The Gotham War is in full swing, and Batman is giving no quarter. The Bat family is siding against him, Catwoman is doing her best to maintain her word on protecting her crew and new players are moving into place. Batman #137 is written by Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Jorge Jimenez, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
The Faux Joker (Or is he?) begins to make his moves against those who have sided with Joker, while the various heroes who have been pursuing the Joker come together in The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #10, written by Matthew Rosenberg, drawn by Carmine Di Giandomenico, colored by Romulo Fajardo Jr. and lettered by Tom Napolitano. In the backup, the origin of Faux Joker is finally (maybe) revealed in a story written by Rosenberg, drawn and colored by Francesco Francavilla and lettered by Napolitano.
Weâre catching up on two issues of the series starring DCâs lovable loser, Peacemaker, who is on the hunt for the Brain to retrieve his dog, Bruce Wayne. See some glorious DC deep cuts, the usual Starks balance of comedy and pathos, and Michael the bee. Peacemaker Tries Hard #4 and 5 are written by Kyle Starks, drawn by Steve Pugh, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Becca Carey.
Will Nevin: This has nothing to do with Batman, but did you see the story about the diarrhea âall the way throughâ the plane international flight? Thatâs worse than your absolute worst travel nightmare, right?
Matt Lazorwitz: I had not, but thank you for something that will absolutely give me nightmares for the rest of my life.
Will: Youâre welcome, my dude!
Batmanâs back in Gotham
Matt: Weâve talked on this column and the podcast about how different interpretations of Batman can be valid. But the one interpretation that really raises my hackles is a Batman who is a borderline psycho. And Batman here has crossed the line. He is an unreasonable, Punisher-like juggernaut, and he seems to realize it but just canât or (worse yet) wonât stop himself.
Will: The ever-so-marginal benefit of the doubt Iâll give this story is that it does feature Zur-En-Arrh, so maybe we canât be sure whoâs at the Bat helm right now. But otherwise? What a fucking unlikable mess.
Matt: I did wonder about that. Zur-En-Arrh appears to be in his cage, but whoâs to say he isnât popping out and influencing Bruce? It is the only way Iâll accept him beating the ever-loving hell out of the Bat family.
I do have another theory though, and bear with me on this one. What if itâs the hand? That mechanical hand was grafted on by Dark Knight Returns Batman, who isnât the most stable iteration of Batman to begin with, and as we saw there, each of the other Batmans that Prime-Batman encountered has a Zur-En-Arrh. What if the Dark Knight of Zur-En-Arrh embedded some kind of Hatter tech in there that is subtly (or not so subtly) influencing our Batman, pushing him harder?
Will: If Batman is going to have an out â some way for us to still sympathize with the character after this story â it needs to be something like that. I mean, a lot of this issue reads more like a role reversal of Injustice rather than a main universe Bat title. And Batman uses violence on nonviolent, non-threatening criminals. Blech. Just like last time, I donât care for this story, Brother Matt.
Matt: I was more willing to give this the benefit of the doubt, but it is quickly losing that for me. We have a violent, borderline Batman and a Catwoman who is naive to a fault. Here we see her breaking her people out of jail but leaving her homebase open to attack, which isnât good. And how many jailbreaks can she facilitate before she is Public Enemy #1 on Commissioner Montoyaâs hit list?
And we have the page where we see a roundtable of many of Gothamâs top-tier rogues deciding itâs time to put a stop to this. This was an inevitability, right? Selina took away all their toys. These guys arenât going to take that lying down, and I have a feeling theyâd rather break them all then let someone else play with them, and not one of these guys would share Selinaâs compunction about lethal force.
Will: What did she think they were going to do? Mosey on to some other city? We almost need the same Batman eight-week contrived sleep for the super criminal heavies because they wouldnât twiddle their thumbs while all the labor dried up. Donât you think theyâd start asking questions? And speaking of questions and convenient solutions, do you remember years and years and years ago when Bruce Wayneâs fortune dried up? That problem randomly came back this week!
Matt: Yes, because the story demanded it. Now, we last saw Vandal Savage over in Detective Comics right before Knight Terrors made everything grind to a halt for two months. So are we going to start seeing some cohesion within the Batman family of titles? This weekâs Joker talks about the henchperson shortage, so weâre seeing it there, too. But I donât know how, despite the two books playing with similar themes, the âGotham Nocturneâ arc can be taking place at the same time as everything going on in this book. Itâs just too much at one time, and thatâs OK as long as you donât draw attention to it. How could Batman have spent weeks away after âFailsafeâ and still be dealing with the Orghams? The timeline just doesnât work.
Will: I *almost* feel sorry for editorial because either you have one story that stretches over two books â which robs one of its identity â or a continuity mess like this.
Matt: So weâre going to have at least three factions by the end of the war, and as many as five. Batman, Catwoman and the United Underworld are a lock. We saw Riddler during Part 1, and he could either ally himself with one faction or another or be playing his own game. And now Vandal Savage. But I feel like Savage is just being introduced here to set up things in the future or for over in âTec, which seems a waste of page space when your whole big event is only eight issues.
Will: It sure does. I get the idea that you want to show Batman as being beset on all sides, but at a certain point, it seems like putting a cowl on a cowl. Do you get the sense that Savage knowing the answer to The Question is meaningful in any way? Is that what weâre supposed to get out of this?
