#comics review

I also finding it fascinating that Hickman clearly built plot threads into the series to keep it going if Marvel refused to end the 6160 Ultimate Universe, a la how the Krakoa storyline did not end on his schedule. Otto Octavius’s resentment over his treatment by Osborn and the Parkers is clearly growing, plus he built himself a superior spider-suit. Mysterio has replaced Kingpin as the Maker’s agent, and there are few other things. Overall, despite my misgivings, I think this series wound up being something most Spider-Man fans should read, especially if they are less bothered by the way Hickman treats continuity within it than I am.

American Caper vol 1 by Dan Houser, Lazlow (Jeffery Jones), David Lapham, Chris Anderson, and co.

I would bet money that at least one person out there has made an argument, likely based on Scott McCloud’s explanation in Understanding Comics of how interactive the comics medium is because readers create meaning by filling in the gap between panels, that comics and video games are very similar media, with a lot of control created by the audience. While I am amenable to entertaining my straw man hypothetical, American Caper, primarily scripted by longtime Rockstar Games writer Dan Houser is an argument against ability in one medium crossing over into the other. Houser’s gameography as a writer (I assume that is the term here?) includes nearly the entire Grand Theft Auto series and both Red Dead Redemption games.

American Caper definitely is of a piece with the Grand Theft Auto series, but the broad, overly gross, not very incisive commentary on American society found in those games works far better as gags on the periphery of a player’s attention, than as the centerpiece of a crime comic. American Caper focuses on two neighbors in Wyoming, one, William Hamilton, is a corrupt lawyer whose wife is going down the alt-right pipeline, his daughter a Republican’s idea of a college student, and his video-game addicted son wants to be a pimp or influencer. The other neighbor, Orson Charmer, is a Mormon who, after he has a drunken three-way on a business trip, becomes a hitman for a boss who speaks to him like Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) in Network (1976). Hamilton sexually obsesses over Charmer’s wife, Eliza. In the one part of the book where Houser seems to aim for profundity over banality, he has Hamilton think, “It’s not that she’s hot. It’s that she’s nice. She still smiles. And when she smiles, I want to live.” But Hamilton does not know Eliza at all. Her husband barely seems to acknowledge her existence, beyond that she acts as a maid and nanny for him. Neither Hamilton nor the audience knows if Eliza is nice or not; his thoughts, rather than being a revelation of character, instead just come off as a pathetic justification for his obsession.

The one, sort-of-saving grace of the comic is Lapham. Unfortunately, he only provides breakdowns for the first three issues, but does more on #4. The difference makes it far more enjoyable than the earlier parts of the series. Anderson’s uglier, more exaggerated art arguably better fits the tone of the comic, but I just found it unpleasant. Lazlow, a voice actor and writer for the GTA series, apparently writes some small bits of the series. I would guess the fake ads peppered throughout the comic, a la the fake radio ads in GTA.

Absolute Batman v1+2 by Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Marcos Martin, Clay Mann, and co.

Snyder’s Absolute Batman truly surprises with its narrative style. Other than in three issues, someone else (usually Absolute Alfred Pennyworth) provides an internal monologue commenting on events. As a result, Snyder keeps the audience at a remove from Batman. Should we agree with Pennyworth’s assessment from #14 that Batman “revels in […] the bringing forth blood from those who deserve it?” Absolute Doctor Arkham is the point of view character for #10, and quickly figures out that she does not understand Batman at all. Batman’s Combat Journal (clearly a nod to the Punisher War Journal) provides the comparatively, sparse narrative text for #4 and the two-part “Absolute Zero.” It does not show a blood-thirsty Batman, quite the opposite actually, but it is so analytical and dry in its writing, that it still keeps the audience from truly getting into the head of this version of the character. That is not inherently a bad decision, as it makes the audience closer to someone within the same universe as Batman, trying understand this mythic and violent figure.

As noted in the first review of this post, it bothered me how Marvel and creators presented the most recent iteration of the Ultimate Universe one way while promoting it, that it broke from 616 only because because 1610 Reed Richards kept its superheroes from existing, but actually had innumerable differences both major and minor. The debut of the Absolute Universe during the All-In Special makes quite clear that this Earth has a very different history than the mainline DCU, but Absolute Batman, in particular, was sold on the idea that this was going to be a Batman without the wealth and resources of his mainline counterpart. Snyder even calls the world, on the debut page for Absolute Batman, one where “all their advantages are gone.” Yet reading the first volume of Absolute Batman, this Batman, despite working a day job in construction, clearly does not lack for money. He has just as many high-tech gadgets as his mainline counterpart, if not more. This, coupled with largely keeping the character creates a mystery. To quote Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” Snyder answers the question at the conclusion of the second major arc, “Abomination,” by revealing that Bruce Wayne made an enormous bet on Waylon Jones beating Bibbo Bibbowski in a championship mixed martial arts match. This is how you handle breaking your pitch to readers-- Absolute Batman still grew up without money, and it fundamentally changes the character, but Snyder still found a believable way for him to have the resources he needs to operate. Differing from the pitch also becomes an intriguing plot point, not just an irritant for the most anal retentive of readers.

