Gotham is on fire, and worse is coming. Vandal Savage’s plan is about to reach fruition, and while he has promised an army of theives immortality, what he is planning is much darker. After all he has done to them, the Bat family and Catwoman must set aside their differences with Batman to save the city in Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War: Scorched Earth #1, written by Tini Howard and Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Mike Hawthorne, inked by Adriano Di Benedetto and colored by Romulo Fajardo Jr.
And we have a double dose of Detective Comics.
Issue #1,075 finds a harried Batman, deep in his own losses, hunted by the GCPD and the Orgham family to the last place of refuge he can find in a story written by Ram V, drawn and colored by Francesco Francavilla and lettered by Ariana Maher. In the backup, in the days following the death of the Waynes, two very different forces vie for young Bruce’s attention in a story written by Dan Watters, drawn by Aaron Campbell, colored by Patricia Delpeche and lettered by Steve Wands.
The “Batman, Wanted” arc kicks off in Issue #1,076. The Orghams have Batman in their clutches, and he is soon to be hanged. Catwoman is preparing a last ditch effort to pull a heist, and the prize is the Dark Knight himself. The lead story is written by Ram V, drawn by Jason Shawn Alexander, colored by Dave Stewart and lettered by Ariana Maher. This issue features three backup stories featuring the Question, Azrael and an old foe returning. The backups are written by Dan Watters and Ram V, drawn by Christopher Mitten, Liam Sharp and Ram V, colored by Trionna Farrell, Sharp and Ram V and lettered by Steve Wands and Aditya Biditkar.
Will Nevin: Whelp. Looks like we got us another Joker story on the horizon. DC editorial can’t stay away from him for too long, can they?
Matt Lazorwitz: It’s starting the same week that the current Joker maxi-series is ending. There wasn’t even the couple months off in between the Tynion Joker and the Rosenberg one that we got last time. Someday, someone will remember that Joker works best in small doses. Someday…
No Resolution Is Not a Good Solution
Matt: And so “Gotham War” ends, and it ends… with something of a whimper, I think.
Will: We get teased that two legacy characters, Red Hood and Catwoman, might die, but those thoughts can’t linger for more than a couple of panels before they’re dismissed — although for whatever marginal storytelling benefit it might be worth, the wider world of Gotham might believe Catwoman to be dead. In any case, nothing is resolved. Gotham is once more saved from some calamity that threatened to obliterate it. We didn’t even make peace within the family. And, oh, Joker is back for the next LAST JOKER STORY EVER. Nothing. Ever. Changes.
Matt: We’ve talked about this before, and any comics reviewer or journalist has as well: mainstream superhero comics are cyclical. Death has no meaning in and of itself. What death has to do is drive either story or emotion. And you could argue that the writers here know that, hence the quick reversals, but I don’t feel like either are driving much. Again, Catwoman might be a different book for a while, but I don’t know that for sure. And let’s not forget Vandal Savage might be dead. That’s a major change. Oh, wait, his whole shtick is that he’s immortal, so odds are he’s still alive, too? Dammit.
I truly don’t know what the point of this whole event was. It starts out seeming to be about questions of different ways to deal with criminality, and about the wedges Batman drives between himself and the family. But once Vandal Savage shows up, it really becomes about another scheme entirely and all the heinous stuff Batman did is forgotten. This last part of the story is mostly interchangeable with the climax of most other of these recent Batman events. And the conclusion of the Red Hood miniseries, which we will mention only in a cursory capacity because that’s all it deserves, is really just The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #11.5, bridging the gap between what Jason was doing in “Gotham War” and what he has been doing in that book.
Will: What’s the record for callbacks to previous issues? Because Red Hood #2 was a serious contender for the crown. What an absolute waste of time. I get that it was trying to fill in a few gaps…but if you have to basically retell the whole story, you’re going to lose my attention and goodwill at some point. And mine was gone by the time it tied into The Joker.
Matt: And there was HUGE potential for that issue. I wouldn’t have minded the recap if you were retelling the events after Bruce mindfucked Jason from Jason’s point of view. Dig into exactly how Jason feels, what his now constant flight rather than fight reflex is doing to him. And when Scarecrow and Joker show up at the end, we now have a really good feel for what that means. Instead we spend most of the issue not even with Jason, but with everyone else in his orbit. How flat is that?
So, before we move away from this event, I have two questions that are left dangling at the end. You ready for the first one?
Will: Ready as I will ever be, friendo.
