Act two of “Shadows of the Bat” wraps up as we finally reach Day 24 and all hell breaks loose in Detective Comics #1,054, in a story written by Mariko Tamaki, drawn by Max Raynor, colored by Luis Guerrero and lettered by Ariana Maher. In the next chapter of “House of Gotham,” The Boy attempts to escape the city, but a new Robin and a new Batman make that all the more difficult in a backup written by Matthew Rosenberg, drawn by Fernando Blanco, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Rob Leigh.
It’s Task Force Z vs. Task Force X as our zombie heroes run across a Suicide Squad and the origins of Lazarus Resin are revealed in Task Force Z #4, written by Rosenberg, penciled by Eddy Barrows and inked by Eber Ferreira, with Matt Santorelli and Jack Herbert, colored by Adriano Lucas and lettered by Leigh.
And In Batman: The Imposter, a Black Label Mini-series, a young Batman exists in a more real-world Gotham and must deal with a new, second Batman taking to the streets with methods more lethal than his own. Released in hardcover this week, the series is written by Mattson Tomlin, drawn by Andrea Sorrentino, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Steve Wands.
Matt Lazorwitz: We have one week and counting till The Batman drops, plus so many Batman comics. It’s an exciting time to be a Batman fan.
Will Nevin: Batman. Hell yeah.
Day 24
Will: So this is what I get for giving you the business after you said the backup took place during “Knightfall.”
Matt: You say it yourself when we record the podcast: Don’t come at Matt. He knows his shit.
Will: For the record, it’s “Don’t fuck with Matt,” but your point stands. But yeah, I couldn’t believe we got Azbat and the whole ultraviolent shebang. I think it was only to spite me.
Matt: Oh, this is Jean-Paul at the height of his crazy AzBats-ness. Made me feel young again.
But as for the main story, this is the point we’ve been building toward. A perfect storm of chaos has erupted, and no one is making it out of Arkham Tower unscatched.
Will: Well … Wear gets out unscathed. At first anyway. But this was a solid issue, and the continuing story of Psycho-Pirate’s gradual weakening has been solid — as we see, it wasn’t a violent catastrophe or a sudden, sharp break. The man simply couldn’t handle all the spinning plates he was given. Damned Party Crashers. Literally crashing the party, I guess.
Matt: And we were right last week. The minute the Batgirls and Batwoman had a minute to think, they made short work of the Party Crashers who were trying to take out their cave. But now with all the pieces in place, we have three Bats in the Tower (Nightwing, Huntress and Spoiler-Batgirl), plus Batwoman with the mayor and Oracle and Orphan-Batgirl working recon/digital. Do we think the next issue will pick up where part one left off, or is there more setup to happen?
Will: I think the solicit copy billed this as the end of a chapter, so we’re definitely set for something new. But as far as Wear taking that tumble, I think there’s more setup for that since the last time we see Nero, he’s in a hospital bed.
Matt: Good call. So what do we have left to deal with, aside from, you know, our heroes stopping this entire riot? We still don’t know the identity of faux-Harley, but I think that’s the last dangling mystery.
Will: I wouldn’t be surprised if Penguin is a major player in this last chapter — I don’t think he’s the kind of man who takes an outstanding debt lightly, corpse or not. Faux-Harley is an interesting thing, though, since she’s obviously been referenced a couple of times and we have maybe a credible theory as to her identity (Wear’s wife/partner), but what’s her purpose? Her story moving forward? Nakano might also be a bigger factor in this chapter with his wife caught in the middle of everything.
Matt: I wonder if this is going to be the end of Nakano’s story. Him having to really work with the Bats might bring the story Tamaki has been telling with him to a head, and we might walk out of this either with him as less of a big factor, or him just taking his wife and kid and getting the hell out of Gotham after all this.
Will: It’s election season in Gotham. Probably.
Matt: And yes, Penguin could definitely factor in heavily, as he wants his money. But can I tell you, this issue featured one of my big pet peeves when it comes to Penguin. I know, everyone remembers Danny DeVito’s grotesque Penguin from Batman Returns. But the main DCU Penguin is just a dude! I don’t like it when he’s eating raw fish like some kind of animal.
Will: I don’t think you can have it both ways: He’s either a gross slimy bird man who eats chum and fucks unspeakable things or he’s a semi-legitimate businessman who’ll cut your throat for a dollar.
Matt: Exactly. I wonder if that was in the script or was just a bit of artistic flair Raynor put in. It’s not bad looking; this issue remains a solid DC house-style comic. I just want my Penguin to be the semi-legitimate businessman, as you put it.
Z Vs. X
Matt: So, who had “Ties Really Hard into ‘Superheavy’” on their bingo card of possible directions this series was going? Because I didn’t.
Will: Who really wants to think about “Superheavy”? I know I don’t. I guess if you’re going to reference a story, that’s going to be the one, since that’s the only place Bloom has been. But it goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? Those damned Powerses.
Matt: Yes, Geri Powers is back. It looks like she’s a less subtle character here. Originally, she was trying to do right and while she seemed sketchy, she was in it for the good of her company. Now, she’s definitely doing some bad shit. Knowing what we know about Powers from Batman Beyond, experimenting with Lazarus Resin seems right up the company’s lane.
Will: What I can’t figure is Harvey’s game here. He’s … trying to do the right thing? Seems strange. (Also, happy belated 2/22/22, Harv.)