On the subject of comparisons to the 6160 universe, I find it fascinating that both universes are fundamentally exploring corrupt worlds where shadowy elites control society. 6160 predated the Absolute Universe by a year or so, and Marvel and DC certainly have a long history of similar ideas and/or ripping each other off (Doom Patrol/X-Men, Morrison’s Batman run/Brubaker’s Captain America run, the original Secret Wars being done in part to beat Crisis on Infinite Earths to the rack), but this feels less like that more of a case of looking, to use a well worn phrase, at “the world outside your window.” American society has undoubtedly become a more cynical and conspiracy minded place over the last decade. Each of these two universes were built to reflect that reality. They are both, in a way, a blend of Catholicism and Gnosticism. Each of these universes is built on an Original Sin-- the Maker keeping superheroes from emerging on Earth 6160 and Darkseid playing Krona to the Absolute Universe, and trying to make it a dark world. Each presents a world ruined by a demiurge. On 6160, Tony Stark sends a messenger to awaken that world’s Peter Parker. Booster Gold may eventually play a similar roll for the Absolute Universe, based on the climax of the All-In Special.

I want to briefly touch on the idea that Absolute Batman represents some sort of ultimate expression of the influence of Manga/Anime on Western comics. Finally having read it, I think this is overblown somewhat. The influence clearly exists (what is the fight between Batman and Bane at the climax of “Abomination” but an homage to Katsuhiro Otomo’s comic series and 1988 film Akira?), but more on the end of artist Nick Dragotta’s style. Again though, as noted in the past, I am not as well versed in Manga as Western comics. Absolute Batman just feels far too dense. One of the hallmarks of Manga versus Western comics has long held to be “decompression” which somewhat entered Western comics at the turn of the millennium, especially with the switch to writing longer stories meant for trade paperbacks. Creators like Warren Ellis decompressed their stories, drawing out action in a way closer to comics like Akira as opposed to more compact Western comics written for 22 page monthly installments (or shorter weekly ones in the UK). Absolute Batman, by contrast, feels quite dense, with a lot happening in every issue. The Manga influence feels more in terms of how Dragotta choose to depict body horror and violence, in the spikiness and an exaggerated nature of designs. This even carries over to some of the guest artists, particularly Clay Mann. Mann is usually a penciller who, for good or for ill, has a photo-realistic approach in the Neal Adams school. His work on part three of “Abomination” follows Dragotta’s lead in terms of a heightened, out of proportion look. Marcos Martin, in “Absolute Zero,” does not deviate much from his normal style, but it is one that already meshes well with the world Dragotta created. His Absolute Victor Fries may be more gangly than Dragotta’s creations, but it is of a piece with them, and certainly draws on body horror imagery in a similar.

Wolverine: Blood Hungry by Peter David, Sam Kieth, and co.

Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean rather infamously represents a collaboration between two creators working at cross purposes. Morrison wrote a 48 page (then 64 page) script, and supposedly intended it for an artist working in the hyper-real Neal Adams mode. Instead, it went to the very abstract McKean, who stretched the story out to 120 pages (plus eight sort-of-pin-ups to fill the page signatures) and sometimes obscured details from Morrison’s script. While the word “apology” is never used in it, in 2004, DC published a fifteenth anniversary edition including Morrison’s final draft, thumbnails, and annotations by them, which, frankly, take some lightly veiled digs at McKean. Most, if not all, subsequent printings have included these materials. None of this is disparage McKean’s brilliant work on Arkham Asylum, it is just probably the single most famous example of a comic book artist and writer both being at cross purposes. It is why, despite my preference for using an auteur lens to examine comics focusing on the writer, there are limitations to it.

I raise the subject of Arkham Asylum here because it feels relevant to David and Kieth do not seem to mesh well on Blood Hungry. David crafts a fairly typical solo Wolverine story the period, set in Madripoor, where a new force (Cyber) tries to take over the city’s gangs (one of which is run by Howlett’s love interest, Jessan Hoan). David, as he usually does, peppers his script with pop culture jokes (though these seem slightly more grown-worthy than normal). Cyber, who learn basically nothing about during this story other than that he had a conflict in the past with Howlett and won, with his adamantium skin and hallucinogenic-tipped finger-nails feels like he represents the tension between David’s more conventional approach and Kieth’s surreal artwork. Without the hallucinogens, he would be a fairly generic new villain for villain. With them, he provides an entry point the imagery where Kieth’s artwork truly comes alive during the comic. Maybe David wanted to do the comic this way from the beginning. The audience will never really know, but the obvious contrast between the two parts of the story and the porous membrane between the more conventional story and Kieth’s trippy artwork makes it fascinating to speculate about.