Matt: Maybe? Grant Morrison, in stuff we havenât gotten to on the podcast yet, sets up a rivalry between Batman and Savage, so Zdarsky might play off that. But at this point it feels like everyone knows The Secret. Most of the rogues gallery seems to already, so Savage canât recruit with that promise. Short of him outing Batman to the public, that threat doesnât mean much. Writers have done such a good job of stripping everything from Bruce Wayne that he doesnât have anyone a villain can use as leverage who isnât a costumed crime fighter. It does, as you say, just feel like a cowl on a cowl at this point.
Will: Cliches are better with a little creativity, right?
Jokerâs back in Gotham, too
Will: Did we actually get an answer in this issue as to who this Faux Joker is? Because it feels like we did, and I still donât trust it.
Matt: Iâm not 100% sure. We seem to have gotten the origin of how Faux Joker was created, but since both Jokers believe theyâre the real Joker, and since Faux Joker seems to be the immortal metahuman even though he says he created that other Joker, and that the created Joker is the immortal one ⌠I think we have the building blocks of the answer, but with any Joker being an unreliable narrator, I think we need an actual answer from a third party here.
Will: It makes perfect sense that 1) The answer would come from a backup and 2) You can plausibly read the backup as Joker imagining this birth of Faux Joker as a comic book story since, well, I donât think it would *actually* be in Wonder Woman.
Matt: That is indeed how I read it; this is Joker (or Faux Joker) pushing his memories onto the comic book page, and the cover being a completely not Bat-related comic is the hint to that.
Will: Again, the backup is the real star of this series and has been from the very beginning. Iâd like to petition editorial for the third volume â if there is one â to be nothing but these neon-soaked delusions. You know it would sell.
Matt: It would, and if they did it Legends of the Dark Knight style? Name one creator who wouldnât want a chance to write a completely crazy Joker story. I canât think of one.
Will: Well, we could both think of creators we wouldnât want on that hypothetical book, but I agree, most would bite on that. Everyone thinks they have a Joker story to tell. The event layoff didnât help this series, for sure, but I still canât get invested in this story. It always feels like eating my vegetables to get to the backup dessert.
Matt: I feel like a broken record, but the scene that I felt the most interested in was when Red Hood, Spoiler and Manhunter formed the Joker Revenge Squad. That is what this book should have been. Remove the two Jokers. Have the Joker fulfill the promise of the first issue of the series where heâs killing people around the country who commit crimes so Gotham is the special city of crime, and have a ragtag group of heroes pursue him. Thatâs a more engaging concept, and one that never paid off. Why introduce that whole thing in the first two issues and then completely ignore it?
Will: How come we never, ever get what we want? Are our ideas that bad?
Peacemaker Is nowhere near Gotham
Matt: Now, after venting our spleens for two segments of this column, we can sit back and relax and just enjoy the madness of Kyle Starks writing Peacemaker.
Will: Itâs just tits, Matt. The best. I even enjoyed the lettering. Me! A guy who usually hates even noticing the lettering!
Matt: Weâre catching up on two issues here, and so we have two issues of madness. I donât know what I loved more: an appearance of one of my favorite deep-cut DC villains, Snowflame (who has also popped up on Harley Quinn this season, so that cut isnât as deep as it used to be) or emo teen Deathstroke. This might be the only version of Deathstroke I have ever liked.
Will: What do you have against baby Deathstroke? Do you hate babies, Matt? The people deserve an answer.
But, yeah, Snowflame was an *excellent* choice to pop into this book. And I love how flexible DC is willing to be with Peacemaker. Yeah, heâs bi and has tried coke. What of it? Everything in these two issues that works is just Starks at his best: effortless, zany comedy punctuated with the right emotional beats. I will say, though, I was surprised we didnât have more time to memorialize Michael the bee. RIP, Michael. RIP.
Matt: We have one issue left! I think Red Bee and Peacemaker will pour one out for Michael.
I love that Starks seeded the War Wheel in Red Beeâs flashback in issue #4 to see it pay off in issue #5. Tying his tragedy into The Brain? Love it. Oh, excuse me; Warmaker.
Will: Gotta say, if this had been five issues instead of six and it had ended simply with Bruce Wayne eating The Brain? All-time classic finish right there. But I guess weâre not ready for that much awesome, so theyâll fight Brain/Chemo, kick that blobâs ass and have a birthday/funeral combo event next issue. I can live with that.
Matt: Honestly? When Michael the bee stung Warmaker (who is Brain in a cloned Deathstroke body), I was assuming until the page turn that Deathstroke had a bee allergy and he was going to just drop dead from that. That seemed like a very Starks beat. But giant chemical sludge monster also is.
Will: Now I want Starks to rewrite this as a Choose Your Own Adventure book. How awesome would that be?
Matt: If they did that as a trade with multiple Clue type endings? I would buy it again in a heartbeat.
Will: One day, one of our wacky cool ideas is gonna happen. I can feel it.
Bat-miscellany
- The BatChat pod is back after a week off with retellings of the first Batman story, âThe Case of the Chemical Syndicate.â
- If you get a kick out of Brain and Mallah in Peacemaker, you should check out episode 5 of My Adventures with Superman for a much sweeter take on the two.
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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.
