Two-Face’s plans begin to come to fruition as he takes on Gotham, and the Gordons are caught in the crossfire in Batman ’89 #5, written by Sam Hamm, drawn by Joe Quinones, colored by Leonardo Ito and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Bruce Wayne is dead, the computer systems that run the Gotham of the future have developed artificial intelligence and Wayne-Powers has a new CEO. It’s not looking like an easy new year for Terry McGinnis, the Batman of the future, in I Am Batman #8, written by John Ridley, drawn by Christian Duce, colored by Rex Locus and lettered by Troy Peteri.
Finally, BatChat pops back over to DC’s Batman anthology series for Batman: Urban Legends #14. The four stories in this issue include the continuation of the adventures of Ace the Bathound and a Batman & Zatanna team-up.
Matt Lazorwitz: So, on top of Chip Zdarsky taking over as writer on Batman, we now know that Ram V is taking over Detective Comics, with art by Rafael Albuquerque. No offense to Tamaki and Mora, whose run I have mostly enjoyed, but V/Albuquerque has the makings of an all-time run. I think we’re heading into a new golden age in the Batman titles.
Will Nevin: I’m higher on Tamaki’s run than I am on Williamson’s and maybe even Tynion’s Batman stints, but I 100% endorse your learned conclusion: We’re headed into some good Bat times, my friend.
Two-Face Rises as Jim Gordon Falls
Matt: So I had to go back and check, but the last issue of Batman ’89 came out in December. That’s a pretty big gap there.
Will: This won’t be the first time I’ve had this complaint, and it won’t be the last time — not even in this column will it be the last time — but, yeah, what an occasion for a recap page, huh? Had there been more time in the week, I was going to reread the first four issues because despite the release schedule and despite the mystifying inability to nail the Burton aesthetic in a book that requires said aesthetic, I really fuckin’ enjoy this series, particularly in its take on Harvey Dent, his political machinations and his slide into madness. But to your point, I couldn’t remember for the life of me what the references to Lincoln Savings and Loan represented. Not good stuff, I can at least gather that.
Matt: Yeah, I was at a loss on that as well. I have to imagine it was set up earlier, but I can’t remember exactly what that was about. There’s so much going on in this issue, between Two-Face, the Gordons, Batman & Robin and Catwoman, that I was barely able to keep up with the new stuff.
Will: With lots of chaos and action and moving parts, it’s got a real cinematic feel to it … almost like it was written by a screenwriter, ya know?
Matt: Yeah, this definitely feels like the rising action of act three of a screenplay; the stakes are high, Jim being shot is an “all is lost” moment. I know all drama really fits the same structure, but this is very screenplay-like.
The highlight of this issue to me was Jim Gordon. The Gordon of the movies went through a serious Flanderization over the course of the movies: He was gruff and competent in that first film, but over the course of the next three, he became closer and closer to Neil Hamilton from Batman ‘66. Here, he’s back to being a tough old cop who stands up to Two-Face in the face of imminent danger.
Will: You could have told me Gordon disappeared after the first film, and I would have believed you.
Matt: I think by the end, all he did in Batman & Robin was be whammied by Poison Ivy.
Will: OOF. Not what you want there, Brother Matt. I liked the *other* Gordon in this issue. The moment where Babs chose the law over her heart? That was a nice, believable spot — and much more relatable than the same thing post-Two Face-ification in, say, Long Halloween/Dark Victory. This could, however, be my dislike of Gilda Dent showing.
Matt: Yes, Barbara has a great moment here, too. And that again shows the one story problem I have with this book. While we have more of him in this issue, this series continues to lack Batman. We’ve had great moments for the Gordons, for Two-Face, for Robin, and even some cool Catwoman material. But Batman is sort of just there in the center of things with action happening around him.
Will: Aye, though, isn’t that the true spirit of ’89? Jack Nicholson’s Joker chews through that movie like an unending flotilla of Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay Biscuits(™). The most memorable scene for Bruce is “Do you wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts,” and that’s … well, Bruce. Is this not similar to Brave and the Bold, a place in which Batman is the straight man and, by definition, a little less interesting than the world around him? </devil’s advocacy>
Matt: You are right, Frankly, it’s the same spirit as most of the best Batman movies. Returns and The Dark Knight are villain pieces as much as, if not moreso than, Batman ones. People remember DeVito’s Penguin, Pfeiffer’s Catwoman and Ledger’s Joker more than either Keaton or Bale. But still, I like more Batman in my Batman comic, where you don’t have the charisma or star power to drown out the title character.
I Am Batman Forever
Matt: Especially since other books are wrapping now, I think we need to hit I Am Batman each month; it’s interesting enough to not be treated as a fill-in for the column, even if it is still a bit flawed.
Will: Agreed. Besides, it’s harder to hit three books a week when ‘Tec isn’t weekly. We’re only making it easier on ourselves. Even with its flaws, this is a much more grounded Batman — his biggest problems are gun runners and a serial killer in this issue, not some existential threat to New York City — and I can always support that. But Ridley ain’t perfect.
Matt: No, he’s not, and the art doesn’t help.
Will: My bar for I Am Batman art is pretty low considering what we’ve seen. Anything in particular set you off here?