Absolute Superman v 1-2 by Jason Aaron, Rafa Sandoval, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Fico Ossio, and co.

Jason Aaron is a writer, who with one major exception, has never managed to really resonate with me. From the time I tried Scalped, I have described his writing as “HBO-style” meaning it felt designed to be adopted into sub-prestige dramas loaded with violence and sex for an undiscerning audience. Obviously, he toned that down somewhat for his superhero work, but it still never quite worked for me until his emotional and brilliant Thor run (mostly with Russell Dauterman). It is one of the best extended runs on the 2010s, alongside James Roberts’s Transformers work. And then Aaron’s Avengers run, which started off tied to his Thor run, just kind of sputtered towards its finish line. So far, two volumes in, Absolute Superman is the second-best work I have read from Aaron, but it is also has some strong flaws.

Whenever Aaron concentrates on his conception of Superman, the book dazzles. One of my favorite Superman stories of all-time is “The Blakely Mine Disaster” from Action Comics #3 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. In it, Superman traps the owner and his wealthy cronies of an inadequately safe mine in said mine, so they can feel the same sense of terror and desperation his workers. The original Golden Age Superman was a fairly violent vigilante who truly fought to make change for people, not just uphold the status quo. Fifteen years ago, Grant Morrison and Rags Morales tried to recapture that feeling with their run on Action Comics, but for all their other successes in that run (including a perfect redesign), did not quite get there with that radical left feeling. Aaron, shockingly, succeeds where Morrison failed. His Superman comes to Earth much older than he has in most previous versions. TikTok user Andy_the_Gumball made a point on a video by the brilliant comics critic Lucy Hannah Ryan (AKA Deadgirlsupremacy) that this decision actual makes Superman closer to his cousin Kara Zor-El. Unlike her cousin, she remembers Krypton as a functioning society. She remembers her parents as real people, not just ghosts. It is a fascinating change. Aaron actually does not radically reinvent Krypton; it is much the same as the caste-based one created by John Byrne in the Man of Steel. What changes is the social status of the El family. Instead of being prestigious scientists, they are of the lowly worker class here, which aligns with Snyder eliminating the family wealth of the Waynes in Absolute Batman. After a couple pages introducing this version of Krypton, the first real scene of the comic shows that like me, Aaron probably remembers “The Blakely Mine Disaster,” as his Jor-El helps save people during well, a mine disaster caused by Krypton’s scientist class ignoring warning signs and placing them in danger. The class-consciousness of Jor-El and Lara pass on to their son and the book absolutely sings when Aaron concentrates on that aspect of the character. As with his mainstream counterpart, this is a Superman always trying to help the little person and inspires other to do good along the way. His powers may be slightly different (I believe there may be some precedent in Geoff Johns’s change to the New 52 version that died just before Rebirth), his cape may be a sentient AI, but this is very much a Superman in the mold of the Golden Age original.

Where the book fairs less well is in its villains. Aaron’s conception of Ra’s al Ghul comes off as more a combination of Vandal Savage’s body and Daniel Plainview’s (Daniel Day-Lewis), of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007), speech patterns than the lithe, scheming swordsman of the mainline DC Universe. Yes, he uses Lazarus Pits to extend his life, but he only refers to a past that goes back to about the about Gilded Age. He also lacks the eco-consciousness of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’s creation, instead just seeming like a selfish monster, representing the commonality between the robber-barons of the Gilded Age and our current tech-oligarchs. Aaron’s Talia al Ghul lacks any of the depth of her counterparts. She seems simply like an instrument of her father’s will, and even ignores his sexist yearning for a son to be his heir. In the Absolute Universe, rather than one individual, Peacemakers are the private army of the al Guls. Aaron fails to give any of them any depth, and they come off as just mindless peons who do not think about what the al Ghul’s ask of them (at least until the very end of volume two). Christopher Smith appears as one of these Peacemakers, and seems somewhat inspired by the portrayal of John Corbin in Morrison and Morales’s Action Comics, as he particularly hates Superman and gains a partially robotic body by the end of the second arc.

