There are a lot of stories and a TON of creators in this week’s BatChat.
In Detective Comics #1,050, some major questions are answered in the conclusion of the first act of “Shadows of the Bat” in a story written by Mariko Tamaki, penciled by Ivan Reis, inked by Danny Miki, colored by Brad Anderson and lettered by Ariana Maher. In the first backup, things go from bad to worse for The Boy in the next chapter of “House of Gotham,” written by Matthew Rosenberg, drawn by Fernando Blanco, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Rob Leigh. And in the second backup, readers get the setup for the upcoming Batman/Superman: World’s Finest series, in a story written by Mark Waid, drawn by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain and lettered by Aditya Bidikar.
Red Hood has a good talk (or two) with the head of Task Force Z, Mr. Bloom starts to show his hand and a new villain team appears in Task Force Z #4, written by Rosenberg, penciled by Eddy Barrows and Kieran McKeown, inked by Eber Ferreira and Dexter Vines, colored by Adriano Lucas and lettered by Leigh.
It’s been a long time since we looked at this miniseries, but this week’s Batman/Catwoman Special #1 is a standalone special, so we thought we’d dip back in and see what was going on here. The issue is written by Tom King, drawn by John Paul Leon, Bernard Chang with Shawn Crystal, and Mitch Gerads, colored by Dave Stewart and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Matt Lazorwitz: Detective Comics hits 1,050 issues this week. Think we’ll hit that on this column, because I think we will.
Will Nevin: That’s only 20 years of weekly column writing, Brother Matt. Seems doable, if a little nauseating to think of myself in my 50s. Let’s celebrate the occasion in 2040 with a jumbled mess of a column featuring one paragraph from each of our years together.
The Huntress and the [Name Redacted]
Matt: Hey, we get some answers here! And they’re some pretty reasonable answers. Maybe comics in general have reached a point for me where I get frustrated easily by this kind of BS, and I love a longform mystery, but when you’ve got a story with a beginning, middle and end and one that doesn’t depend on the whodunnit of it to drive it, I like when answers become springboards for plot. And that last-page reveal is a big ol’ springboard.
Will: Hooboy, that last page is a banger and explains a lot of Unsolved Mysteries(™). My question now is, if you have [name redacted] working in Arkham Tower, then what do Dr. Wear’s pharmaceuticals do? If he’s got the drug shipments moving, what does he need with the city’s money? Actually, scratch that last question — more money is always better.
Matt: Dr. Wear’s “Numb” drug might just be a standard issue narcotic, nothing particularly special. Maybe just homebrewed, cheap Xanax. It works fine to take the edge off, but would do next to nothing when administered to the likes of Mr. Freeze. So he can sell it as a street drug, use the funds of Arkham Tower to make it, then sell all of it for money and count on his silent partner to control the inmates, who are given sugar pills.
Will: You sure you’re not a super criminal, Matt? That sounds like an incredibly reasonable plan. (And please cut me in.)
Matt: Perhaps I’ve said too much…
Anyway, aside from those answers, we also get what I asked for last issue, which was more with Huntress, explaining what she’s doing in Arkham Tower and how she wound up there, and this did allay my fears, because it absolutely worked and didn’t slow down the pace of the story. This was helped by having Nightwing narrate, and be active in the present while reflecting on his past with Huntress. It maintained momentum while still helping flesh out the background of where we are on Day 15.
Will: We got some great Huntress stuff here, catching everyone up on the parasite business while also showing more of what the continuing visions of violence have done to Helena. The panel in her apartment — displaying the mess and chaos of depression — was especially rending.
Matt: Completely. And we are once again reminded that Dick is a way more reasoned person than Bruce. Huntress does kill one of those infected, and you know if it was Bruce who found her, not Dick, he would give her the whole “We don’t kill” speech. But Dick takes her emotional state, and the fact that this guy was irreparably screwed by that thing in him, into account and empathizes.
Will: This is definitely a “‘First Contact’ Picard says kill your infected crew members” moment. She knows what they’d go through if they survived — if she’s even thinking on that level. There’s so much trauma there, it’s hard to say what she is and isn’t processing.
Matt: And now, we get two backups, since this is a bonus-sized anniversary issue. “House of Gotham” continues to be a fine backup, but I think I might need to stop playing the guessing game of “Who does The Boy turn out to be?” in my head. I am reaching the point where I don’t think he’s an established character, or one of the ones we have met recently, but is just here as an example of the damage this world of super crime can do.
Will: The idea of Scarecrow turning a kid into a sleeper agent is incredibly fucked up, and I’m here for it. Another thing I’m here for? World’s Finest. That was a great damn time, and it looked spectacular. Not really sure why they had to cancel the ongoing Batman/Superman because this seems to have every bit the same energy, but far be it from me to ask why DC editorial makes the weird decisions it does.
Matt: It absolutely shares the same retro-Silver Age vibe as what Gene Luen Yang was doing, but you know what? #1s sell. That’s usually the reason for this. I do wonder if they’ll reprint this backup in issue #1 of that series, or recap it heavily, because boy, I would feel lost if issue 1 picks up right where this leaves off! Or are they counting on just having it at the beginning of a trade, assuming anyone who is buying the series in floppies probably picked this up as well. Again, I am not going to try to think my way into the minds of DC editorial; that way lies madness.
Will: Official BatChat stance on DC editorial’s mindset: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Whiskey for Two
Matt: We got the big last-page reveal last issue in this book, so this month? It’s time for some fallout. Jason Todd sits down for a conversation with Two-Face, with whom he has a complicated history (something you can learn more about on the Feb. 17 episode of the podcast).
