The final battle has begun. Batman is storming the Orghams’ headquarters while his family saves Gotham’s citizens and the motley crew of villains he has allied with takes on the Orgham lieutenants. Nearly 30 issues has led to this. The lead story of Detective Comics #1,088 is written by Ram V, drawn by Guillem March, colored by Luis Guerrero and lettered by Ariana Maher. In the backup, Talia al Ghul attempts to raise the dead in a world without Lazarus Pits in a story written by Dan Watters, drawn by Christopher Mitten, colored by Patricio Delpeche and lettered by Steve Wands.
A murder in paradise brings the World’s Finest heroes (and Robin) to Themyscira. Wonder Woman has called Batman and Superman to see whether they can figure out who killed the Amazons’ greatest inventor in her own locked lab. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #30 is written by Mark Waid, drawn by Gleb Melnikov, colored by Tamra Bonvillain and lettered by Dave Sharpe.
Batman must face an agent of the Blakksun Mining Corp., The Thanagarian, in single combat to protect himself and his allies. But even if he wins, the Blakksuns are not going to rest until all their enslaved worlds know that this Batman is nothing. Will their acts be more than even Batman can take? Batman: Off-World #5 is written by Jason Aaron, penciled by Doug Mahnke, inked by Jaime Mendoza, colored by David Baron and lettered by Troy Peteri.
Will Nevin: OK, so I’ve been looking at a lot of the social media and vibes trickling in about the upcoming Ultimate Absolute Batman, and they seem to be based on two things: the hulkiness of the Batman and the logo. Not much at all about the story. Also, I thought the house ad for the All In special was pretty telling — all (most?) of the superheroes you know stacked up next to a reborn Trinity. This Ultimate Absolute universe is starting from a very stripped-down place.
Matt Lazorwitz: Never let it be said that fandom can’t grab hold of some small aspect of a project and completely fixate on it to the detriment of everything else. It does seem like this is a universe that is stripped down to very little and struggling against the corruption that is Darkseid from its creation. I think we are going to see this world slowly build and fight against an inherent evil, for what I hope is a story about hope in the end. Because I don’t think I want a superhero story that is founded on “everyone sucks except these three people.” That’s seriously grimdark.
Will: Look, far be it from me to critique DC’s Scott Snyder-led brain trust, but (and we’ll get to this later) I’m much more interested in seeing the adventures of Off-World Batman continue. Like, what if we had some minis with different (but still recognizable!) takes on characters that culminated in a new universe? I’m trying not to judge (He says as he’s totally judging), but I think “beefcake Batman without privilege and money” is overthinking this when we could clearly do some awesome shit that stays truer to the character.
The Penultimate Chapter
Matt: One issue left. I can’t believe we’re one issue away from the end of the best Bat run in … a very long time. And this issue has the stakes about as high as they can get.
Will: Holy Jesus, are they ever. And while I still think this is going to read better in trade (man, just sitting back and thinking about how this could get better … jeez), the action here has built to such a perfect point. I don’t ever remember a Batman that felt so elemental. So raw. So powerful.
Matt: We have watched Bruce be stripped down, broken, almost killed, and raised back as something, as you say, elemental here. He is Batman in his purest form, and it sends a shiver down my spine every time I see him with that ragtag costume. This would be worth reading for just that, but there’s so much going on in this book with all of the Orghams’ henchpeople meeting their fates at the hands of this completely bizarre team of villains. The pages with the Ten-Eyed Man are some of the creepiest stuff I have seen outside of a pure horror comic in a long time.
Will: And the layouts for the Ten-Eyed Man pages? *chef’s kiss* The thing that pinged my creep factor in this issue had to be how Freeze dispatched his enemy. Of all the villains I don’t want to piss off … well, they’re all on the list, actually … but Freeze has got to be an incredibly strong No. 2. (Behind Joker, obviously.)
Matt: The final panel of that sequence, of Freeze walking away leaving footprints of slush and blood? Great panel. I think I have said before that Guillem March, who has been drawing Batman comics on and off for well over a decade now, was not my cup of tea to start. But this issue was excellent. Hell, I even liked his redesign of Joker’s Daughter. That’s a character I never thought I’d be glad to see, but if it comes down to her or Punchline, well, I’ll take JD any day.
Will: Punchline should be thrown into the sea, Matt. Sent back to her home planet. Walked up the sitcom set stairs to never return. But, yes, that was a clever redesign that made her feel like an authentic part of this story.
Matt: I could go on about all the stuff that went on in this issue. There were so many different scenes, so many different characters, and yet it doesn’t feel cluttered. It feels like all of this has been carefully laid out.
Will: Weird what happens when you give a writer with a vision (that’s more detailed than “Bat. Cat.”) some runway and get the hell out of their way.
Matt: And the theme that Ram V has been playing with here all along comes out as we near the end. All along, we have been seeing the Orghams make Gotham a “clean” city. But to see that turned on them, it feels so good. It’s so easy to be seduced by the idea that everything looks pristine and so it’s all good, but we have seen how much of that is facade. And Joker’s Daughter, the element of chaos no one expected, pushing people out of the spaces they have had to hide in and into the Orghams’ glittering city on the hill within Gotham? That’s the kind of chaos in Gotham that works.