Of the villains, Aaron’s Brainiac is by far the most interesting, as his lead Brainiac is actually Brainiac 419732, and was originally just a model designed by the Brainiac Collective to dispose of bodies. After almost 137 years of this, he finds the ship he has been working on abandoned and another Brainiac dead of apparent suicide. He promotes himself to Brainiac 1 and his travels eventually take him to Earth, where he aligns himself with Ra’s al Ghul. This new, amended version of Brainiac contrasts well with Superman, but this is where Aaron and his artists work in some of the body horror so common in Absolute Batman. Brainiac 419732 has replaced his legs with a pair of particularly looking grotesque ones, and has removed his scalps so he can physically touch his own brain. I generally have a strong stomach for gore, but this, which despite involving a green humanoid, somehow disgusted me more than the exaggerated version of Bane in “Abomination.” Probably what Aaron and his artists wanted, but it just feels unnecessary and not additive to anything in the story, unlike in Absolute Batman, and more some of the violence in pre-Thor Aaron that just struck me as being there to be edgy.

With chapter four, Howard stays within the storyline’s original remit, with Kyle fulfilling an old debt to Amanda Waller by helping the Suicide Squad steal an item from Black Adam. Part five is where things start to fall apart; Kyle’s mission this time is to rescue a documentary filmmaker captured by NEMO, an anti-Atlantean group from Dan Abnett’s Aquaman run. This does not exactly feel like it fits with Kyle’s list. How long, exactly, has this filmmaker been kidnapped for? How does she know he is still alive or even imprisoned? It just feels poorly written compared to the preceding four issues, and more in-keeping with the rest of Howard’s Catwoman run. Worse, a member of NEMO, Veronica Viceroy, who debuts here, becomes the antagonist for the rest of the storyline. Kyle steals from her again the next issue, and dies multiple times. She awakens in a morgue run by Viceroy, escapes and seeks out Scandal Savage for assistance. The remainder of the arc is a war between Kyle and Viceroy, and it is far less compelling than the first half, and has more in common with the earlier parts of Howard’s run (which I disliked).

None of the art in the storyline is bad, exactly, though I prefer Raffaele to Di Giandomenico. Both work within the modern DC house style, but Raffaele seems slightly stronger with his figurework to me. Shavrin might be the strongest interior artist to work on “Nine Lives,” but his style does not match with the other two at all, and is far more cartoony. It makes his issue and a half standout awkwardly from the rest. DC really needs to work on finding fill-in artists who blend in with the regular artist(s), not just people who can hit the deadlines.

The Consumed by Juston McKee

This Kickstarted mini-comic by McKee tells the deeply allegorical tale of two brother knights, Shark and Bull. Bull feels the pull into the dark of a relic, and consistently ignores the warnings of his brother. In the end, he is consumed by the dark, and Shark can only seal him away. McKee’s dialogue and figures can at times be a bit stiff, but his linework and colors are quite strong. The story is compelling despite some of the dialogue. This is quite an enjoyable comic from the talent worth watching.

I do have two issues with the package. The first is the that the image for the cover, depicting shark with vegetation growing through his armor. Back-up material details how that was Mckee’s original idea, but the story evolved towards more of a living darkness emanating from the relic, which is fine, but boy did I want more of that cover! The other is an interview included in the back matter where McKee basically spells out the meaning of the story for him. I wish he felt stronger about the story and let readers form their own opinions about it. Still, these are minor issues at best. Overall, this might be the best self-published comic by a non-established creator I have read since Michel Fiffe’s Death Zone circa 2012. McKee is a talent to watch.

Partisan by Garth Ennis, Steve Epting, and co.

“I find that violence is very ambiguous in movies. For example, some films claim to be antiwar, but I don't think I've really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.” -Francois Truffaut

Partisan certainly tries to be anti-war, but I am not sure it succeeds. Ennis’s script makes this as much a horror comic as a war one, but Epting’s pencils so lovingly render every detail with photo-realistic precision, it all looks amazing and appealing. If Apocalypse Now (1979) or Platoon (1986) are pro-war in Truffaut’s estimation, it is hard to not back the same claim for Partisan. I also suspect that Ennis’s not-inconsiderable number of detractors will look at the story here and be appalled. He writes Partisan completely straight, without little of the humor* found in, say Adventures in the Rifle Brigade or Preacher, but he does subject his protagonist, Aleksandra, to an unending parade of horrors.

The book opens on a small farm/smithy in Western Russia, in 1941. Aleksandra’s husband has just been conscripted into the Soviet army, leaving her alone with their daughter, Darina (about 12), and young son, Artem (about five). The Germans invade the area around their village not long after, and then attack it the night Darina is off visiting her Jewish friend Edil. To Aleksandra’s shock, Darina brings Edil, her mother, Rakhila, and Edil’s infant brother to the farm. The Germans follow, causing the six of them to flee. Edil is shot and probably killed in the initial escape. The remaining five have to keep running and hiding, stumble onto a massacre of the next (predominantly Jewish) town over, and, eventually, unable to keep her baby quiet, Rakhila inadvertently drowns her son in a pond. The scenario leading to the death of the baby is adapted from the series finale of M*A*S*H, “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen” (1983), where while under sniper fire, a Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) badgers a Korean woman (June Kyoto Lu) to keep her baby quiet, with the same tragic results. Ennis transforms it enough to avoid plagiarism accusations, but it is a very famous scene from one of the most watch TV episodes of all-time.

