The hunt for the serial killer (artist?) Manray comes to a close as Jace Fox faces his first costumed foe in a final battle for the life of the mayor in I Am Batman #10, written by John Ridley, drawn by Christian Duce, colored by Rex Locus and lettered by Troy Peteri.
The second major cycle of serials wraps in Batman: Urban Legends #16. Batman, Zatanna and John Constantine reach the final battle with their occult foes; Batman and Ace are reunited; the Birds of Prey reveal a traitor; and Alfred gets a spotlight story.
DC Pride: Tim Drake Special collects all the shorts by writer Meghan Fitzmartin that have been a part of Tim’s ongoing coming out, along with adding a new story that reunites Tim with his Young Justice teammates and the Batgirls. The entire special is written by Meghan Fitzmartin, with art by Belen Ortega and Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque, colors by Alejandro Sanchez, Nick Filardi and Luis Guerrero, and letters by Pat Brosseau.
Matt Lazorwitz: So this week’s column originally began with the jubilant little bit now slightly below this about the new Tim Drake ongoing, but as we were putting it to bed, we read the announcement that one of the greatest of all Batman artists, Tim Sale, has just passed away at the age of 66. That’s a gut punch.
Will Nevin: It sure is. The loss of a legendary talent with who knows how many great stories left to tell. I had the pleasure of reading Long Halloween and Dark Victory for the first time for the podcast, and Sale’s art makes both of those works sing — a singular vision.
Matt: I had the pleasure of meeting Sale at NYCC somewhere in the early years of the previous decade and got a headshot sketch of the Scarecrow for my sketchbook, and while we didn’t interact for long, I remember him smiling and being gracious. He will be missed.
Now on to our regularly scheduled nonsense…
Matt: TIM DRAKE IS GETTING A NEW ONGOING! WHOO-HOO!
Will: Down, boy! Heel! What’s the creative team?
Matt: Meghan Fitzmartin, who has shepherded Tim’s journey since the Urban Legends serial where he came out, is writing, and Riley Rossmo, a favorite of mine who is currently wrapping a great run on Harley Quinn, will be on art.
Will: You have my permission to resume your state of excitement. Fitzmartin fuckin’ killed it in that Urban Legends story. Too bad we never covered it here.
Matt: It’s never too late, Brother Will. But more on that in a bit.
The Beauty in the Horror of Death
Matt: This issue wraps up Jace Fox’s first arc as the Batman of New York, and for the first time, this felt like a focused story. Other than one brief interlude between Jace and his maybe/sorta love interest Hadiyah, this issue focused on one plotline: Jace, Detective Chubb and their attempt to save the mayor from the serial killer Manray.
Will: This arc has absolutely gotten stronger the deeper we’ve gotten into it. If this series settles into “NYPD procedural + Batman,” I think that’s a solid winner, because it’s not something we have in the line right now. You know me, Matt — I like my superhero stories nice and grounded. And that’s easy to have when your Batman is flying solo and he doesn’t have a cave full of gadgets.
Matt: Jace is a much more grounded Batman, no doubt. He works with a motorcycle and a couple of batons. He isn’t even taking his dad up on all sorts of cool Bat tech from Wayne Enterprises. And his more complicated working relationship with Chubb, rather than the more friendly one between Bruce and Jim, makes for a good dynamic. It’s not adversarial, like it was in the first arc, but she still doesn’t trust him, and while he’s trying to earn her trust, he’s not bending over backwards to do it. It’s still a stretch that she happened to come to New York too, but I can accept that one gimme to get the story moving.
Will: Between the pod and the column, we need to come up with a Gotham Contrivances Hall of Shame. Even if we had one up and running, I don’t think Chubb’s convenient transfer would make it — probably belongs in the Hall of Slightly Embarrassing Plot Necessities. But, yeah, like you, I like having Chubb in this story, and overall, Jace’s relationship with the department feels natural with the right amount of tension.
Matt: This issue also is the second in a row with the same artist (even though they shared art duties last issue), and I hope Christian Duce sticks around. It’s a nice style; dark and gritty but not incomprehensible. I know Duce from a run on The Flash, where I tend to prefer a lighter style. Duce’s work is better suited to a Bat book. The fight scenes work here and are appropriately brutal. Manray’s spiked iron weapon is seriously a fucked up piece of equipment for a villain, and you can feel the impact, even when it’s done off screen and you’re just playing off the mayor’s horrified expression.
Will: The iron reminds me of Brock Lesnar’s tattoo as a fictional weapon that would make you shit your guts out in sheer panic if it was used against you. And how far has I Am Batman’s art come, huh? It’s upgraded from “I’m embarrassed for DC” to “passable” to “good.” Growth!
Matt: Absolutely! And what about that ending? There’s far more nuance to putting Chubb in a scenario where she has to shoot a dirty cop to protect a killer than some of the very cut-and-dry moral scenarios early in this book.
Will: If that’s the meat of the next arc — or if it’s at least a prominent B-story — count me in. The mayor is a right prick, and I don’t think he’ll be too sympathetic toward a cop who shot a cop who was trying to shoot the guy who wanted to filet him alive.
