Batman possessed by Zur, a demon and his love for Catwoman in BatChat

After hearing Joker’s tale, Batman is determined to escape the prison Zur has left him in. And Zur is out, in the body of Failsafe, claiming to be Batman and enforcing his new form of justice. “Dark Prisons” begins in Batman #145, written by Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Jorge Jimenez, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles. In the backup, the story from “Joker: Year One” continues as we see more of the Joker’s time with Dr Captio is a story written by Zdarsky, drawn by Michele Bandini, colored by Alex Sinclair and lettered by Cowles.

Batman wanders the desert, fighting the Azmer demon inside him while being tempted by Dr. Hurt. The Question and Batgirl fight the forces of the Orghams in Gotham, trying to learn the truth while hanging on desperately to their memories of the way the city should be. The lead story of Detective Comics #1,082 is written by Ram V, drawn by Riccardo Federici and Stefano Raffaele, colored by Lee Loughridge and lettered by Tom Napolitano. In the backup, the support group of those wounded by Dr. Hurt arrives at a masquerade held in the villain’s honor, and more of his horrors are revealed in a story written by Dan Watters, drawn by Christopher Mitten, colored by Triona Farrell and lettered by Steve Wands.

Catwoman is a thief. Someone is stealing expensive cat-themed jewels around Gotham. For Mystery Inc., this all adds up to Catwoman being guilty. But Batman swears she has reformed. Which of our mystery solvers is correct? The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #3 is written by Ivan Cohen, drawn by Dario Brizuela, colored by Franco Riesco and lettered by Saida Temofonte.

Will Nevin: So it’s out this week (we’ll get to it next week!), and while I haven’t read it yet, I’m simultaneously excited by and ready to be disappointed in The Bat-Man: First Knight. I’m like an Oscar voter: Give me that good period shit! 

Matt Lazorwitz: This is such a weird project! No one has said it absolutely, but this absolutely feels like Batman-5G, since Dan Jurgens, who is writing this, wrote the Generations miniseries featuring a period Batman that was supposed to jumpstart 5G, and that was quietly ignored when that was shelved. So is this something that has been sitting around, waiting to be published? Or did Jurgens have a bunch of ideas and eventually pitched it as a Black Label and DC said sure, why not? That’s a lot of backstage hijinks that won’t affect the actual quality of the book, but it just reminds you how wild comic publishing is. 

Will: Even for a corporate operation that should have its shit together.

Batman in Chains

Will: Boy howdy, I sure do love the start of this arc that feels totally new and different and exciting!

Matt: I’m trying to figure out how much sarcasm is there. I will say, after “Joker: Year One,” this did feel like a breath of fresh air.

Will: Yeah, but it’s like a burst of airplane cabin AC — this is shit that’s starting to recirculate. We’ve seen Batman fight Failsafe. We’ve seen him fight Zur. Now he’s fighting a Zur in Failsafe, and Gotham is once again under siege. Yawn. Big, gaping, all-teeth yawn. I like that we remember Mayor Nakano exists. That was different. Not so much with the rest.

Matt: OK, I was worried we were going to disagree here. You hit the nail on the head: This is taking everything we’ve seen in this run and sort of distilling it: For our readers who know anime (and I know very little, but Dragonball Z used to play on Cartoon Network, the one channel we could keep on, when I worked in the comic shop, so I can drop this reference) this is this run’s Perfect Form. It feels like we’ve been building to this, and with six issues down the line being #150, I think we’re at, if not the end of Zdarsky’s run, the end of everything the past 25 issues have been building to.

I was glad to see Nakano again, and I did like seeing him interact with Montoya. He was a patrol officer, not even a detective, who found his way to be mayor. So he went from being three rungs or so down the chain of command to being well above her, even with her promotion, so seeing the tension of her using his first name familiarly, and then him reminding her to call him Mayor Nakano, was smart writing.

I wanted to like the stuff that brings in the Batfamily more, but it doesn’t feel any different either. They’re just sitting around and wondering if this is Bruce, Zur or something else. Which is what we’ve been getting since “Gotham War.” I am curious why Zur is suddenly playing nice with the family: He had no problem piloting Bruce at them brutally. Why is he now trying to win them over? But it’s little details that I’m curious about, not anything to do with the bigger narrative, because it’s same ol’ same ol’.

Will: There’s a line between tying up themes and ideas into a pretty bow and simply retreading the same tired ground, and as this arc starts, we’re definitely on the bad side of that there line. Maybe if this run had included some quieter moments, maybe if it had some different beats in there, it would be different. I feel like so much of this run has been wanting to like what Zdarsky is doing and yet being underwhelmed with a book that, while consistently visually impressive, fails to do anything interesting aside from big boom booms.

Matt: And I also think that,as with much of this run, the most interesting elements are the ones getting the least play. A secret prison that Zur is keeping with Batman locked up with some of Gotham’s worst? There’s something there. We still have probably five issues, but a classic prison break story with Batman, Joker, Vandal Savage, Riddler and a few others sounds like a great story full of plots, betrayals and other stuff I enjoy. But instead I feel like we’re going to get a lot of pseudo-psychology with Bruce talking to Dr. Captio, a character who is nothing more than a plot device.