The next chapter picks up about three months later, with Aleksandra, her children, and Rakhila now part of a group of Partisans, that is civilians fighting against an invading force, not officially part of the military. They live in the woods and have occasional raids on the Germans. Aleksandra is placed undercover as a housekeeper to try and kill a German colonel. On the night they are supposed to attack the house where he stays, he tries to rape Aleksandra and she, thinking the attack is still happening, kills him with a razor and runs. The amateurish partisans she is currently allied with, however, had decided to call it off without signaling her. The subsequent attack on the partisans whip out all of them save Aleksandra and her band (which now includes Igor, an older man and former children’s book author that helps with the children), who hide in a blown-out tank. They soon meet up with a larger and much more professional group of partisans. This group has women fighters in it, and make Aleksandra and Rakhila execute a group of German prisoners to prove their loyalty. This will not be the last war crime committed by this group, either, as towards the end of the war, they inadvertently destroy a train full of injured soldiers; it only had red crosses painted on top of the cars to discourage bombers. Aleksandra and Rakhila both become hardened fighters over the years, the former commenting in her internal monologue that she now has a favorite kind of grenade. At the end of the penultimate chapter, Rakhila gives her life to save the wounded Aleksandra, the Germans capture anyway, and she is subject to sexualized threats of torture. Ennis leaves it slightly ambiguous as to how much happened to Aleksandra (she was saved by a bombing raid).

The final chapter or two feature a lot more discussion than the early ones of the horrors of he Soviet regime even before the war. The leader of the second group of partisans had to turn on his comrades to satisfy the Stalinists. Igor’s parents did the same to neighbors, which he did not understand for years. Aleksandra herself possibly faces reprisals because she was captured and escaped. Famines and general mismanagement also come up. When the war ends, Igor decides to walk to Paris; clearly in love with Aleksandra, but seeing that she does not reciprocate, he opts for this path that will likely lead to death, but might also fulfill an old dream. Aleksandra and her children return to their farm, and conveniently, minutes later her husband also returns, missing an arm.

One last note on mapping-- the Absolute Power tie-in story by Thompson and De Iulis is a story featuring Thompson's version of the Birds. By all means, collect it with Batman, as it was originally printed in this title, but it should also have been included with Thompson's Birds run. Also, De Iulis's art here blew me away. It looks like InHyuk Lee's work, which I mean as a compliment; I quite like Lee's covers, but he never does interiors. I read the Invisible Woman mini-series De Iulis did with Mark Waid, and his work here marks a definite improvement. It is similar stylistically, but more detailed without becoming overly busy.

Unfortunately, not just the ordering mars these final two volumes of Zdarsky's run, but the reality of them existing within a shared superhero universe. While the material remains, solid, I cannot help but feel that the wind falls out of the sails because the main focus of the run has been on the Joker, Failsafe and the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, but the latter two disappear from the conclusion of “Dark Prisons” into the pages of Absolute Power. As good as “The Dying City” is, it feels like a pivot to a different subject, and it does not help that it revolves around the murder of Mayor Christopher Nakano, a character created by Mariko Tamaki (and Dan Mora) during her Detective Comics run. The vast majority of Nakano's appearance came over in Detective Comics, and while Zdarsky does work him into “Dark Prisons,” he appearances there are of the nominal sort one would expect from a mayor during a disaster. It just adds to “The Dying City” coming off as something mostly separate from the rest of the run.

“Dark Prisons” works well enough on its own as a conclusion to Zdarksy's run. It has some nice character moments, the Bat-Family reunites to defeat Zur-En-Arrh in Failsafe, and they do so in a clever way. They essentially goad Zur-En-Arrh into killing Jason Todd, who is immediately revived with some Lazarus Pit liquid. This causes the dormant Failsafe programming to reactivate since a Batman killed; the conflict leave an opening for Batman to finally defeat him/it. And then Waller grabs it between issues. Daniel Captio did, in fact, survive the Joker's attack in “Joker Year One.” He was actually imprisoned by the Joker for years, but Zur-En-Arrh frees Captio and makes him the head of his new prison, in charge of rehabilitating prisoners. Zdarsky does not make it clear what happens to him after Zur-En-Arrh's defeat.

