why? It matters so very little, but it’s still a stumper.

Robin & Batman

Will: You know, we joke about how I’m an asshole and you’re a nice guy, but I’ll tell ya what: Even after the black hole of everything that was Robin & Batman #2, I was still willing to give Lemire a shot of at least getting this thing halfway out of the ditch. He couldn’t redeem the series completely — not after that psychopathic turn in the last issue — but he could somewhat inch toward a decent book. At least I thought. 

Did he do that, Brother Matt and Loyal Content Consumers?

No, he did not!

This issue was every bit as flawed as the other two, with a near death re-evaluation of his life serving only to frame Batman as a coward and a bully and Killer Croc — who I thought could be the savior of this series — coming off as a mindless monster.  

Matt: I feel like I should go back and reread the first couple issues to see if the Croc twist, that he was in the sideshow of the same circus the Graysons performed in, had been laid out at all, but I don’t want to go and reread these issues. That is, in itself, an interesting twist on Robin’s origin and early years, but it isn’t fleshed out in the least here: It’s there to give Croc’s obsession a paper-thin reasoning.

Batman’s sudden face turn (I’m using the wrestling terminology correctly, yes?) where he realizes he has been too hard on Dick as he is about to die? Where the hell did that come from? We have seen barely a lick of humanity in Batman for two and a half issues, and suddenly now he’s telling Dick he’s a “good boy” and he should save himself. Character growth needs to be earned for a story to have stakes, and that change is unearned. Hell, from what we see it might be more blood loss and a concussion talking, and when he recovers he goes back to being a complete ass again.

Will: I’ll see your face turn and raise you swerve: a storyline twist booked to surprise the audience that doesn’t always necessarily make sense. To my eye, we had two swerves in this book — the first is the aforementioned Bruce turn and the second is Dick’s dalliance with “the darkness,” only to discover by the end of this issue that “Hah, that Frank Miller shit really isn’t for me.” Those are two wild character swings within the context of only an issue. Good storytelling it ain’t.

And Brother Matt, let’s save the reread for when we need podcast content in about eight years.

Matt: Yeah, good call. Twice in one lifetime is more than enough.

In the end, this comic is just tragic because we have two creators whose work I generally like, whose work together I especially like, doing a book that falls flat. The idea at the core of this issue, of Dick thinking maybe Batman’s dark way is right, would be fertile ground for a series, not one issue of one. Give me three issues of that, of Alfred reacting to it, of Bruce and the Titans reacting to it. There is potential in that concept. But this was a bunch of ideas, none of them fleshed out, most of them mean, thrown at the wall and none of them really stuck.

Will: And Lemire is better than that. DC editorial is better than that. Ultimately, it’s just a shame when so much talent and resources are devoted to a thing so fundamentally bad.

Bat-miscellany

• Armaan Babu, writer on this very site, stops by for the BatChat pod this week, talking about three stories of Batman as a member of the JLA.
• While he isn’t the Bat supporting character I miss the most (regular note of bring back Alfred, you cowards!) I’m always glad to see Harvey Bullock back, and I can’t wait to see the team of Gordon and Bullock back in the saddle.
• Punchline and Ghost-Maker still suck.
• Killer Croc, as the hero in Robin & Batman #3 coming in to kick Batman’s ass for what he’s done to Robin, would have been such a better concept.
• Geoff Johns is coming back for more Flashpoint. It can’t be any worse than Three Jokers … right?
• Have no fear, we will be covering Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries next week.

Matthew Lazorwitz

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

Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.