Matt: It really does. I think we need to see more about what got Harvey here. It’s an interesting idea, that the coin flip made him this good a good guy, but I want to know exactly how that came about. I think we need an issue like the Psycho-Pirate one from ’Tec that fills in Harvey’s gap here.
Will: That is something I would enjoy. Outside of his spotlight in All-Star Batman, has Two-Face been featured anywhere the last three or four years?
Matt: Hmmmm … no, I don’t believe he has. There was a fill-in arc on Detective that ran four issues, maybe, before the Tomasi run, but that’s all I can think of. Which is a shame, as he is one of Batman’s best rogues (and another casualty of New 52 origin changes, though I think that has been forgotten).
Will: I’ve clearly forgotten it. What’d they fuck up?
Matt: Oh, Harvey was a crooked defense attorney who turned on his mob clients before becoming a DA. There were twin female mobsters who killed Gilda and scarred his face. It is best saved for a, “Needless New 52 origin changes” episode of the podcast.
I have a theory about Bane, and it’s something we sort of talked about in this month’s Joker review. Are we at the point we can spoil that? It’s been a couple weeks now.
Will: Go for it, Brother Matt.
Matt: I am thinking the problems they’re having with Bane are that he’s a clone. He wasn’t intended to do much other than die in A-Day, so now that he keeps coming back from the dead, he’s falling apart. Seems sound to me.
Will: And if Bane is truly the A-Day mastermind, he’d have access to his clones. Give me a heist book on breaking Bane out and swapping the clone in his place. What a bonkers story that would be.
Matt: But aside from all of the Bloom/Powers hijinks, this issue is mostly a big ol’ fight, and one that doesn’t come off well for our team. Going up against a mostly Bat villain Suicide Squad that still has all its faculties was not good for them. Although I guess Grundy is a zombie too, so there were very fine zombies on both sides.
Will: Who knew Grundy doesn’t like Man-Bat?
Matt: Not me! I think we’ve said this about an issue or two of ‘Tec recently, but this issue, which is the halfway point of this series, seems to be answering some questions and setting the stage for what comes next. That doesn’t make for a bad comic, but it means it’s mostly a functional comic.
Imposter Syndrome
Will: You remember the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Parallels,” right?
Matt: I absolutely do.
Will: And so you’d definitely remember the super-bearded Riker from the timeline in which the Borg beats the Federation.
Matt: That is a striking visual that I absolutely recall.
Will: I’m not saying that the world of Batman: The Imposter has gone as badly as that one. But is it that far off? Alfred quit years ago — I know you’re sure to have thoughts about that — and Gordon has left in disgrace after his partnership with the Batman was exposed. This Batman has his back against the wall only three years into his war on crime — and that’s before someone else in a Batsuit decides to start executing low-level criminals.
Matt: Oh, yeah, and let’s not forget that Leslie Thompkins, who might disapprove of Bruce’s activities as Batman but is still his major maternal figure who does her best to help him, is holding his identity over his head like the sword of Damocles. This is one of the bleakest takes on Batman that isn’t intentionally dystopic.
Will: As far as Batman and his allies are concerned, I think this is thematically right in tune with a dystopian story. But you know, I don’t think it’s a bad take — there’s a realism, a level of emotional violence to Bruce that we don’t get in many other stories. I’ll take this story above a bunch of other Elseworlds once we eventually get to ranking it on the ol’ podcast.
Matt: It’s not bad, but it certainly is bleak. And it gives us a very different cast around Bartman, Leslie excluded. Detective Blair Wong gets more character development in these three issues than half the new Bat characters have gotten over the course of twice that. And after recording last night’s episode of the podcast, it’s interesting to again see Arnold Wesker as put upon and broken, not just Scarface’s dummy.
Will: “Honest cop who saw her parents murdered as a child” was a bit contrived, but I’ll allow it — that’s about the only sort of person who would understand Bruce once you remove Alfred and Gordon. And Wesker’s inclusion was interesting, especially framing him as someone young and perhaps still savable.
Matt: That was something I really did like. No matter how unremittingly dark the series was, it ends with that hopeful beat. It shows that Batman, that Bruce, has grown and believes in redemption.
How did you feel about this as a mystery? I read it in chapters as it came out, as opposed to collected like you did, so I’m curious to see how the identity of the imposter, killer Batman worked for you.
Will: There were only so many suspects, right? I thought Gordon might be the guy since he’s only mentioned in the series but never shown. Thought Wong for a bit, too, but that would have been awful. Dent (Harvey, not Gilda) might have been a good pick, but I’m not that disappointed in who we got.
Matt: No, not at all. It had the feel of more a procedural than a mystery; it was more about how Batman found out who it was, rather than who it was.
And as I’m asking you questions, what about the art? I’m a big fan of Andrea Sorrentino from his work with Jeff Lemire on Green Arrow and Gideon Falls, and the grittiness seemed absolutely fitting to this story.
Will: My god, the grit. Reading this book is like a mouthful of sand but for your eyes. My traditional knock against Sorrentino (the overall sameness of his faces) applies, but he kills it in the vibe department.
Bat-miscellany
- This week, the BatChat podcast is joined by ComicsXF writer Corey Smith to discuss Batman stories by three Black writers: Dwayne McDuffie, Bryan Edward Hill and John Ridley.
- “Let me show you something that will make you feel young as when the world was new.”
- Mr. Freeze is in two places at once. Do we think Task Force Z takes place before “Shadows of the Bat”?
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.