The story from #149, “A Good Fantasy” acts an epilogue to “Dark Prisons.” After even Damien Wayne turned on him, Zur-En-Arrh debuted a new Robin, one cloned from Bruce Wayne. Batman finds clone in this issue, and takes him in. Unfortunately for the clone, he is aging rapidly, and dies by the end of the issue (but not before donating his hand to replace the one Batman lost in “The Bat-Man of Gotham”). The Death Batman has occurred many, many times in comics, often enough that a few years ago Comic Book Resources ran a top 23 list of them, which itself is arguably incomplete since it omits Grant Morrison's RIP/Final Crisis or David Vern and John Calnan's “Where Were You on the Night Batman Died?” from Batman #291-294. Zdarsky's tale here, which clearly owes a debt to Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon (1959 short story, 1966 novel) is another example of him consciously playing with the history of the character.

The Absolute Power tie-ins are rather perfunctory, with Batman and Selina Kyle teaming up to steal Waller's Mother Box. They wind up inadvertently summoning Darkseid, which I imagine is important for the main story.

“The Dying City,” Zdarsky's final Batman story, is probably the least Morrisonian part of his run. Instead, it seems more of a piece with Jim Starlin's less metafictional, more overtly political take on the character. Starlin, during his 26 issue run and the four issue The Cult mini-series, touched on the rise of the rise of the religious right, American's increasingly strained relationship with countries in the Middle East, and the ending of the Cold War. Here, Zdarsky addresses wealth inequality with a “reformed” Edward Nigma becoming a tech bro, Russian interference in American politics as a Russian national takes over the Court of Owls, and Republican propaganda (billionaire Bruce Wayne gets labeled a communist for his charity work). He also reaches beyond Morrison and Starlin to another uncommon piece of the Bat-mythos-- Thomas Wayne Junior. Created by Bob Haney and Dick Dillin in 1974, the original Thomas Wayne Jr was Bruce Wayne's mentally ill older brother. Post-Crisis, Morrison used the name for their new version of Owlman (the original was named Thomas, with no last name). Scott Snyder played with the idea during his New 52 run, as Court of Owls member Lincoln March claimed to be Thomas Wayne Junior. The Russian who infiltrated the Court basically tries the same scheme again with the Riddler to take control of Wayne Enterprises, as the find the son of a woman Thomas Wayne Senior had an affair with, and sue Bruce for half the company. This young man, William Pureford, works as a nurse at a free clinic, quite similar to the Bruce Wayne of the world of “The Bat-Man of Gotham.” According to a DNA test, he is not actually Bruce's brother, but he acts as yet another symbolic double (as are Failsafe and Zur-En-Arrh), and like the clone from “A Good Fantasy” represents a life Bruce Wayne could have had if he did not become Batman.

In the Knight, Zdarsky takes the long-established idea of Bruce Wayne traveling the world to be trained by the masters of many disciplines, using the 10 issues highlight particular incidents, and to expand on Batman's relationship with Minhkhoa Khan (Ghost Maker) as established by James Tynion IV during his recent run. He uses previously established masters such as Henri Ducard (from Blind Justice by Sam Hamm and Denys Cowan), Kirgi (Detective Comics #431 by Christopher Priest and Jim Aparo), and Giovanni Zatara (I believe the connection was established in the Batman: the Animated Series episode “Zatanna,” written by Paul Dini, who brought it into comics during the 2000s). Zdarsky and Di Giandomenico also create a host of new characters for Wayne (and sometimes Khan) to train under-- Daniel Captio (a master of the mind and world's smartest man), Qui (urban exploration), Avery Oblonsky (espionage), the Swiss Mark (firearms), and master cat burglar Lucie Chesson. The Knight probably adds more of such characters than any work since John Byrne and Aparo's Many Deaths of the Batman, and that storyline killed off all of them immediately; most of these new ones survive.

Arguably the biggest change to the Batman canon Zdarsky makes during the Knight is not any of the new characters, but moving his first encounter with Ra's al Ghul to prior to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. Created by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams in 1971, al Ghul debuts trying to get Batman to become his heir, after observing him from afar. Creating a longer-term connection between the two (as Christopher Nolan did to poor effect in the execrable 2005 film Batman Begins) deepens their relationship. And it works, unlike, say, Nolan's poor attempt, because Zdarsky creates the connection as an additive to Batman's background. He does not fundamentally change Batman's origin by having al Ghul ultimately be behind the death of Bruce Wayne's parents as some sort of grand conspiracy. Similarly, Zdarsky seamlessly weaves Hugo Strange as a therapist Wayne visits into the first issue of the story, keeping Strange's status as Batman's first recurring super villain intact, but without the character damage so many Hollywood screenwriters wreak by carelessly making them too integral in their revisions.