Matt: Dick says to Bruce that they believe Zur-En-Arrh is affecting him. Bruce says it’s not. And we see narration from Zur saying he’s not. Do we take that as influence, or is that just Zur agreeing with Bruce. Because as we’ve said, having Zur be behind all the crappy stuff Bruce has done in this event is a copout, but it is the only way to maybe absolve him.
Will: This is part of the thing that has me cheesed about no resolution to this story. I took a peeksie at the solicit for next week’s Batman, and wouldn’t ya know, it’s still talkin’ about Zur. So this is a question that doesn’t have an answer as of now, and with our luck, it never will. But it’s hard to square what Bruce did to Jason if it’s really Zur behind the wheel. Seems like Zur would have just put Jason down with force and been done with it. Unless he also wanted to torture him — which seems like a distinct possibility.
Matt: Or the more “humane” resolution is Bruce fighting the influence of Zur: If Zur was completely at the wheel, he would have just killed him, but this is Bruce doing the best he can.
Now second, we have the coda to this issue, where one of Selina’s thieves breaks into the Wayne brownstone and finds out that Bruce is Batman. The question here is: Does that even matter? I may come off as facetious here, but who doesn’t know anymore? The family knows. The Foxes know. Gordon, even if he won’t admit it, knows. Most of the big name rogues know: Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Ra’s, Bane. Does someone else knowing really change the game?
Will: When someone unimportant deduces, divines or discovers the answer to The Great Secret, we usually see their lifespan become quite a bit shorter. So I’m guessing that guy will try to parlay this little bit of information into something big, only for it to bite him right in his thieving ass. Or maybe this will never be followed up on again.
Matt: I feel if someone learns The Secret it, again, needs to be a prime mover of plot or character, like death. And that can be done right, as we’ll talk about in a second.
A Two-Fer We Could Use More Of
Matt: How can I find Batman so endlessly frustrating, while Detective is the best Bat book since… Tynion’s Detective run at the beginning of Rebirth? Maybe even go back farther to Snyder’s Batman run? This is intricate, this is emotional, this is smart. This is everything I want from a Batman comic.
Will: And it’s pretty, don’t forget it being pretty! It’s so hard to get an intellectual book in Big 2 superheroes, but boy, this is one of them. The pacing, the story, the characters — they’re all good here. If there’s any complaint, it’s that it’s too much, especially in #1,076. Between the main story and the multiple excellent backups, it’s hard for my brain to focus on one bit of awesomeness alone.
Matt: So let’s take these one at a time. Issue 1,075 is really the end of Act 2 of “Gotham Nocturne,” and we got one of the GOAT Batman artists coming on here, Francesco Francavilla.I thought I would never want to read a Bruce talks to his younger self scene again, but how Francavilla draws it, the anguish on both their faces, it sings. More than in other Bat titles that are exploring a similar theme, the way Francavilla draws Batman you can almost feel the exhaustion, the loss of hope, radiating off of him.
Will: I’m a guy who likes house style, I really do. (Although the concluding chapter of “Gotham War” was a *rough* approximation of it.) And sometimes, I find the books that go out of their way to do something different, say, Batman & Robin, produce more distractions and annoyances than anything else. But, Lord, let me live long enough to see more Francavilla Batman work. That stuff was beautiful.
Matt: And this issue gives us a moment that is absolutely beautiful. At his lowest, at his darkest, Bruce flees to a grave to seek comfort. But it’s not Thomas and Martha, no. This time, he goes to the one person who was always there for him: Alfred. That broke my heart in just the right way.
Will: *sigh* One day, we’ll have Alfred back. But let’s go back to that expertly crafted transition you threw in there. I was ready to believe our Secret Files detective was going to be a big player in this story…until his turncoat partner iced him. Cold, cold move. But super effective storytelling.
Matt: It showed both how ruthless the Orghams are and how they are completely untrustworthy. And then Arzen Orgham learns The Secret too, and the revelation that Batman is Bruce Wayne, the one person he was starting to think of as a friend and kindred spirit, starts a crack in his facade and leads us into the events of the next movement of this symphony. But not before a superb backup juxtaposing Alfred’s kindness and the Demon Barbatos’ cold comfort after the death of the Waynes. We’ve been seeing Barbatos since the start of this run, and each time it dances with all these questions. We know Barbatos is a bad bad dude, but the question of whether he is lesser of two evils has never been louder than here.
Will: Here’s a fun story idea for someone to play with: What if Zur is just a manifestation of Barbatos? I know that’s not what this is going for, but that’d still be a neat idea to explore. And as far as whether he’s the lesser of two evils, there’s the question too of what Barbatos would demand in return for helping to fight off the azmer. Bruce is really out of options here…and he’s not even on the gallows yet.
