Batman’s Killing Time with a Shadow War in the Neo-Year in BatChat (Text Edition)

As the Demon’s Shadow makes its move against the Secret Society, and Robin seeks Ravager’s help in his hunt for Deathstroke, Batman investigates Ra’s al Ghul’s murder and reunites with Talia in Batman #122, written by Joshua Williamson, drawn by Howard Porter, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles. In the backup, witness the never-before-seen first fight between Batman and Deathstroke in a story written by Williamson, drawn by Trevor Hairsine, colored by Rain Beredo and lettered by Willie Schubert.

Bruce Wayne is dead, the computer systems that run the Gotham of the future have developed artificial intelligence and Wayne-Powers has a new CEO. It’s not looking like an easy new year for Terry McGinnis, the Batman of the future in Batman Beyond: Neo-Year #1, written by Collin Kelly and  Jackson Lanzing, drawn by Max Dunbar, colored by Sebastian Cheng and lettered by Aditya Bidikar. 

Finally this week, BatChat is playing catchup with the first two issues of Tom King’s newest Batman miniseries. Four of Batman’s rogues have teamed up to pull a heist, stealing the unstealable from a vault that belongs to the last person they should be stealing from: Batman. But as betrayals pile up, who exactly is playing whom here? Batman: Killing Time #1-2 is written by Tom King, drawn by David Marquez, colored by Alejandro Sanchez and lettered by Clayton Cowles. 

Matt Lazorwitz: So I mentioned this on the podcast recording we did last night, but it’s the strangest bit of Bat-news this week: Elmo of Sesame Street fame is dressing up as Batman as part of a feud with a pet rock named Rocco. Now, Amber and I are child-free by choice, so I haven’t seen Sesame Street since my youngest brother was little enough to watch it, probably around 20 years ago, but unless the demo has really changed, how many little kids saw The Batman and get what this parody is? I don’t remember Sesame Street going for topical references like this. Or channeling vigilantes who are known for beating people within an inch of their lives.

Will Nevin: Matt, I don’t think hallucinogens are for you, but if you continue to do them, please have a friend nearby. 

Our Villains at War

Matt: I really like Joshua Williamson. I really do. And I want to like what I was hoping was going to be an ambitious story over a bunch of different titles dealing with this supervillain civil war. But knowing that Williamson is writing the upcoming Dark Crisis linewide event, and seeing how decompressed these first two parts of “Shadow War” have been, I’m worried this is nothing more than setting the table for Dark Crisis.

Will: There doesn’t seem to be a lot of there there, Matt. But at least the backup — which was also written by Williamson — feels like a worthwhile story?

Matt: The backup seems like it’s going to be a fun action piece pitting Batman against Deathstroke and Joker. It seems like it’s just going to be fun. And Trevor Hairsine’s art is top notch.

I think the idea behind “Shadow War” is worthwhile: someone pitting Talia and the various factions of the League of Assassins/Shadows against Deathstroke’s Secret Society? That’s cool. And I’ll take villains fighting villains over heroes fighting heroes any day at this point. But not much happens again in this issue. I have this feeling like we’ll get to the end of nine issues and feel like we could have done all this in four.

Will: But if we only had four issues, that’d be Alpha, two issues of Batman and Omega. That wouldn’t drive sales of Deathstroke Inc. or Robin! And that would be terrible for the fraction of a percent of WarnerMedia’s bottom line represented by comics sales.

Matt: I’d feel better about trashing this if it was bad, and it’s not bad, it’s just a lot of stuffing with not much to it. There are some fun character beats. We’ve talked about it on the podcast, but I really like Cameron Chase, so seeing her now as the director of the DEO and still being able to stand up to Batman? Fun. 

Will: Lemme ask you this: What did you think about the art? I’m so attached to DC house style in Batman that anything else feels strange and scary.

Matt: It’s funny you say that, because this would have been much closer to DC house style at one point. Howard Porter was Grant Morrison’s main artist on JLA back in their run in the late ‘90s. But Porter no longer has an inker, and I think without someone to tighten him up, his art isn’t as strong. Porter is an artist I’ve been seeing for 20-plus years, and was the artist on Deathstroke Inc. before this, so I’m so used to his style it didn’t jar me, but I can see where you’re coming from. Still, Jorge Jimenez isn’t exactly house style, but he’s so good, that doesn’t really matter, does it?

