Threads begin to come together as Bruce Wayne faces his own mortality and the history of the Orghams is revealed. The lead story in Detective Comics #1,070 is written by Ram V, drawn by Stefano Raffaele, colored by Adriano Lucas and lettered by Ariana Maher. In the backup, a frozen Dr. Mead reflects on the world and psychology as Mr. Freeze works his science and Sorrow appears as her savior. Written by Si Spurrier, drawn and colored by Caspar Wijngaard and lettered by Steve Wands.
The death of Helen Wayne has riots burning Gotham City. But for Slam Bradley, thatâs not his concern. What is? Finally unraveling the whos and whys of her death. And in the end, no one escapes unscarred. Gotham City: Year One #6 is written by Tom King, penciled by Phil Hester, inked by Eric Gapstur, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
A trip to Madame Xanaduâs has Mystery Inc. in a pickle; the fortune teller has told them if they help Batman, doom will fall. Find out what they do in The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #6, written by Ivan Cohen, drawn and colored by Erich Owen, and lettered by Saida Temofonte.
Will Nevin: Matt, in the episode of the podcast we recorded this week, I made you promise we wouldnât read any more Hush stories this year. I guess that doesnât apply to the column, does it?
Matt Lazorwitz: It does not. But I am hoping that our Bat writers have better sense than to drag him back. We havenât seen any Hush since the end of 2020, so I hope he stays in hibernation for a while longer.
A Clearer Look at History
Matt: Weâll focus here mostly on this weekâs issue of Detective Comics, but we will definitely spend a little time with last issue, since we didnât get to cover that. I was happier to see Stefano Raffaele take over as artist on #1,070, as #1,069âs art from Dexter Soy wasnât my favorite. Iâm not a huge fan of Soy, and I think Raffaeleâs art suits the book quite well, although I do miss Rafael Albuquerque.
Will: They both seem to be doing their best Albuquerque impression, right? I did not pick up on the differences as you did â I think this run is still going to look great in trade. And while weâre on art, let me say Iâm so happy to see Caspar Wijngaard on backups. Thereâs no artist working in comics today who colors quite like him.
Matt: Hard second on that one. If youâre not reading All Against All, youâre missing out. And Soyâs art wasnât bad; it was actually some of his better work. I just prefer Raffaele.
Will: Iâm morally obligated to mention Wijngaardâs first Image miniseries, Limbo, as something else that should be required reading. But we digress.
Matt: Weâre now at the ninth issue of Ram Vâs run (tenth if you count the annual), and Iâm happy to see that it feels like next issue weâre going to start getting some answers and details about the secret history of the Orgham family. Itâs been teased since Part 1, so now weâre seeing why they have beef with the League of Assassins, or at least vice versa, and more about the culture they come from, and I dig that kind of world building. And doing it while not losing sight of Batman in the book is an impressive feat.
Will: Do you have a sense of where we are in the overall story? I know weâre X number of issues into âAct Iâ â do you think Ram has two more arcs of similar length to complete what would be 20+ issues of a grand story?
Matt: I think weâre going to get two one-ish year arcs. Youâre thinking three-act structure with two more of these arcs, I take it? Because Iâm thinking two-act structure like most operas, since that is what weâve been playing on: overture, Act One, entreâacte and Act Two. So this act wraps up in June or July, and then we get the next year from there.
Will: See, Iâm uncultured swine who doesnât know anything about opera. So thatâs very illuminating.
Matt: You pick up this kind of thing working in performing arts centers for 20 years.
Ram V is really doing a lot of universe building here, and playing with threads from across all his work at DC. Weâre seeing Cheshire Cat, one of Selinaâs urchins from his run on Catwoman; you get a brief appearance by The Vigil, the new team he created in Lazarus Planet who will be getting their own series next month. They donât feel invasive, but they feel like part of a bigger world, which is something I enjoy in shared-universe superheroes. Oh, and you get some Solomon Grundy, which I always enjoy.
Will: This run is a little on the dense side, which may turn off some folks, but is Ram V doing *anything* wrong here? This might not be my favorite style, but I canât help but admire the craftsmanship and the ambition.
Matt: And for me, who loves dense mythology and this sort of thing, it, pun firmly intended, sings. The established characters are all well written. I love his take on Batman, on Gordon, on Two-Face and now on Oracle. And it doesnât hurt that Si Spurrierâs backups help feed the main story while presenting angles you wouldnât have time to explore, and also using amazing artists like Wijngaard, Dani and Hayden Sherman. Stuff that you donât usually see on a Big Two book, especially one featuring a flagship character.
Itâs ⌠an Ending, Thatâs for Sure
Matt: I have a feeling like this might be the book that breaks our long-running agreement on things. Because I did not like this issue. Not the entirety of the series and not necessarily the story itâs telling, but aspects of this particular issue rubbed me very wrong.
Will: This issue wasnât great, no. It existed to wrap up the story in a neat little bow and to give us at least one of the groaners we seem to be guaranteed from Tom King these days. Oh, wow, the Wayne family is responsible for Ace Chemical. How fuckinâ profound.
