In the ruins of the Orgham Tower, Batman faces down the Orgham prince, and on the surface, the next domino of the Orgham plan to conquer Gotham falls. The lead story in Detective Comics #1,073 is written by Ram V, penciled by Ivan Reis and Goran Sudzuka, inked by Danny Miki and Sudzuka, colored by Brad Anderson and lettered by Ariana Maher. In the backup, we see how far Arzen’s mother will go to make her son the man she wants him to be. Written by Dan Watters, drawn by Stefano Raffaele, colored by Lee Loughridge and lettered by Steve Wands.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #2 returns with::
- The second chapter of the retelling of the first confrontation between Batman and Joker in a story written by Tom King, drawn and colored by Mitch Gerads and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
- The new Stormwatch team fights an Atlantean separatist cell with a deadly biological weapon in a story written by Ed Brisson, drawn and colored by Jeff Spokes and lettered by Saida Temofante.
- Superman, not Clark Kent, goes on assignment for the Daily Planet in a story written by Christopher Cantwell, drawn and colored by Javier Rodriguez and lettered by Simon Bowland.
- And in a new Batman: Black and White story, Batman returns from the field wounded and contemplates the scars that litter his body. Story and art by Joelle Jones, and letters by Tom Napolitano.
It’s a journey down the rabbit hole of Edward Nashton’s slipping sanity. Riddler: Year One #5 is written by Paul Dano, drawn and colored by Stevan Subic and lettered by Clayton Cowles and Subic.
Will Nevin: Matt, I hope you one day have something you love as much as Tom King loves a nine- (or 12- or whatever) panel grid. We could all only hope to be so lucky.
Matt Lazorwitz: And let’s not forget naming things after previous creators! That is his other great love.
At least the intense formalism there is balanced out by a book that defies all traditional comic book form as well.
The Orghams Rise as Their Tower Falls
Matt: There’s something to be said for a story where Batman is caught on his back foot. It’s so often that he’s presented as unbeatable, that it’s interesting to watch someone outplan him. And the Orghams have come to Gotham with a plan that seems to be going pretty well for them and pretty poorly for Bruce.
Will: The nice thing about this story is that it has a certain self-awareness to it. “Oh, yes, Batman has been hunted before,” it says. But then it almost immediately subverts your expectations by doing something weird and/or totally batshit. This could be the best issue so far in Ram V’s run.
Matt: Ram finds a way to balance that comic book nonsense I love with a more grounded story that you love (I love the latter too, granted, but my tolerance for the former is higher). Oh, we have a mind control broadcast going out? Let’s focus on Jim Gordon trying to save Montoya. Batman is in a duel to the death with a well-trained opponent? That opponent pulls out the trump card of a demon gas he shoves in Batman’s face. The whole thing exists on a knife’s edge, and it’s perfect.
Will: And we nicely balance the frenetic, possibly jarring need to show the scope of the Orgham plot while also spending enough time with each of these little plots. Babs, Gordon, Nightwing — they each get a little moment to feel important to the story without disrupting the overall flow.
Matt: And as with all the issues of this run with multiple artists, this is nicely balanced. Goran Sudzuka deals with the stuff on the streets while Ivan Reis draws the battle between Batman and Arzen Orgham. Their styles are different, but by not having them cross the streams, so to speak, it doesn’t throw you out of the book.
Will: And they’re not so vastly different as to make this thing look piecemeal. I still think this will read better in trade, but I — like the rest of comic book internet — don’t have any real complaints about this book. Two-Face, as an example, only pops in for a second, but Ram gets the very most you can out of that second.
Matt: And at the end of the main story, we circle back to what has been teased since the beginning of the run: Barbatos offering Batman a Faustian bargain. And again, Batman says no. Willpower might be associated with Green Lanterns, but Bruce has it in spades too, and here we see him look the devil in the eye and spit in it. But with the Azmur now in his head, we will have to see how long he can maintain that. Batman is independent to a fault at times, and I think this chapter of the run will test that to the end.
Will: Again, it’s a fascinating way to play with the tropes we’ve seen over the decades. Yeah, we’ve seen Batman fall out of favor with the police and people of Gotham. But have we seen that *while* Batman is also being hounded by a literal demon inside his own head? Hooooboy, this is going to continue to be a must-read book.
Anthologies: Something For Everyone, Maybe?
Will: I’ll start with a thing that I didn’t hate: Bruce’s over-the-top frat boy shithead act. An older Bruce should be a more refined dilettante, but this ultra male fuckwit character works for this time in his life.
Matt: That was the best scene in the King/Gerads section of this book. It also shows how inexperienced Batman is, both in general and with Joker in particular. The Batman of the now would never put anyone’s life in danger like that, crook or not, especially when the Joker is involved.
Will: That’s the full extent of what works here, right? Because as we’ve said, the pair’s reliance on formalism is long past its sell-by date, and they’re not adding anything (so far) of significance to the story. I also thought adding his father’s suicide to Jim Gordon’s litany of trauma was a cruel and unnecessary step.