Matt: And that moves us into #1,076, the first part of “Gotham Nocturne, Intermezzo: Batman, Wanted.” This is a double-sized issue with four stories, and there’s just so much in here! We get a lead story that is setting up the plot of the arc, then a backup with the Question, a backup with Azrael and his crew, and a two-pager bringing back a villain we haven’t seen in a number of years who slots so perfectly into this story that I’m surprised I hadn’t seen it coming. But that’s how a really good story works, isn’t it? You get a big twist that makes perfect sense.
Will: A good twist is surprising but reasonable, a curve in the story arc that bends but doesn’t break and is never simply thrown in for the sake of a shock. The Question story, man, that was the shit. Give me more of that. But I’ll be honest: I couldn’t place that villain there at the end. Who’s the mystery man?
Matt: OK, SPOILERS in the next exchange, so move along if you want the twist at the end of #1,076 not spoiled for you.
You have only encountered him once before, actually, and haven’t gotten to the story that ties him into Barbatos, but that is Doctor Hurt of “Batman: R.I.P.” Later in the Morrison run, it’s revealed he has longevity because he is a disciple of Barbatos. So it makes perfect sense he’s back, and someone who was a master of manipulation seems to be a perfect foil to the Orghams, someone who might use their machinations to his own devices. And since it feels like Vandal Savage was just inserted in this series to set up his part in “Gotham War” and isn’t going to be a factor moving forward, it doesn’t add a hat on a hat of another long-lived villain.
Will: Your encyclopedic knowledge of all things Bat never ceases to amaze. One thing I liked in the main story was a subtle bit of explanation when it came to the reality engine. In our world–or even in the comic book realm of the DC universe–people don’t get summarily executed by the government for their crimes. But this bit of magic/tech is reshaping what people consider to be real, so the unthinkable is possible. I don’t need a lot of exposition, but it’s nice to have some when the alternative is a story that doesn’t make any sense.
Matt: And color me a sucker for this kind of thing, but that story is basically Catwoman preparing for a heist, only what she’s heisting is going to be Batman. I love a good heist story, and here we get Selina reaching out to contacts, preparing her plan. I’m hoping next issue we see her gather the rest of her crew, and then we get the heist in the back half of the arc.
Will: Catwoman should only be involved in heist stories. Forever.
Matt: And as to the backups, yes, that Question was exactly what I want in a Montoya story now. So often, cops who are also vigilantes compartmentalize those lives without thinking. Here we see Renee struggling with whether the commissioner of police can also be a superhero.
We had some problems with GCPD: The Blue Wall in how it handled Montoya’s alcoholism, and here I felt like it was handled much better. The Question identity is in some ways a substitute for alcohol: She stopped drinking when she started training to be the new Question. She even seems to admit it to herself: “Between the mask and the bottle.” Addicts find other addictions sometimes as part of recovery, more healthy ones, and Montoya seeing that is a great character note.
Will: The idea of a cop working outside of the law is pretty standard fare, but it’s interestingly dressed up here with the superhero identity. The case as presented here reminded me of the infamous “cannibal cop,” and I thought our suspect might have been guilty of only being a sick fuck as well — that would have been an interesting wrinkle.
Matt: And Azrael being back is a good thing. We loved how Sword of Azrael ended, and it felt like a new world for that character, and here he is, back and far more stable. When you have three characters and AZRAEL is the most together… that’s quite a thing.
Will: Good luck, Gotham!
Matt: It would be so easy to just set Azrael back to where he was, but since Dan Watters is continuing Azrael’s story, we see him working to try to be an angel of mercy, even if his mercy is a bit more lethal than one might hope for. But I haven’t gotten the impression there’s a way back from full azmer possession, so that might be a mercy after all.
Will: You just get the sense that all of the toys in the ‘Tec toy box are in good hands, and that there’s a plan that, while we don’t have all the details at the moment, it’s going to make sense at the end, and it will have been worth our time to get there. I don’t think we can say the same of all the Bat books.
Bat-miscellany
- This week’s BatChat podcast features three more team-ups of Batman ‘66 with other properties: The Green Hornet, The Avengers (the British ones) and Archie and the Riverdale gang.
- As much as it was fan service, Tim being smart enough to know how to take out all the Bat and rogue gadgets and passing the info onto the family? That was fan service targeted squarely at me, and I loved it.
- Holding your breath? Pretty effective countermeasure against fear gas!
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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.