Will: See, Jimenez feels like house style to me at this point. Again, familiar and comfortable. And, as you say, good.

Matt: So, how do you take the ending of this issue? Bruce and Talia haven’t exactly been on good terms for … 17 or so years of real-world time, and now they’re making out again?

Will: They’ve got a kid and so much history together — that’s not just someone you can forget. The strangest thing for me was Bruce being convinced she was the mastermind only for him to buy a “Nope, definitely wasn’t me” explanation from Talia.

Matt: Yeah, I think we could have used some of the page space from the fight scene between Batman and Talia’s ninjas to dig more deeply into their character here. Have her give more of an answer, have them talk more about Damian. Maybe we’ll see some of that in the next part, but if you’re not going to give me plot momentum, at least give some deep character stuff. 

I’m still not very close to figuring out who that mastermind is. Judging by the first page of the issue, of the figure standing in the abandoned and destroyed cityscape, and with Wiliamson’s deep-bench DC knowledge, I wonder if we’re going back to that time Deathstroke provided some terrorists a nuke and they blew up part of the fictional and not-at-all-based-on-any-real-nation DC country of Qurac. Unless this is one of the other atrocities Deathstroke has been party to. There are so many.

A Not So Happy Neo-Year

Matt: Since we only had two titles we were planning to cover this week, I suggested this number one. I kinda threw you into the deep end here, huh?

Will: I know of Batman Beyond as a concept. As a theory. But in execution? Lolnope.

Matt: Especially as we’re further along the timeline than anywhere else. This tried to set up the status quo at the beginning, but it felt a little thin if you hadn’t at least read the Urban Legends short that was a prelude to this.

I do think there’s a lot of cool ideas here, though. This is a Batman who has his back against the wall. He has none of his allies, Gotham itself is against him, and now the machine that usually helps him, Wayne-Powers, is under the control of someone who is shifty at best and quite possibly villainous. If a Batman is only as strong as what he’s fighting against, this is going to be a true test of Terry’s strength.

Will: Tell me about this prelude you speak of. If I understood this correctly, Gotham has some measure of sentience, and it hates Batman? That certainly feels apt.

Matt: The AI that now rules Gotham started out as the Batcomputer. It’s been a few months since I read it, but I don’t think it hates Batman so much as feels like Batman doesn’t do enough or serve the purpose of protecting Gotham as well as he should. Plus, Terry did almost “kill” it in that prelude, even though he came around and couldn’t take a life in the end.

Will: Gettin’ all Star Trek-y on us with the metaphysics, I see.

Matt: Oh, yeah. The same night it killed Bruce, it also went after all the crime families in Gotham, so it’s doing that whole, “Humans are flawed and I can understand and run things better because I am cold and logical,” thing.

I’m curious, as someone familiar with Batman Beyond purely in concept, how much of a feeling did this issue give you for Terry as a character? I mean, honestly, I don’t know how many people would buy and read this without some knowledge of the property, but to quote the old adage, “Every comic is somebody’s first,” so I’m curious how this read for a BB neophyte.

Will: If nothing else, it established that he won’t quit no matter how much Gotham throws at him. Seems pretty on point for Batman.

How Apt a Title is ‘Killing Time’?

Matt: Look, Tom King is writing another Batman comic that is all disjointed in time!

Will: This is my shocked face: -___-

Matt: Maybe it’s the bout of insomnia I’m suffering this week, but this book really bugged me. I usually like high concept, I really do. And maybe if I had reread issue #1 directly before issue #2 instead of after it because I felt like I was missing something, it would have worked better, but this just felt messy to me.

Will: Part of this is from the Catwoman miniseries we read for our last recording, but I wonder about the preoccupation among some comic book scribes about the need to tie their books to ancient mythology. Yes, it makes sense in the idea that they’re both about titans (sometimes literally), and they represent the stories we have told ourselves for ages. But can we not pretend that this random miniseries should be able to invoke mythology whenever it wants? Those parts *dragged* and they weren’t even that long. And after the second or third time you do the “3,400 years ago on what would be April 12 now” bit, it becomes pretty tired.