Matt: Yeah, Gordon reads very off here, and it made me realize how little King used Jim during his run on Batman. Eighty-plus issues and no memorable use of Jim Gordon tells me something was missing from that run. I also just couldn’t get over how bad Joker’s jokes were. And how so many of them were “My wife/girlfriend” jokes. I think there might be something there, thematically, about Joker and Batman’s relationship, but it’s not teased out, and if it’s not thematic, then it’s just dumb.
Will: I guess we have to be grateful for the One Good Thing, right? Aside from that and the parts that were frustrating, the rest of the King/Gerads story was just there, like it’s killing time, moving through the bits they have to get to — although I’m sensing a departure from the source material with Joker throwing Batman off a bridge. I’m just ready for this to be over.
Matt: Meanwhile, the next two stories are pretty much traditional superhero stories. Stormwatch is a shady team of anti-heroes and we get some cool, fun looking monster designs in there. And the Superman story is drawn by the incredible Javier Rodriguez, who blends a retro Silver Age style with amazing design and a very modern sense of layout.
Will: I know it’s somewhere in the Constitution that DC can’t have a recap page, but it would be so useful for these serialized stories. I want to get into ‘em — especially the Supes one — but I can’t remember what happened last month, and I’m also a bit too lazy to simply go back and reread the last issue. My life is so hard, Matt. The black and white short was … there and a good excuse for some pinups. Nothing wrong with that!
Matt: Yeah, Joelle Jones did a really nice job on the art there. As I’ve said before, Batman: Black and White stories exist for one of three reasons. 1) They are using the black and white for a cool effect. 2) You have an A-LIst creator who wants to do one. 3) You need to fill space. This is a 2. This didn’t need to be in black and white, but Jones is such a talented artist that it looks really gorgeous.
Diary of a Madman
Will: And now for something entirely different. Most of this issue takes the form of Riddler’s notebook, and as he falls deeper into mania and obsession, so do we, the readers. I dig this experimental shit, and I loved it here. I even read the faux newspaper column arguing that Gotham was a failed state on account of Batman challenging its monopoly on the use of authorized violence. The series continues to not be for everyone, but it’s for me, and, really, that’s what’s important.
Matt: This is a fascinating experiment. I wouldn’t want a whole series of this, but for one issue? It works. This book is going to be fascinating to read in trade: three pretty straightforward issues, a flashback issue, a found artifact issue and then whatever the last issue is. I think, as much as Jonathan Hickman has made the data page in comics the in thing for some circles, this pushes that conceit right to the breaking point but doesn’t quite push it through and shatter things. And it absolutely rests on Stevan Subic’s talents, because another artist, not even a lesser one but one with a different style, would not have been able to pull this off.
Will: When you send a monkey astronaut into space, Matt, you don’t skimp on the parts and labor. Well, at least not if you want Mr. Chuckles to come back in one piece. Subic does some great work, and kudos to DC editorial for getting him on this book. (Or, shit, who knows — maybe Dano is such a fucking boss at the sidegig to one of his sidegigs that he came to them with the artist he wanted.)
Matt: There is one thing I do feel like was missing from this issue, or was referenced briefly and wasn’t really given the focus I feel like it should have been given. I would have liked to see more of Edward recruiting his online followers. When we talked about this movie as a bonus episode on the BatChat Patreon, we both felt like Edward’s little online army was a swerve that didn’t have enough to back it up. I would have liked to spend more time here seeing him Svengali more of the disenfranchised of Gotham to drive home the point of what he can do.
Will: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think even in the movie, his followers are only in the hundreds — at least that’s what I remember from a screenshot. I think it would be a fascinating thing for this character to believe he has this groundswell of popular support when really he only has what amounts to nobody. And I caught that little note here of how he was so pleased with himself when he got his first follower.
Matt: Yeah, I think it was 700 and change. And when it comes to internet blowhards, what do you think? A tenth of them would be true believers rather than cowards who just like to sound off online? That would be a very liberal number.
Will: Seventy truly insane individuals would be enough to disrupt an event, but they’re not going to get you a city. Assuming we’re reading and thinking about this correctly, that makes The Batman’s take on viral popularity more realistic than something like the Joker — and to me, makes this depiction of Riddler a much more delusional and interesting character. I’ve said this before, but this is one series where I’d love to interview the author. Did this come from his prep work as an actor? Did he just have personal questions he wanted to answer? Does he have an interest in doing any more comics? (Please say yes to that last one, Paul.)
Bat-miscellany
- This week’s BatChat podcast follows the three runs we’re reading in order: Grant Morrison’s Batman, “No Man’s Land” and Injustice: Gods Among Us.
- Saw a trailer this weekend for a new movie where Paul Dano plays the guy who started the whole stock run on GameStop a couple years ago. Looking forward to seeing that.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. 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 creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