Will: Having already recorded that episode and forgotten it, I think this issue could have done more to draw out that history. How hard is it for Todd to say, “Fuck you, you killed my dad”? Still, that was a nice scene that gives us a fun (in that he’s sane and competent) version of Dent to play with. Overall, the issue — like ’Tec #1,050 — gave us answers to important questions.
Matt: And brought in one of DC’s best power players: Amanda Waller. Most people would not just stand up to Two-Face. But The Wall has stared down Batman, so Dent is small change to her.
Will: Before we move on to Waller, what’s the history of Dent going straight? And keep your response to under 7,000 words.
Matt: Has happened a couple times. Most notably in the aftermath of “Hush,” when he has his face repaired. In the “One Year Later” era, Dent defends Gotham as a low-level vigilante while Bruce is on walkabout. Winds up rescarring himself after being framed for the murder of some supervillain by someone seeking revenge, but I won’t spoil that reveal for when we read that story.
Will: Poor ol’ Harv. That face is getting fucked again up no matter what happens. And while we’re talking about him, what do you think of the artistic choice here — perhaps inspired by The Dark Knight — to go with “Man, his face got burned away” rather than “damn, that’s some weird green skin on half his face”?
Matt: I’ve always appreciated when artists try to make it look like Two-Face had something more real happen to his face. I find it wild that it happens in the book with the zombies and not one of the books that is shooting for a more realistic Gotham.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bloom is up to something. Not entirely sure what, but we’ve been getting hints of all these characters who aren’t mindless zombies having agendas, so hopefully this is going to pay off soon, since next issue marks the halfway point of the series.
Will: Bloom is still the most interesting character to me — although there really is some unexplored territory with Todd. (He’s already been dead before!) What’s Bloom’s play, and hell, who is s/he? That’s something I want to see in these next couple of issues.
Matt: And aside from Bloom, who is playing their own game? Are the twins (now triplets? Or clones?) and Sundowner Two-Face’s crew? Or are they on their own side? Has Two-Face been stealing his Lazarus Resin from Waller or another player? We got some answers here, but this has definitely opened up a whole new well, including if that group of second-tier Bat villains who show up at the end are alive or another Task Force Z. But I suppose we’ll get there next issue.
Will: Oh, yeah, there’s that whole other ass team that shows up. Do you think it was born on a Monday?
The Long Christmas
Will: ‘Member all those times we gave the main Bat/Cat series a chance before we decided it was basically an unreadable mess? ‘Member how we thought this might be better?
I ‘member.
Matt: As do I. And the verdict is, well, that this is still a mess, but a very pretty one.
Will: It does have its heart in the right place as the tributes to artist John Paul Leon are moving — it’s easy to see he touched so many of his creator colleagues. But in terms of an overall narrative, I don’t know why anyone would trade a main series that switches randomly from three main stories to a one-off that tells … 30(?) different one-page stories. Here’s my suggestion: Pick your three best story ideas, and tell three conventional goddamned stories. W. Maxwell Prince can get away with stuff like that in Ice Cream Man. You, Tom King, can’t.
Matt: We pointed it out when we talked about Batman Annual #2: Tom King loves these characters and absolutely can tell a heartfelt story about them. I think you’re right, not just for the series but for this special: If King had focused on expanding three of these 30 or so Christmas pages, say 4-6 (young Selina at the orphanage with the abusive nun and escaping), something from 22-24 (the young Helena having Christmas with mom and dad) and 33 (Selina and Helena running the roofs together as, I assume, Bruce is getting too sick to go out), you could have really dug into the emotional arc. There are some poignant pages here, absolutely, but none hit with the punch that I would have liked if we’d gotten more to establish them. We get the equivalent of the emotional manipulation of that damn saccharine “Christmas Shoes” song, rather than a solid holiday tale.
Will: And it’s so damned disappointing because you’re absolutely right — King has all the skills necessary to tell a great story. Absolutely baffling to go with this format.
Matt: This is the formalist King. King loves to experiment with form, and here he sacrifices narrative for form. And it might have worked better if JPL had done the whole issue, because then you could have really seen one artist slowly age these characters. But with different artists for the eras? It doesn’t feel as cohesive. It’s almost the opposite problem of the series: There, different artists would help disambiguate the eras. Here, since it is moving in one direction and telling one (diffuse) story, one artist would help that flow.
Will: I can’t speak for Mister Miracle or anything else he’s written, but if he truly does love to experiment with form, he should get better at it. I’m so tired of being burned by one of his Bat books.
Bat-miscellany
- This week’s BatChat podcast is our laziest theme to date: sequels. We’re covering Bloodstorm (Red Rain), Master of the Future (Gotham by Gaslight) and Dark Victory (The Long Halloween).
- We will talk about the sticky continuity stuff with the reveal of the last page of ’Tec next week; just to avoid spoiling a great reveal for a little bit. Also, we redacted the name in the article with [name redacted] instead of [spoiler] because that has a whole different meaning in Bat books.
- Note to Matt from Will: Let’s open with the history of [name redacted] next week.
- The line break in the credits on the last page of the main ’Tec story is especially egregious: “Batman created by Bob [break] Kane with Bill Finger.” WYD?
- Huntress is a good cat guardian, and I am here for that.
- As always, do less, letterers. Way too many Task Force Z characters have their own lettering style, and it is a distracting mess.
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.
