Batman prepares to make his move to stop the Orghams and their plans for Gotham as Talia finishes telling him about the connection between her family and theirs. The lead story in Detective Comics #1,071 is written by Ram V; penciled by Stefano Raffaele, Ivan Reis and Eduardo Pasarin; inked by Raffaele, Danny Miki, Joe Prado, Julio Ferreira and Juan Castro; colored by Brad Anderson and Adriano Lucas; and lettered by Ariana Maher. In the backup, Dr. Mead tells Mr. Freeze exactly what she thinks about him. Written by Si Spurrier, drawn and colored by Caspar Wijngaard and lettered by Steve Wands.
We step back farther into the past, seeing the full history of young Edward Naston in the Gotham child services system. Itâs ⌠about as good as youâd expect. Riddler: Year One #4 is written by Paul Dano, drawn and colored by Stevan Subic and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
What starts out as a normal night on Tim Drakeâs houseboat turns into something much weirder and wilder as Batwoman crashes the party. Tim Drake: Robin #8 is written by Meghan Fitzmartin, drawn by Nikola ÄiĹžmeĹĄija, colored by Lee Loughridge and lettered by Tom Napolitano.
Will Nevin: Riddler for me and a Tim Drake Robin book for you. Matt, we are back on our bullshit this week.
Matt Lazorwitz: Damn right we are! Good times to be had by all.
Take Your Seats for Act II
Matt: So, If my surmise that we are using an operatic structure for this story is correct, we have started the second half, as this is marked as Part 1 of âGotham Nocturne: Act II.â And while I continue to love the wide, operatic scope of this run, I think we have reached maximum saturation on characters. I have always been surprised by the lack of conflict between Ra’s al Ghul and DCâs other world-conquering immortal, Vandal Savage, so while Iâm glad to see Savage around, I think weâre full up on villains and itâs time for Batman to start dealing with all these guys.
Will: What are the important deets on Vandal Savage? Also, how do you feel about tying in Raâs so closely to the new Orgham characters?
Matt: Vandal Savage is one of the oldest characters in DC Comics, both in and out of world. He was a Golden Age Green Lantern enemy, introduced in 1943, and is a literal caveman. He was a neanderthal who was exposed to a fallen meteor that evolved him into something closer to human and made him mostly immortal. His immortality fades over centuries and he has to re-expose himself to the meteor and/or replace his organs with those of his descendants, of which he has many; he claims he was literally Genghis Khan, so you know how much that guy got around. He has worked with or been, under other names, many of historyâs greatest despots and dictators (hence the Genghis Khan thing).
As for Raâs and the Orghams ⌠Iâm not sure how I feel about it. I am perfectly OK with these immortal characters having multiple origins and backstories. Not only does that give them an air of mystery, since after 700 years, so many of those details are lost to time, but why wouldnât Raâs spread disinformation to keep those fighting him off kitler and off his track? On the other hand, I always worry when a new origin is so tied to ONE story, because it feels like it will just be immediately retconned out or ignored by the next creators involved. But on the other hand, it might feel weird if itâs a new immortal, because the question would then be, âWhy not just use Raâs?â Thatâs three hands already, so I better stop.
Will: Thatâs too many hands, Matt! I tend not to like tying established characters so closely to new ones because, you know, if Batman had a best frenemy of 20 or so years, youâd think Ghost-Maker would have come before. But I digress into things that make my head hurt. Youâre right that Savage seems organic in this story, as does a lot of the other mysticism we have here. If thereâs anyone who can make werewolves and a whole heap of immortals work in a Batman story, itâs Ram V.
Matt: Could not agree more. Ram Vâs writing always has scope, even when heâs telling a smaller, more ground-level story like he did in Catwoman, but here heâs getting to play on a much bigger canvas. And now that we have all the details of the Orghamsâ history, the metaphorical story ball is rolling nicely downhill. Thatâs not to say there are no mysteries.
Will: Absolutely not! I still think Batman is going to have to cross some line or tap into something darker to beat the Orghams. What will the consequences of that be? How will the Orghams continue to be involved in Gotham? Will Alfred *ever* come back? Lots of things to look forward to.
Matt: And the backups. We still donât know what connection our mysterious unnamed young man has to all of this. And we can also look forward to more less-than-traditional superhero art. We said it before, but Caspar Wijngaard truly blows that story out of the water.
Will: That guy? Very good at comics. Very good.
What Is Never in Front of You but Always Behind You?
Will: Another Riddler, another win for olâ Will. Iâm still love, love, loving this book ⌠*but* taking an entire issue to explore Eddieâs stint in the orphanage â as intriguing as it might be â seems a little self-indulgent in the fourth installment of a six-part miniseries.
Matt: It is a bit, but I think, if Dano has written out the entire backstory of young Edward Nashton and wanted to get to it all, then putting this here was smarter than starting off with it. I donât think this would have worked as an issue #1; it would read too slow and as too much setup. Putting it here feels like something to flesh out Eddie as weâve already established him. I donât think it was necessary by any means, but I see the reasoning at least.
Will: To me, this really underlined some of the subtext that was already present in the story. The Wayne orphanage â like all Gotham institutions â is a corrupt and miserable place full of cruelty. But Eddie fixates on Thomas Wayne as an escape, much like an adult Edward will see Batman as a savior from the criminal enterprise he finds himself stuck in. Neither will come to his rescue, so he turns on both.
