Mayor Nakano has been murdered, and Batman and Jim Gordon are on the case. Their investigation leads them to the alliance between the Riddler and the Court of Owls, as well as deceit and secrets between Nakano and his wife. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne investigates the possibility of a secret brother coming to light. Batman #154 is written by Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Carmine Di Giandomenico, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Barbara Gordon has started her new job at the Gotham Library, and Mystery Inc. and her father, Commissioner Gordon, have come by to congratulate her. When ghosts start appearing in the library, Barbara must investigate without revealing her identity as Oracle to her dad with the help of Scooby and the gang in The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #11, written by Sholly Fisch, drawn by Puste, colored by Carrie Strachan and lettered by Saida Temofonte.
Lady Shiva has come to Gotham to warn her daughter, Cassandra Cain, that someone is coming to kill her. Batgirl must team up with her lethal mother to defend themselves against the Unburied, a clan of martial artists, while trying to keep Shiva from taking more lives. Batgirl #1 is written by Tate Brombal, drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa, colored by Mike Spicer and lettered by Tom Napolitano.
Will Nevin: I know this ain’t Metropolis, and we’ll have colleagues on it, but have you gotten a read on Absolute Superman #1?
Matt Lazorwitz: I haven’t gotten to read it yet, but it is sitting right near the top of my to-read pile, so I can edit the review when it comes in with as much knowledge as possible. Can you give me a read on it with as few spoilers as possible?
Will: Jason Aaron took the social justice subtext and blew it way the fuck up. Other bits of the story are … weird, but it’s fun and really inspirational. True to the character (may not apply to all characters!) while doing something quite different.
Matt: Well, I look forward to reading it and seeing what our colleagues have to say.
Batman
Matt: Two issues into a Zdarsky Batman arc, and we have no giant robots or fight scenes that take up most of the issue. Is he giving us what we wanted from the start of this run just as it’s coming to a close?
Will: Unfortunately, yes. This is plot with a little bit of character work. And, as always when this comes up, it’s a great time to ask DC for recap pages because I did not remember at all who this shady businessman/head of the Court of Owls was.
Matt: This absolutely feels like an arc of Newburn. A mystery with Batman and Gordon as the leads, investigating the murder of the mayor, tracking down suspects. Meanwhile, the B plot of Bruce’s possible illegitimate brother pops up. I was expecting Lincoln March to just wander back in, and I’m not completely past that, because two different guys tied to the Owls claiming to be Bruce’s brother seems a bit much, unless the Owls just acknowledge they don’t have Lincoln anymore so they pulled some guy to out of their pockets to keep the plan they had in place.
Will: I too was surprised to not see Lincoln. But we have the new wrinkle here with Leslie (who is drawn/colored entirely too young), who seems to suggest that this new half-brother is actually Bruce’s kin rather than the “well, maybe?” saga with March. Still, the plan to quietly sign away half his shares only to buy ‘em back up seems like a perfect setup for shenanigans.
Matt: Well, as Bruce’s lawyer was revealed to be working with Riddler in the last issue, this seems a great way to fund Riddler’s new empire and get the buy-in he wants from Wayne, as he will now have a large chunk of Wayne cash to use.
I liked the scene with Leslie and Bruce a lot, despite absolutely agreeing Leslie looks way too young; She looks to be Bruce’s peer despite having been a coworker of his father. That scene shows growth in Bruce, which we so rarely see. There are versions of him who would have stormed off when anyone suggested Thomas and Martha Wayne were anything but perfect. This feels like a conscious choice by Zdarsky to show that what Bruce learned at the end of the Failsafe arc, that personal growth, is very much in play.
Will: Bruce can often be a character trapped in stasis, frozen in that moment as a boy, but recognizing his parents were fallible is important. Too bad Alfred isn’t here, right? Seems like he would be a character to better impart the inner workings of the marriage. But what are you gonna do?
Matt: How did you read the end of this issue? And we are definitely going to head into SPOILER territory for the rest of this review, so read on at your own risk.
Will: Riddler tech has the ability to take control of people was what I assumed. And I hope Batman is smart enough to figure that out quickly. Fighting with Gordon seems like a really tedious bit, even if it’s only for a page or two.
Matt: There’s obviously something going on here, because there is no way Jim killed Nakano because he was sleeping with the mayor’s wife. That is out of character and makes Jim look dumb for coming at Batman with a gun. And Batman’s over-the-top reaction is also out of character. It’s a decent cliffhanger, but as you said, I don’t want this to be where the book lives for any extended period of time.
Will: Ahhhh. I missed the implication that Gordon was having the affair. Big Daddy Z going subtle on me.
