Welcome back to Bat Chat! In Detective Comics #1,040, Bruce Wayne turns himself in to the GCPD after the events of the previous arc while Mr. Worth and Penguin plot their revenge as written by Mariko Tamaki, drawn by Dan Mora, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Aditya Bidikar.
In the backup to the issue, Man-Bat meets a tragic end in “The Quiet and Unsung Death of Kirk Langstrom,” written by Dan Watters, drawn by Max Raynor, colored by Arif Prianto and lettered by Rob Leigh.
Spinning out of recent events in Detective Comics, Huntress gets the spotlight in her own Batman: Secret Files issue, where she learns being cured of Hue Vile’s parasites has left her with a new ability in a story written by Tamaki, drawn by David Lapham, colored by Trish Mulvihill and lettered by Leigh.
And the adventures of the least likable Batman continue as more of the rogue’s gallery are attacked by the mysterious flesh-eating monster in Batman: Reptilian #2, written by Garth Ennis, drawn and colored by Liam Sharp and lettered by Rob Steen.
Matt Lazorwitz: A double dose of Tamaki this week, and then some Ennis, plus a Dan Watters short. Lots to talk about here.
Will Nevin: The Lord giveth. And then he giveths in a spiteful way that probably signals some misogyny He’ll never deal with. Why do we let Garth Ennis write comics in the year of our Lord twenty and twenty-one, again?
Matt: Because he was a really big deal in the ’90s, which is a reason, but not a good one. And because some really good artists like to work with him.
Will: You know what else was big in the ’90s?
Barenaked Ladies. More of them, less of Ennis, please.
Matt: I’m Matt, and I approve this message.
[Grote’s note: “If I Had a Million Dollars” intensifies.]
Batman in the Drunk Tank
Matt: So, to start: Boy, howdy, is it good to have Dan Mora back on this book. The general quality of everything just improves when you have a top-notch artist on the comic. I have always been a story-driven reader, but anyone who says that art is really secondary to story just needs to compare the past couple issues with the first ones or this one, and they’ll see how that synergy between writer and artist really matters in a comic.
Will: I thought the story took some odd lil’ turns in this one, but there’s no qualms about the art here. The classic Bat splash page? Put that shit on a poster, Dan. GET PAID.
Matt: Abso-freakin’-lutely. Let’s get Mora to do an in-between-arcs issue of Joker set in that “Laughing Fish” era. That would be some gorgeous stuff. On that sequence, I’m a little … not confused, but curious. I’m trying to figure out what the point of that is. Is this random drunk who happens to know Batman’s secret a Chekhov’s gun? Or is it more about the guy’s opinion that Bruce is bringing all the darkness down on himself?
Will: It’s clearly got to be one of those two things, right? I feel like it’s probably the latter, and if it is, it was really undercooked. We spend so much beautiful time with the flashback only to get to the punchline in a single panel, and it seems like those two things should be reversed. (But in that scenario, we don’t get that splash page. Alas!) If it’s the first thing — which, again, I don’t think it is — I hope it gets paid off pretty quickly.
Matt: Random aside: If you want to see the first of those possibilities paid off well, check out Batman: Shadow of the Bat #13, “The Nobody,” by legendary Bat creative team Alan Grant and the late, great Norm Breyfogle.
But, yes, I am of a similar mind as you. There is potential in Bruce talking to an outsider looking in on his strange, dark life and the suffering he experiences, but wrapping it all up in that one panel just didn’t work. It seemed rushed.
Will: Another thing that bothered me about that drunk tank sequence — having to stay in there for a weekend because of reasons is a common trope, and I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is either Bruce being oblivious to that or it not somehow factoring into a plan. And if that was the plan (“I’m checking into the Gray Bar Hotel for the weekend to get more time for Barbara to pull my alibi together.”), that really should have come together better on the page. I don’t like my Batman not being seven steps ahead.
Matt: It is definitely an odd choice, and one that could have been done with Bruce going in for one overnight, especially doing it when Gotham is in such turmoil.
And speaking of turmoil, is there any world in the Multiverse where Penguin isn’t just using Mr. Worth and is going to betray him the minute Oswald gets his way? “We have to take out Batman first” is Penguin saying, “We have to take out Batman, and I don’t mind screwing with Bruce Wayne, the pampered twit, along the way, but I want what I want.”
Will: Pengy, let’s talk about setting reasonable goals. Have you ever taken out Batman? No? Then maybe that shouldn’t be the first part of your master plan. But, yeah, Worth is probably going to be eaten by the time this story is over.
Matt: Again, credit to Mora for his Penguin. He is sinister, and a little creepy, without going full Batman Returns, which is a fine look but doesn’t work in the comics. And I love how small he looks next to the towering Mr. Worth. It’s a nice visual contrast.
Will: Where do you think this story is going next with the sort-of return of Hue Vile? (Also, shoulda been female: Eve Vile.) We’re definitely not getting the trial of Bruce Wayne. I guess?
Matt: Seems unlikely. I wonder if Vile is going to get to puppet Worth eventually; that’s a man with rage issues as it is, and so he seems ripe for Vile’s parasites. I’m not sure where this whole thing is going at this point. This arc started out as a seemingly normal serial killer story and has changed into something very much not. It’s not bad, but it’s twisty in a way that is leaving me confused as to what the overall arc of it is going to be.
Now here’s a question, and feel free to circle back to it after anything else you have to say on the main book. The backup features a villainous demonic worm that feeds on fear. Hue Vile has a worm parasite that feeds on rage. Are these related, or is it an odd coincidence?