Zdarsky keeps his remix approach going in the first two volumes of his run on the main Batman title. Failsafe particularly engages with Mark Waid and Howard Porter's Tower of Babel (which it actually flashes back to the aftermath of) and Grant Morrison and Tony Daniels's RIP, which itself re-contextualizing the “weird,” sci-fi inflected Batman stories of the Silver Age. In the former, al Ghul gets a hold of Batman's plans to defeat each member of the Justice League and uses them. Zdarsky combines that idea with Morrison establishing the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh as a back-up personality Batman uses to protect himself from physic attacks to show that Zur-En-Arrh would have a solution to a rogue Batman beyond the Justice League with the titular robot. The arc opens with Oswald Cobblepot framing Batman her his own death, which triggers the activation of the Failsafe robot. Obviously, Batman being framed for murder happens with some regularity in Batman comics (perhaps most notably in the circa 2002 Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive crossovers largely written by Ed Brubaker, Chuck Dixon, and Greg Rucka), but Alfred Pennyworth acted as a final break on Failsafe. Tom King, Tony S. Daniel, and Mikhail Janin killed Pennyworth during City of Bane about 45 issues prior to the Failsafe arc. Zdarsky even works in a touch of Mark Waid and Alex Ross's Kingdom Come (or perhaps James Tynion IV's Fear State) when the arc skips forward two weeks, and Failsafe has turned Gotham into a sort of police state under its watch. Of these three storylines, Failsafe probably offers the least amount of interesting character work, but part of that stems from how excellent the other two are. Still, seeing Batman, the Bat-Family, and Justice League get beaten down by the robot does become a bit repetitive. It ends in an interesting way though, as Failsafe seems to kill Batman.

Once again, however, Zdarsky is working with Morrison. Batman tried to defeat Failsafe by introducing mercy into its programming. Instead of killing Batman, it transported him to an alternate Earth, one without a Batman. Tim Drake, of all Batman's allies, is convinced his mentor is alive, and the backups for the arc largely focus on his question to find Batman. So shades of Darkseid sending Batman through time at the end of Morrison's Final Crisis and Tim Drake's quest to find him in the Red Robin series written by Fabian Nicieza and Christopher Yost. DC has presented plenty of worlds without a Batman before, but this one is particularly interesting. The Waynes were still murdered, but instead of becoming Batman, Bruce Wayne gave away his fortune, became a social worker, and died. Pennyworth married Leslie Thompkins, and ignores the sad state of Gotham (despite his wife apparently still being much like the standard version of the character). Many of Batman's traditional rogues work for Red Mask, judging members of the city as sane or insane (likely an allusion to the Judges of Mega City from 2000AD created by John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra, and Pat Mills), with the insane committed to Arkham, a massive underground prison in this reality. Jewel, a young unhoused person Batman encounters, reveals to him that the entire city is being dosed with a gas (Jonathan Crane's Fear Gas) that causes hallucinations, but the rich pay for drugs produced by Halliday Industries to counteract the effects of it.

Darwin Halliday, the CEO of Halliday Industries, is the Red Mask, and the moment Batman sees him, he realizes that Halliday is this reality's version of the Joker. The Red Mask name works as a triple allusion; obviously it refers to the Red Hood identity associated with the Joker's origin since Detective Comics #168 by Bill Finger and several artists. However, in Animal Man #7 by Morrison and Chas Troug introduced a one-off villain only known by Red Mask, who acknowledges in-text that he took the name from Edgar Allan Poe's short story, “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842). The plot of that story concerns wealthy nobleman trying to avoid dying of plague by locking themselves into an abbey, away from the poor and infected. Zdarsky plays out a similar plot in “The Bat-man of Gotham” via Pennyworth. As noted above, the Pennyworth of this reality, despite his marriage to Thompkins, has largely closed himself off from the outside world, and seems to engage with none of the good works of his mainstream counterpart. During part five of the story, when others try to lockdown Athena Tower, the building where many of the rich live, to keep out the chaos unleashed by Halliday, Pennyworth defies the building's security, and opens its doors to allow other people refuge, reversing the fate of the rich in Poe's tale.