Matt: I might have been reading too much into it, but Bullock getting cut off as he reveals that she was cheating with Gordon’s line of, “I didn’t … I was defending myself …” reads to me as the killer saying why he shot Nakano, and with the motive being the affair … but that was just my reading of the scene.
Will: It’s an imminently reasonable one and makes robo Jim’s actions less of a non sequitur. Maybe the glasses have something to do with it? Jim is seeing the killer’s actions? I’ve always said you don’t need to buy smart glasses because one day they might take over your brain.
Bat Scoob
Matt: This is the 35th issue of Bat/Scoob, plus all the issues of Scooby-Doo Team-Up. That means there are only so many different ways you can get Batman working with Mystery Inc. So what do you do? Oracle team-up! And I am here for it.
Will: A reminder, though: No accidental unmaskings, please. This was a fun story made even better with Commissioner Gordon, a character we haven’t seen — or at least haven’t seen much — in this book.
Matt: I loved the interplay between Jim and Barbara here. While most of these books are Batman and Scooby-Doo with an emphasis on the Scooby-Doo part, this issue starts off with Barbara and focuses on her throughout, up to the point that she provides the narration. I love how, while this book is continuity-light, if you’re a longtime reader you have read the stories where Barbara has moved on to be Oracle and see the whole arc of the character.
Will: And this was as funny as always, especially with the great Gordon/Shaggy/Scooby physical comedy gag.
Matt: I enjoy any issue of this book, but when Sholly Fisch is writing, it always turns out to be especially strong. He knows how to balance the comedy with the mystery, and is a master of the DC deep cut.
Will: And while Grotesque is not necessarily the deepest cut, he’s not about to get a collected volume of his own stories or his own mini. (We can’t forget the Two-Face book that’s on its way.)
Matt: It was fun that he chose a Batgirl rogue for this story. Just shows that Barbara has a rogue’s gallery of her own, even if most of them are pretty minor.
Will: How about that Harvey Harris reference?
Matt: Yes! Again, nobody knows how to drop a deep cut like Sholly Fisch.
Buy The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #11 here.
Batgirl
Matt: Issue #1s can be tricky, especially for new series featuring established characters. If you are only familiar with Cassandra Cain through stories where she is a supporting character, or even where she is a co-lead, this is a really solid introduction to the character.
Will: Having become more familiar with the character thanks to what we’ve read for the show (ahem), I had most — if not all — of what I needed to know here. Cain reads body language like most of us interpret the spoken/printed word. Her ma is Lady Shiva. And she can kick anybody’s ass.
Matt: This is a fairly light issue, but not in a bad way, It feels like Tate Brombal, one of James Tynion’s stable of Tiny Onion writers doing his first in-continuity DC miniseries (He’s also writing the one fully original, non-Batman Elseworlds of the new crop, Green Lantern Dark), is letting Takeshi Miyazawa stretch their skills and show some really nice fight scenes. And they are some really nice fight scenes.
Will: If you’re going to write a Cassandra Cain Batgirl book, you’ve got to pull off the fight scenes, right? I agree that they work well here. In fact, I liked just about everything here aside from the logo. Blech.
Matt: The gothic, pointy logo is a whole lot.
This sets up a lot of questions for the rest of the series, which is another thing a good first issue does. I am curious what Shiva’s game is here. Over the years, her affection for her daughter has varied wildly. And here she’s saying she just wants to protect her? Or is she saying she needs help fighting this ninja sect? I’d often be miffed at what seems like inconsistent motivations, but Shiva is absolutely all about playing mind games. And the fact that she has enough control of her own body to deceive Cass is a really cool aspect of the character that puts Cass on her guard in a way she rarely is.
Will: It seems like you trust Shiva at your own peril. If you had to guess, what other Cass-centric characters do you think are going to pop up in this book?
Matt: I figure David Cain is going to pop up, and Stephanie Brown. I also wonder if this is going to somehow tie into Tom King’s Black Canary series, which launches this month and also prominently features Shiva. Two books dropping the same month with the same antagonist; not tying the two together somehow feels like, if not a missed opportunity, an odd choice.
Will: Tom King really gets to write whatever he wants, doesn’t he? Wild.
Matt: And with the best artists. I am looking forward to Ryan Sook drawing a big martial arts tournament book. I’ll be curious to see how the fight choreography there compares to what we got here. The double-page spreads in this issue were just top notch.
Will: Narration was great, too. For a first issue, I think this is just about what any Cassandra fan could hope for.
Bat-miscellany
- Tying in with the release of her new series, this week’s BatChat podcast features three stories about Cassandra Cain.
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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.