Will: I had not thought about that until this very moment, but I think given their vastly different visual representations, they must be unrelated, right? I wouldn’t mind being wrong, though. Time for Batman to take the fight to Emotion Worm Planet.
Matt: I think it’s probably just coincidental, but I was curious if I missed something clearly connective. My only thought on why they might be connected is that the ’Tec backups have been feeding into the main story, even when it’s a different writer. As has generally been the case, this was a solid little story. I feel a little bad for the character that the death of Man-Bat is only given an eight-page backup, but it was at least a decent one and he got a heroic send-off. Man-Bat has spent so much time flipping from villain to anti-hero, it’s nice he went out on a high note.
Will: You know better than most he’ll be back. Hell, we already know he’s featured in Puzzlebox.
Matt: True, but when death has no permanence, HOW a character dies matters more than that they died. And this gives Man-Bat a nice character beat.
The Huntress Becomes the Hunter
Matt: Brother Will, do you have any familiarity with the works of David Lapham?
Will: That name is tantalizingly familiar, but as usual, I’m a moron.
Matt: Well, he’s best known for his self-published ’90s black-and-white crime comic opus, Stray Bullets, but has done some Batman in the past, mostly as just a writer; he wrote a year-long arc on Detective back at issue #800 and forward, but this is one of his few Batman stories as an artist. I’m a fan, so it was nice to see him pop up on this book. He has a style that is suited to a good, gritty story like Huntress tracking down Vile-spawned rage zombies.
Will: I thought this took a little too much time to get rolling — would have better been served by a general note to “read ’Tec, you dummies, to figure out what’s going on” — but once it got up on a plane, it zipped right along.
Matt: I can definitely see where you’re coming from there. I liked the story in general, but if we had gotten rid of three to four pages of exposition, we could have spent more time getting to see Huntress’ non-Huntress life, which we haven’t really seen much of, or more Doug the cat.
Will: You want more domestic life; I want more evil brain-wormed monster hunting. We can at least agree there was too much exposition. If you’re going to kill brain worms or Nazis in your story, you can never have too much killin’ of either.
Matt: I would not have been averse to more monster hunting. I loved the three sequences we got, each feeling very much like a snippet of classic horror movies. The three settings were distinct: the docks, the drive-in theater and the house, but all felt like they were drawn from a zombie movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tamaki is something of a horror buff.
Will: I know we have DCeased, but something on a smaller, more intimate scale would be a fun story. Like “Night of the Monster Men” but with zombies.
Matt: I would go for that. While I prefer my Batman stories crime-based, a really well-produced horror Batman story absolutely works. Kelley Jones has proven this more than once.
Will: Can Kelley Jones draw Bat ears too tall or a cape too grotesque for Will? No, he cannot.
Matt: As to the end of this issue, do you think Batman will actually get possessed by Vile’s worms in the next issue of Detective? Or has Vile learned about his psychic connection to Huntress and is using it against her? I kinda like the idea of the latter.
Will: It’s all part of Batman’s plan. He’s faking a brain worm infection to trick the chief brain worm … for reasons.
Reptilian
Matt: So, to keep with the theme of today’s column: Boy that Liam Sharp art is nice.
Will: That’s one versatile sumbitch. His Green Lantern series with Grant Morrison looked nothing like this book. Incredibly impressive … which is not what I’d say about Ennis’ work here. His Batman is still too mean, too cruel and too goddamned British. SPEAK AMERICAN, YOU ASS.
Matt: Alfred is right there! He can sound as British as you want!
Will: “Among my peers and in the underworld, I enjoy a reputation for excess, whether it is entirely deserved is open to question, but it has — and I think you’ll agree — stood me in very good stead,” said the distinctly English Bruce Wayne. Is no one at DC looking this stuff over? How do you not send that back for a rewrite?
Matt: That is the exact line that jumped out at me. It’s not like Ennis can’t write American characters. Jesse Custer and Tommy Monaghan, the titular Preacher and Hitman, read American. The laziness of his Batman just further shows his contempt for the character. He doesn’t even feel like trying to make him sound right. He’s writing Batman like he wrote the Punisher, and those are two VERY different characters, despite what some lazy criticism might have you believe.
Will: I still can’t get over how the most minimal of editing or attention to detail would have prevented that line from getting into print. How the fuck are we taking this book more seriously than Ennis or the folks at Black Label? You’re absolutely right in that this is laziness, and while it gets me slightly interested in Ennis’ take on James Bond, I have no interest in whatever else he might have to say about Batman, even as Sharp’s work is such a visceral pleasure.
Matt: So, I think we’re content to leave this book off the rotation moving forward? Especially with a new book coming in the next month. Because there are ads in these books for Batman ’89, and I cannot wait for that.
Will: I’m a little nervous in re: ’89 given the preview art (colors entirely too bright for Tim Burton’s world), and I’m also bummed it’s only six issues. But let’s leave Reptilian where it belongs: in the loo.
Bat-miscellany
- Don’t take Deb’s coat. Damn.
- If you think Barenaked Ladies are a one-hit wonder, you’re wrong. Stunt, Maroon, Everything to Everyone and Barenaked Ladies Are Me/n are all great albums. Sorta regret they did the theme to Big Bang Theory, though.
- The title of the new issue of Reptilian is “Cruel and Unusual,” which could be about the monster, Batman or both.
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.