Matt: That was one of three bits of retcon or little winks to canon that bugged the hell out of me. Tom King desperately wants his work to be IMPORTANT, and so he does these kinds of things. The first, just to be clear, is Constance Wayne coming to Slam asking for him to mentor Thomas because heâs soft and she doesnât want him to âthink he can just march down some dark alley at night.â Because, oh, right, thatâs how Thomas dies!
Will: In terms of cleverness, theyâre not much more insightful than your average Family Guy manatee cutaway gag.
Matt: The second is by far the most egregious. So, apparently, Bruceâs truly shitty grandfather discovered the Batcave, built the tunnel to the clock and used the cave to hold trophies of his myriad sexual conquests. Oh, and he signed the ransom letter to his wife with a bat because of that, And the hole that Bruce will someday fall down to discover the cave was initially broken through by Constance. So all the Batcave stuff is tied to this story, and it has no heroism at its core, but is instead tied up in all this sordid history. Because Tom King, like other writers (*coughGeoffJohnscough*) canât let anything be purely heroic.
Will: Jesus, that was terrible *and* it doesnât make any sense â just think of all the more reasonable ways a fucking terrible human with all the money in the world and a huge ass house would catalog mementos of sexual conquest. And continuing along the ideas of changes to characters and canon, I take it this is the first time Slam Bradleyâs race has come up?
Matt: Abso-fucking-lutely. That is a completely new construct of this series.
And hereâs something else that bugs me. I know when we talked about John Ridleyâs work on I Am Batman, his regular use of certain buzzwords and phrases like âmaskâ bugged you. The opening scene of the race riot, where all the invading white people are screaming about how these Black people took/killed/etc. their âprincessâ just hit my ear completely wrong. It just felt like something King was trying to drive home, and was doing it in the most ham-fisted way.
Will: There was nothing â at least to my memory â to make Helen Wayne something on the level of a British royal birth or the Lindbergh baby. King wanted to get to the riots and got there in a messy, stupid way. And one more point on Slam: Is he Thomasâ father? That was my reading an issue or two ago, and the timeline we have here doesnât do anything to change that possibility.
Matt: I too thought they were going there, but Slam seems to be confident that Richard was Bruceâs grandfather, and he isnât pulling any punches about anything else, so I donât see why he wouldnât have said it.
Will: Maybe Slam is an unreliable narrator and leaving some bits out? I could see that. I think an epitaph that we could agree on is that this is a competent noir series that occasionally (not frequently) rises above that level of minimal competence and makes some major, generally bad, detours from canon. That fair?
Matt: Absolutely. As I said in an episode of the podcast we recorded last night that will drop in a couple weeks, this series to me would have been 25% better if it was a straight noir and cut all the Batman trappings. Just a Lindbergh baby riff with a P.I.
Will: A straight up Slam Bradley detective story. Iâd buy that for a dollar â or more. And since you brought up Bats, his inclusion on the final page was underwhelming as hell. No interesting chat with Bradley or anything.
Matt: Nope, just there so you can justify the framing narrative.
Will: Final question: Whatâs one thing from this series you hope never shows up again?
Matt: The âoriginâ of the Batcave stuff. That and naming every freaking street, building and public restroom after some previous Batman creator. Itâs not cute any more, Tom King.
Mis-Fortune for Mystery Inc.
Matt: For all the different other Bat characters weâve seen across the Batman/Scooby-Doo team-ups, this issue seems to indicate that Mystery Inc. is the cornerstone of Batmanâs support system, yes? Riddler isnât thinking about keeping Robin or Nightwing or Batgirl from helping Batman. Nope, just the Scooby gang.
Will: And Batman seems like he has a real need for them, right? Like these arenât meddling kids but full-on partners. As this series continues, we get less and less of a need for why Mystery Inc. is in Gotham, and we simply accept that theyâre there. Gotta say, for the tone of this series, the partnership seems really natural. Also, Riddler looks great in a dress.
Matt: He really does. Eddie can rock a purple dress.
So much here is forcing Batman and the kids apart so they can come back together. Itâs a story we havenât gotten in this series, and so it was novel.
Will: And all of the good guys come off looking smart. Mystery Inc. figures out the medium is bullshit but follows the lead. Batman knows the gang isnât just taking the day off for no reason. And still everyone on the team wants to make sure Batman really knows whatâs up without tipping off the bad guys. Everyone is great here.
Matt: I loved the bit where all of them send Batman the same basic letter separately.
Will: Even Scooby!
Matt: It shows not just how loyal they are to their friends, but how in sync they are with each other. I love that little character beat.
Will: Outside of employing a faux fortune teller, Riddlerâs plot didnât seem to be all that complex here: just use a bunch of goons to steal lots and lots of money.
Matt: And that fortune teller is an established DC character, because The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries loves its DC history deep cuts. Madame Xanadu pals around with the Spectre and the Phantom Stranger, and is one of those immortal oracles that hang around most worlds with a fantasy element. And depending on what version of the character youâre reading, she may or may not be the Lady of the Lake of Arthurian legend.
Will: What a weird, delightful little thing this series continues to be. Hope we get another run of it down the road after this one wraps up.
Bat-miscellany
- This week on the podcast, weâre celebrating 40 years of Jason Todd.
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.