Matt: Yes. And unless they really pay off thematically? They read as too clever by half. “Look at how smart I am. I know my classics.” And you want to know what REALLY read to me as too clever by about three-quarters?

Will: Spill that fuckin’ tea, Brother Matt.

Matt: We’ve talked about the fact that every place in Gotham is named after a creator of Batman comics. It’s sort of a fun little thing when you see it once or twice in an issue.

Will: But, Matt, is it fun when you do it on every goddamned page?

Matt: No! It gets distracting as hell. There are, I kid you not because I counted, 10 of those name drops in issue #2. TEN! I know that a good number of those only deep Batman fans are going to get, but they’re the ones who are reading your comic, and I just kept getting thrown out after the third or fourth one.

Will: It’s the same reason I hate the “this is awesome” and “fight forever” chants in wrestling — just like you said, it disrupts your ability to enjoy the narrative in front of you when you’re constantly reminded that the story is fake and none of this matters aside from how clever a writer (or, in the case of wrestling, the fans) can be.

All that being said, I liked the “Morrison wing” of Arkham Asylum. The rest of the drops can go.

Matt: But, as I think we said about Batman/Catwoman, King’s other Batman series right now, at the core of this is a good idea. This is an elaborate heist/caper story, with cross and double cross, as Catwoman and Riddler steal something from a vault Batman has, and get Penguin and Croc involved and no one trusts anyone. That’s a great high concept. And King writes the characters well. What doesn’t work is all the trappings. I see no reason this story needs to be so jangly through time.

The only reason I could see is that we’re eventually going to get the scenes between the raindrops, of Batman playing some game here, and that might work, and I’ll talk about my theory on that in a second. 

Will: You sit me down and give me two options: rereading these two issues or rereading Puzzlebox, and you want to guess what I’m going to pick?

Matt: I don’t think I have to.

Will: It’s no fun when you don’t play along with the bit, Matthew.

Matt: OK. <clears throat> I dunno, Will. Which one?

Will: Puzzlebox! Because it was fun and didn’t have its head up its ass. Stories can be rich and complex, but — as a wise man once said — the more you overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain. It’s a heist book. Don’t make it too complicated. Let people enjoy a damn thing.

Matt: OK, and I’m going to make a prediction here. We have heard that Riddler and Catwoman have a buyer for the mysterious item in Batman’s vault (and why Batman needs a vault in a bank when he has the damn Batcave, the Hall of Justice and can probably stick stuff in the Fortress of Solitude is beyond me, but I’ll not tug those threads), and that buyer has deep pockets right?

Will: Smells like Lex Luthor to me.

Matt: Oh, no. I think it’s someone much closer to home, especially with the narrator being involved with the buyer, and the narrator starting off the whole story of the maenads with the story of actors in ancient Greece. Who has access to money and a go-between with a history as an actor? And said go-between is known for wearing white gloves like the ones we see ringing the doorbell.

Will: I think I finally get it now. This whole damn thing is a setup. Em-Bat-ment.

Matt: Yup! It bugged me that Batman happened to not be ready for whatever truth serum Joker stuck him with to get the information about that vault. Being ready for truth drugs is Batman 101. But if the whole damn thing was a trap? That actually makes sense, and would make the disjointed time thing make sense BECAUSE you have to go back and show Batman’s workings behind the scenes later. I won’t say it works, but it makes sense from a structure standpoint.

But there are a couple pluses, too. David Marquez draws a really cool Batman, and with the exception of his Penguin (If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: I don’t like a monster Penguin), everyone looks great. 

I also wonder if Riddler leaving his location on Penguin’s body in morse code bruises was intentional or some subconscious thing because he was trying to not leave a clue. Because if it’s the latter, that would be a pretty cool twist.

Listen, I’m giving King a hard time here, but to balance that out, and to be fair, he’s writing some of the best comics of his career over on Human Target. Go read that. It’s great.

Will: The man has two entries in our Top 10 list — and that’s out of almost 100 stories now. (We’re a few weeks in the can as always, loyal listeners!) He’s an incredibly talented writer … we just can’t see that here. 

Bat-miscellany

• This week, we have another BatChat Podcast Patreon backer who chooses a story that is … something. Patreon backer Abigale Heartbalm chose Batman: The Widening Gyre by Kevin Smith, so we paired it with two other stories by Hollywood folks writing Batman.