Matt: Just that, while this issue’s artist, Christian Duce, did last issue and parts of a couple others, we have seen seven different pencillers over the course of nine issues. That’s a lot of churn. I know people hate bimonthly books, but I feel like if Ridley is running late, the usual reason for multiple pencillers like that, make this book every six to eight weeks (with a recap page), so the book has some visual consistency.
Will: Ridley’s also not an old hand at this, and more time would only help the persnickety problems in dialogue that still plague this book. One scene really bugged me in this issue in that regard — Jace is talking with his sister, who says he’s going at the heavy bag “like it owes [him] money.” Which, ya know, cliched but fine, whatever. The next page? Same character says, “Mom’s opening a transition center for formerly incarcerated women to give them job training and reduce the rate of recidivism among females from traditionally marginalized communities.” Loyal Content Consumers, please don’t mistake what comes next for my opposition to the underlying proposition (because that sounds like a great idea!), but what the fucking fuck? How many words would a real live human being use to describe a halfway house outside the context of a policy paper?
The formerly alive commissioner saying the mayor went “full woke mob” in #8 is another symptom of the same problem: Ridley doesn’t have a good sense of how people would reasonably speak in the situation. And I get that good dialogue is really tough to write. But, jeeze, does it ever take you out of the book when it doesn’t work.
Matt: Yeah, “full woke mob” bugged me, too. It’s very buzzwordy. The character with the best voice is our lead, Jace. This is someone who is struggling with his choices, and that’s interesting. His first facedown with a more traditional supervillain, even a more grounded one like this serial killer, and … he runs away. It’s a perfectly human reaction, even Lucius tells him that, but Jace feels like a coward. That’s a struggle I never thought I’d see any Batman face, and I like it.
Will: If some guy swings an iron with sharpened metal spikes embedded in the business end at me, the first thing I’m doing — once my bowels have completely voided — is running. This is a Batman just beginning (see what I did there?), and he should face challenges he’s not quite ready to handle. But that doesn’t mean he’s incompetent or unprepared, like the contemptible idiot prick of Geoff Johns’ Batman: Earth One.
Matt: No, not at all. Jace actively wants to avoid using the heavy tech that Bruce does to avoid becoming reliant, as opposed to just not knowing what he’s doing or using stuff that doesn’t work.
Will: And Jace is also worried about escalation from the opposing side, which was a smart as hell point to make.
Matt: While I don’t like the “Batman creates his villains” argument, a safer one is, “Batman makes his villains more deadly,” and Ridley is using that perfectly.
Will: It’s the Gotham way, Matt.
Matt: I want to keep reading this series and seeing where Ridley takes a Batman book that has a deep social conscience. He has so many good ideas, ideas about community policing, about the halfway house as you said, and comes at them from the perspective of a writer of color, which we still see so rarely in mainstream comics, especially on a book with a major name that doesn’t start with “Black –” It’s worth reading to see what he can do with that megaphone.
Will: I shall will him to write better dialogue. It will be done.
Miracle Molly Returns
Matt: We haven’t read Urban Legends for the column since pretty early in the run. I don’t think we even got to Tim Drake’s coming out story, and that was really early. We’re in the middle of two serials now, starting a new one, and we have a one-off.
Will: And wasn’t that a great lil’ Question story?
Matt: That was the thing that made me want to discuss this issue, knowing it was coming. I’m a big fan of the Question, and he is always great fun in a team-up with Batman. They’re similar, but by no means the same.
Will: I’ll say this for Urban Legends — this is a lot of content for a monthly comic. Sixty-plus story pages? That’s really something, even if no one is ever going to love each and every story. Coming in cold to the serialized pieces wasn’t the easiest read (RECAPS. PLEASE.), but there was still something to like in each of them, like I’ll always eat up a nod to Mothman, and it’s clear that Mark Russell is still quite good at writing comedy and superheroes.
Matt: Vita Ayala has a great voice for a detective Batman and doesn’t forget he’s a detective when he’s in a supernatural tale. The new Birds of Prey story was the one that struck me as the most off, but that might be because Lady Shiva seemed out of character. I never would have expected her to say, “You look like I took a big crap in your breakfast cereal and called it organic.” That doesn’t tend to fit her demeanor.
Will: At least there was another appearance of Miracle Molly and the Unsanity Collective before they’re both banished to the pile of “characters and/or ideas that were used that one time by that one writer.”
Matt: Yes! Miracle Molly was the best character to come out of the Tynion run, and she should get more use. I’d like to see her team up with Oracle at some point. It feels like a natural pairing.
Will: Miracle Molly >^infinity Ghost-Maker. Wanted to be clear on that point.
Matt: So, I think this is a recommendation, too. That is a pretty solid week of books.
Will: And we didn’t even have to cover Flashpoint Beyond!
Bat-miscellany
- This week, even though we don’t have a chapter of “Shadow War,” the BatChat podcast is looking at three stories of the life and deaths of the character who seems to have incited that event: Ra’s al Ghul.
- NYPD police commissioner complaining about “woke mobs” turns out to be a huge racist. A little on the nose, innit?
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.