We Will Continue to Demand Alfred’s Return Till Morale Improves
Matt: Why is Alfred still dead? Why? I mean, we get flashbacks like this every now and then now, and every time they remind me that we need Alfred.
Will: Maybe it’s because we haven’t prayed hard enough to the dark gods who control the Unknowable Mind of DC Editorial. I’m getting in my solid hour a day — it’s everyone else out there who needs to step it the fuck up.
Matt: This Alfred story found the right balance between the man-of-action Alfred we sometimes get and the more reliable batman (in the British sense). He is working a case, but he’s not going in guns blazing. He’s got a personal angle on what’s going on. I like this.
Will: Despite the pleasantry of having a self-contained story, I had some quibbles with this ‘un. First, in no world would a scheme to house and kill your donors to gain access to their funds net you a charge for manslaughter — that’s intentional murder! Weird, weird mistake to make there. Second, I feel like there was a disconnect between the story and the art. The story implied that it was a dump, but the art made it seem quite nice. Or I suppose the idea that everyone was dying makes it a shitty place.
And another thing! Alfred simply deduces that the residents are being killed with drugs by looking at a few needles and meds that happen to be out in the open. Nursing homes, Alfred? They’re full o’ meds … but, again, maybe this one is special since it also has a makeshift morgue. (Which are two words that are never good together.)
Matt: No, they aren’t. I cut an eight-page story a bit more slack, especially when it’s featuring a character like Alfred who I miss every month.
But what about the other stories here? The end of the Ace and Zatanna serials both were heartstring pullers in places. Mark Russell, for all his crusty satire, does tend to hide a heart under there, and that final page of the bear heading into the woods was lovely. And Zatanna joining the Bat family for dinner. I know I’m an old softy, but that’s just sweet.
Will: There was so much expression to the animals in the Russell story — just some great work there. And not to push those stories off into the abyss so quickly, but I am looking forward to the next Urban Legends issue in which we’ll get a whole slate of new stories.
Matt: Next issue is all one-offs, one of the between-arc issues. It’s an all team-ups book, I believe.
But back to this issue, are we expecting a Birds of Prey mini after that cliffhanger ending? And do we feel like Miracle Molly got a lousy villain turn, or are we just playing to her nature? Despite teaming up with Batman, she was at best Lawful Neutral, if not True Neutral, so playing to her own beliefs makes some sense.
Will: I’ll be honest: That Birds of Prey story did not do it for me. Too much noise, too many characters, too convoluted, too much of everything and not enough of Miracle Molly, who seems like she should have been the unrivaled focus of the story given her origin and what this new app aimed to do. This is probably a point I’ve hit before with this, but something a lot simpler would have been a lot better.
Pride of the Bat Family
Matt: Coming-out stories are rarely easy. And they can often come out as ham-fisted or out of left field. Which is not to say that people don’t have these sudden experiences in real life. But the way Tim Drake’s coming to terms with his sexuality is treated here, with patience, questioning, nuance and in the end acceptance? That’s a strong story.
Will: Absolutely, and one I know reads better in what amounts to the world’s shortest trade. It can be unnerving and confusing confronting a same-sex attraction in a heternormative world (I’ve been there!), but you’re right that this was handled in a great way — although I think the addition of the other two shorts took away from the power and perfection of the Urban Legends story.
Matt: The Urban Legends serial is excellent, but I don’t have a problem with the other two shorts being here. They were going to be collected eventually, and adding them made this a more palatable package for its price point. The last one also might have worked better for me as someone invested in the whole Young Justice cast, to be fair. I’ve been following those characters and watching their friendships grow for 20 years. I kind of would have liked Tim to talk to Conner Kent, his best friend, about this, too. It would have been good to see that discussion as well as the one he had with Stephanie.
Will: So I got two strikes against the holiday story specifically. First, it is a noticeable drop-off in terms of the art, and second, the story is mostly about how Bruce is a moody dick who tends to push the family away when he needs it the most. I think that’s an important character flaw, but it’s also one we’ve seen explored a whole bunch. To go to that relatively rote story after you read the coming-out piece? It’s a tough follow.
Matt: I think nearly anything would have been. And while I wish it had focused more on Tim, I liked the ending there, both with Bruce and his relationship to the people of Gotham and specifically to Tim. I guarantee you there are people out there who would say there is no way BATMAN would hug a guy who is leading a mob. Me? That guy is a scared and angry victim. Batman has compassion, is at his core a compassionate person. I like that Fitzmartin gets that. I also like his acceptance of Tim, and the fact that he calls Tim his son and is happy for Tim’s happiness. That’s another important conversation, one I’m glad we saw at least the direct aftermath of. Do I wish there was a cleaner way to get to those beats? Sure. But I like them both for what they are.
Will: Hmmm … I don’t see a defense of the art in there. (I don’t have anything for your substantive points, which are all good.)
Matt: Nope, no defense for the art.
Will: Good. That means I was only half 0wn3d.
Bat-miscellany
- Josh Weil, the podcast’s inaugural Dick Grayson-tier backer, returns to talk about the early ’00s Bat family crossover “War Games” and two other stories about the mob in Gotham in this week’s episode. This was fun to record, but please listen to the beginning of the episode for a content warning that was not expected when we recorded this a month ago.
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.