Matt: Yes, this establishes why Edward just is so angry at the Renewal Fund. Itâs not just systemic corruption; itâs systemic corruption that took away his hope as a child. That has to add a larger sting to all this.
The note I personally am still ruminating on is the fact that his mother died in Arkham. With this version of Martha Wayne having mental health issues, that does draw a parallel between Bruce and Edward as well, again showing the haves vs. the have-nots. But it also seems a bit on the nose, especially since Edward the orphanâs life is so different from Bruce the orphanâs.
Will: Edwardâs motherâs death is something that strangely doesnât get a lot of attention aside from the one scene, but I think itâs clearly drawing those same sort of parallels. Dano is walking right up to the line of beating the readers about the head and face, but I think itâs important to show just how much Edward was fixating on these things in his life. The art too emphasizes a sense of unwellness, just as this series has done from the beginning.
Matt: I like the expressionistic art, but there are times I wish certain scenes were a little clearer. Did Edward blow up a bunch of bullies? Like blow them up dead?
Will: Itâs ⌠uhh ⌠choose your own adventure/interpretation? That would have flowed more clearly if we saw the consequences for those actions and had a scootch more exposition.
Matt: I thought that was what was coming on the next page when the headmaster showed up, but that was the Thomas Wayne bit. I donât think leaving it up to interpretation is the worst thing, but making it more clear would establish just how broken Edward was already before any of the stuff with Thomas even happened. The living conditions are so truly awful, I couldnât blame him.
Will: When the orphanage staff drown rats as a form of therapy and the other children make you smash a turtle to death for sport, shit is pretty fucked. And, man, was that ever a creepy panel of making eye contact with that poor turtle.
Matt: Shivers, man. Shivers.
The Queerest Dynamic Duo
Matt: Itâs been a while since Kate Kane has been in the spotlight. She was in an arc of Harley Quinn referenced here, and thatâs about it for the past year or two. Iâm happy to see her back, and as part of the queerest Dynamic Duo of all.
Will: Batwoman is one of those characters who seems to be all or nothing in terms of what DC is doing with her. Maybe she gets the exceptional standalone title that gets a 20-or-so issue run, or maybe she gets to star in an ensemble book like Tynionâs âTec. Otherwise, it seems like she doesnât exist. But hell of a way to reintroduce her, huh? Falling out of the damn sky onto the deck of Timâs boat.
Matt: I also feel like Warner went whole hog with a TV show that came out just as the Arrowverse was starting to wind down, and we get the corporate synergistic idea of, âOh, the TV show didnât do gangbuster numbers, so no one cares that much,â not thinking that 1/20th of a TV audience would be huge comic numbers. Heck 1/100th would be.
Will: I think seven people buying a non-Big Two comic is probably enough to affect the sales data, and the actual comics part of Detective Comics Comics is not much more than a rounding error to Warner Bros. Discovery. But they donât ask me for my opinion about these sorts of things. I gotta say, with your love of Tim Drake, Iâm kinda surprised we havenât covered this already ⌠or if we have, my tiny brain has forgotten it. What were we talking about again?
Matt: Yeah, I covered the first issue or two with our buddy Armaan Babu, but the field of Bat titles has been so packed, we havenât been able to squeeze it in here. Glad weâre in a valley of the release of Bat titles so we could get to it, especially as this kicks off the final arc, and ties back into the original Urban Legends serial that started Timâs most recent character journey.
I think, for you as a reader jumping in here, you got a decent starting place here. You met Timâs supporting cast and saw his new home before Kate crashed the party.
Will: I donât think Tim is old enough to be a boatman â he needs much more grizzle and sun-damaged skin for that â but itâs something different, isnât it? I liked how we had a quick cameo from the boyfriend before all the action started, and the other supporting characters ⌠have I seen Sparrow before?
Matt: I donât think so. She was one of Duke Thomasâ We Are Robin crew, although she was mostly a background character there. Fitzmartin used her in Future State: Robin Eternal, and then she became part of Timâs present day cast in issue #1.
We have some mysteries here, which is where Tim works best. What happened that Kate doesnât remember the past few months? Why are the Chaos Monsters, the enemies Tim made in that Urban Legends arc, suddenly back? And what does that last page cliffhanger mean?
Will: Does seem to be rather bad for Kate, doesnât it?
Matt: I mean, how much can you trust a dude who is literally a Chaos Monster? But no, It doesnât. Or Sparrow. Or Timâs GCPD contact, Detective Williams. Not a good day to be an ally of Tim.
Will: At least Kate didnât sink his boat?
Matt: True. I loved seeing Nikola ÄiĹžmeĹĄija jumping onto the art duties on this book after his tour-de-force on Sword of Azrael, even if just for the last arc. Riley Rossmo, who did the first six issues, is an artist I love, but his super weird style didnât fit this book. And last issueâs one-off was fine, but this? This looks really nice. ÄiĹžmeĹĄija does a great job with the character work here, on top of the Chaos Monsters looking truly creepy.
Bat-miscellany
- This week on the podcast, we get to work out our frustrations on one of Batmanâs more overblown rogues: Hush.
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.