Will: Ahhhh, but he’s a plot device who got his face carved up by Joker! You know, Zur is not being subtle with any of the stuff he’s doing, which made it nice to see Nakano’s reaction to his emergency broadcast hack. But Zur’s also put a dang Bat symbol on Blackgate’s main entrance. This is not a Gotham that’s had its reality rewritten — there should be more consequences to what he’s doing. But, like you, I feel like all of this stuff is going to get brushed over with big, metal-y strokes.

Buy Batman #145 here.

Been Through a Desert on a Bat with No Name

Matt: I feel like I’ve probably said this before in talking about this comic, but one of the things that makes Ram V’s run on Detective Comics so good is that he finds a way to blend the mundane, in this case The Question and the Cassandra Cain Batgirl capturing and interrogating Orgham thugs, with the fantastic — Batman going through a hallucinatory journey through a desert as Dr. Hurt tempts him like Satan — and it absolutely works. Other writers might try to get this kind of stuff to stand next to each other and one feels weaker, but here both storylines just work. 

Will: They do, in part because neither of these characters have been overexposed. Could we have a story in which some magical demon pixie version of Joker stands in for Dr. Hurt? Sure, but that would be tired as hell. And I don’t think we can get enough of Montoya Question.

Matt: I know I can’t! And I love that Ram is bringing in aspects of the Question history I hadn’t thought about in years! There was a miniseries that tried to reimagine Vic Sage’s Question as a sort of urban shaman who could “talk” to cities. Whether or not Montoya is actually talking to Gotham, or that is just metaphor, the fact that he’s calling back to it is just a fun nod to the half a dozen people who read that series.

I’m not familiar enough with the Hindu stories that Ram V would have grown up with to know if he’s referencing anything specific here, but I know from Catholic school that Jesus wandered the desert for 40 days and 40 nights and was tempted by the Devil before coming out reborn. And I have to imagine that’s a reference that Ram knows, and it’s why Dr. Hurt, who claims he is the devil, is the perfect villain for this part, and one who, as you said, only pops up at the most intense of moments.

Will: I’ve seen The Last Temptation of Christ — that’s good enough, right? And the temptations here are interesting, with Batman being shown a happy Gotham that showers him with love and another in which he’s gone full fashy to accomplish his goals of ending crime. Both make compelling cases for giving up.

Matt: The moment where Dr. Hurt calls out the fact that Bruce could use his money to fix Gotham, just pump it all in, and then Bruce points out that money is amoral, is such a smart answer to that old saw; money is only as good as the people who use it, and we know how honest and trustworthy Gotham civil servants are. 

I just love all the symbolism of this story. Using a clown figure without using the Joker evokes him without giving us yet another Joker. Batman fighting against the Azmer demon inside him that he kills and that comes back every day runs parallel to his own quest. The Bat-God who controls everything is the logical (or illogical) final answer to all this. It’s symbolism and story blended together lovingly. And all along, the devil is there telling him that Batman must win, even if Bruce Wayne loses, and that Barbatos is waiting. Every issue of this run leaves me breathless in the best way.

Buy Detective Comics #1,082 here.

The Catbird Seat

Matt: Bat/Scoob stories are all about the formula, and it’s pretty much the formula of a Scooby-Doo story with Batman added in. You know exactly what you’re going to get: a crime, an investigation, an unmasking and a resolution. It’s why they’re perfect comfort food comics: It’s not about the what, but the how that what is handled. But every now and then, they can throw in a wrinkle. This issue does that, not just with a double unmasking, but with a nice little emotional or character beat that gives Batman a chance to show why he’s not the Punisher: He truly believes in redemption. And that made me smile.

Will: Batman having to answer for his … special … relationship with Catwoman is always fun, doubly so in this kid-friendly context.

Matt: The writers of this book always find ways to keep it kid-friendly, but still tell a story with some levels, and that’s to be applauded. The ending here isn’t simple: Batman has been championing Catwoman and her innocence all issue, and in the end she was innocent of the crime she was accused of, but she’s still a thief. Batman is the toad, and Catwoman is the scorpion. But he’ll keep getting stung because there’s always a chance this time they’ll make it across the river. 

Will: Catwoman is a scorpion, alright … a sexy, sexy scorpion. As is the case with this book, we had a fun story with some great gags along the way — I loved the inclusion of the Shakespeare bust and the “fences don’t make good neighbors” bit.

Matt: I love a good bit of wordplay, and that? Top notch. And Magpie? Not even I saw that one coming. Bravo on a deep, deep cut there.

Will: Come on, Matt. You know Magpie likes shiny stuff.

Matt: I do! Which is why it works so well, and teaming her up with Penguin, another bird-themed villain, works so well. And if you’ve never heard the phrase the catbird seat before, or haven’t read the short story it comes from by James Thurber? Do yourself a favor and read it. There are some aspects that are dated, but the core concept is a lot of fun.

Will: Dang it, man. You’re always trying to get me to read stuff.

Buy Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #3 here.

Bat-miscellany

• In yet another example of the cover not matching the backup, Batman #145 advertises “The Joker: Revelations” only to give us “Doctor’s Orders.”
• In the BatChat podcast this week, we read one of the major Batman stories we haven’t yet, “Under the Red Hood,” and two other stories featuring Jason Todd. 

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Matthew Lazorwitz

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

Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.