Will: Talk about some themes, amirite? Life is messy. Chaotic. Often unpredictable. But we have to celebrate the adventure and the unevenness. Because otherwise, we’re left with the artificial, uncaring construct that the Orghams of the world would rather us have — and that would be a place where we don’t notice the pain and plight of others. Or, really, even ourselves.
Matt: And this is our penultimate backup, too. I am going to miss these well-planned backups that feed off the events of the main book. I had completely forgotten about Arzen being taken by Talia, but what a great way to pay off the connection between the Orghams and the House of al Ghul!
Will: They had better collect the backups in the trade, Matt. Or I’m going to be real mad online.
Matt: They are collected, have no fear. I think you’d need to for this series to make sense. Then again, that would also require DC to make sense in how they collect things, so …
Buy Detective Comics #1,088 here.
A Trip to Paradise
Matt: You can count on Mark Waid for two things, and they’re both on display here. One is telling a charming story featuring superheroes. The second is remembering the deepest of cuts and incorporating them into said stories.
Will: You’re talking about the Wonder Woman annual from 2017, right? Super deep cut, I agree.
Matt: Well, I might have been talking about Golden Age Wonder Woman villain The Duke of Deception, but remembering issues and having editor’s notes about them is definitely something we don’t get enough of these days.
Will: I’ll be honest, when the Duke popped up, this got a little less interesting for me. But that’s what Waid gets for setting up a locked-room mystery and then doing away with it. Props, though, for explicitly calling that out in the text.
Matt: And Batman acknowledging it. We have definitely read a Batman before who would not have taken the supernatural or some kind of weirdness. But him getting to the point and just knowing that something of the macabre is happening and going with it? Waid knows the way he should be written. They’re on Themyscira. It would be hard to just ignore that.
Will: Same with Supes getting his magic tingles. I don’t like rooting for dumb superheroes, Matt. But overall, this was a fun little one-off story.
Matt: You know my feelings on a good one-off. Not everything needs to be a six-parter. I would honestly love to see Waid, a master of the one-off, do a maxiseries that was World’s Finest: DC Universe where each issue was a one-off featuring a different character he’s had in this book on an adventure. Maybe some common theme or MacGuffin, but mostly just an excuse to see Waid have fun across the DCU.
Will: Almost like he should do a Justice League book or something.
War Bot!
Will: War Bot. Hell yeah.
Matt: War Bot remains my favorite part of this book.
Man I wish this had come out closer to schedule. We said it last time, but I feel like the momentum isn’t what it was in the first three issues. I also feel like the opening fight with the Thanagarian was a bit over-narrated. We’ve read way more over-narrated stuff, I know, and I enjoyed Batman struggling through his injuries and showing what he can do, but I think we could have gotten that through the art a bit more.
Will: Batman narrating his injuries is a trope on the wrong side of tiresome, *but* I liked it here. He swallowed/snorted his tooth before navigating it back into his mouth and using it to reset his jaw. That shit was over the top and awesome. Absolutely agree with the momentum, though. While I like the crazy alien factions and interests, the details can get lost over the weeks and/or months. Gonna be a banger of a trade, though.
Matt: Yes, this will wind up in a good spot on The Big Board (freshly updated, by the way). We were talking about creepy before, and the Blakksuns definitely have earned a place in the pantheon of creepy Batman enemies. I like their two sets of opposing powers: One is super-tough, and one does that whole whispering in your ear and talking you into killing yourself and others thing. Alone those are tough powers. Together? They’re a lethal combination.
Will: You know I don’t like science fiction in my Batman, Matt. But this story continues to work. I’m sure we could pair it with any number of other times Batman went into space. Or we could make it a Doug Mankhe episode, because he continues to kill it in this book.
Matt: Talk about a guy who can draw a beefy Batman and pull it off! His Batman is yoked/ripped/jacked but still humanly proportioned. It might be that all of the people in a Doug Mahnke comic are proportioned slightly more broadly than normal; if you’re big you’re BIG, and if you’re slim, you can be a bit more slim than you’d expect from a more realistic artist. But since there’s consistency, it works.
Will: And, look, this is certainly not as deep and ponderous as ‘Tec (few things are), but there’s a lot to take here — namely that even with all of the aliens and weirdness, this is a Batman that remains recognizable. He doesn’t quit, and he doesn’t put up with injustice, regardless of what it looks like or what planet it might be on.
Matt: Batman doesn’t look away. He thinks about it, he has crises of faith, he thinks about leaving space for Gotham. But he’s not done, and so he stays. And as you said with tropes that can get tiresome but haven’t here, I am expecting next issue to be Batman’s force of will defeating the mind control from the Blakksuns. Have we seen Batman standing up to mind control or hallucinogens a hundred times before? Yes. Will it be satisfying to see him beat these slavers and prove how strong the guy they don’t expect to be able to beat them is? Hell yes.
Will: War Bot.
Hell yeah.
Bat-miscellany
- It’s Episode 150 of the BatChat podcast! The original theme was going to be anniversary issues, but when we read the stories, we wound up finding a different theme: three stories where Batman trips out.
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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.