With Darwin Halliday, Zdarsky offers, perhaps for the first time since Tim Burton's Batman (1989), a true alternative origin for the Joker to the Red Hood and one bad day ethos originating from Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's the Killing Joke and widely popularized to the general public in Christopher Nolan's the Dark Knight (2008). Unlike most of his multiversal counterparts, Halliday becomes a successful businessman, but then undergoes a variation on Barry Allen's origin: a chemical explosion causes him to see through the multiverse and become aware of his other selves. The key panel is drawn to look very similar to many depictions of the lightning strike/explosion of chemicals that affected Allen. It should also be noted that in “Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt” from Secret Origins Annual #2 by Robert Loren Fleming and Allen co-creator Carmine Infantino, Allen's sacrifice in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8 (by Marv Wolfman and George Perez) turns him into the Thunderbolt that caused his transformation. Zdarsky, perhaps inadvertently, similarly makes the origins of the Joker(s) cyclical, as Halliday, upon creating a device to look into the minds of other Jokers, actually winds up being the cause of their insanity. It is this contact with an otherworldly intelligence that breaks them, not one bad day. This new origin is also sort of vaguely Lovecraftian; Halliday may not be an elder god, but he is still something beyond the other Jokers' understanding or knowledge. Lovecraft of course, has exhibited some measure of influence upon the Batman mythos, most notably in the name of Arkham Asylum, and the demon Barbathos from Peter Milligan and Kieron Dwyer's Dark Knight, Dark City (later recontextualized by, of course, Morrison).

After his initial confrontation with Halliday, the villain tries to unleash even more of the Crane gas on the populace to produce more multiversal energy to power his attempts to become like the Joker (pure comic book science). Standing between Batman and the controls for the gas is this universe's version of

Minhkhoa Khan (going by Ghost-Breaker instead of Ghost Maker). In the subsequent battle, while Batman manages to stop the release of the gas, he does so at the cost of his right hand, cut off by Khan while gripping the control switch.

Halliday escapes from Batman by traveling between worlds; Batman follows him, he journeys through a number of well-known alternate realities including one resembling the Golden Age version of the character, Burton's version, Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Alan Burnetts's Animated Series (1992) and Batman Beyond (1999), William Dozier's Batman (1966) TV show, and finally, Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. On each world, he encounters the Joker, enhanced and in some cases resurrected by Halliday. Each other Batman helps him in some way, be it through understanding or a boon. In the latter category, Dozier's Batman supplies a utility belt complete with Bat-Shark Repellent, and Miller's creates a bionic hand for him.

Eventually, Batman realizes, “Sometimes I think his [the Joker's] death would change everything. But I look around at the worlds where he died and nothing actually changes. The battle doesn't end.” In #2 of the Dark Knight Returns, Miller via Batman writes, “I will never forget Jason [Todd]. He was a good soldier. He honored me. The war goes on” in response to Pennyworth questioning taking on Carrie Kelly as a new Robin after Todd's death (p37). This is a major difference of degree, and the conclusion arriving immediately after Batman encounters his Miller counterpart. After defeating Halliday and his giant Joker Shark, Batman realizes, “Even before Failsafe, I found myself slipping. Not as fast. Not as strong. The years are catching up to me. Batman wins. But Batman now? I don't know what to do. I always know what to do. I guess if Batman is slipping he needs to be rescued by his Robin.” This comes just Tim Drake completes his own inter-dimensional journey, able to rescue Batman from either him Halliday being left to die in this final dimension. The Batman of Dark Knight similarly “slipped” during his disastrous first battle with the Mutant Leader in Dark Knight Returns #2 and needed to be saved by Kelly, who was not even yet his Robin. In context, Batman losing his hand symbolizes the price he has to pay for the revelations about himself and the Joker that come afterward. Without the obvious, unmistakable injury, he would not have confronted the truth about his own fallibility. This review began by discussing my general loathing by examinations of superheroes as modern myths, but Zdarsky here clearly takes elements from Joseph Campbell's monomyth from The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949), and applies it Batman. This does make Zdarsky's Batman a modern myth, rather it is using old, failure structures to tell a new version of older stories to a modern audience.

It starts with Catwoman moving back to the main part of Gotham; apparently Alleytown was fixed in Ram V's 13 issue run. She holes up on the abandoned floor of a beautiful building otherwise populated by the goomahs of Gotham gangsters. She sets her sights on dealing with a particular council of four mob bosses. Two of them are new characters (Don Tomasso and Finbar Sullivan) and two are not, which is where I think the issues with Howard's run start. That Dragos Ibanescu is a preexisting character doesn't really matter, it's just confusing that he looks completely different and younger from early appearances. Also that he was killed by Croc back then. Eiko Hasigawa is far more consequential though. She appeared during Genevive Valentine's run on Catwoman following Batman Eternal and is Selina Kyle's first canonical relationship with another female character and also became Catwoman. Editorial does provide a footnote about Hasigawa, several issues in. There is also a fifth member of this “Gentleman's club,” which surprises Selina-- Black Mask.

Howard introduces another love interest, Valmont. In the early issues of the run, Catwoman says to him, “I can't tell if you're a woman or man” which he takes as a compliment. That's the end of his gender fluidity though, as he's presented int purely masculine terms after that. He's ex-League of Assassins and is in Gotham purely to fuck Catwoman, which he eventually does.

The first trade and a half or so of Howard's run aren't completely terrible, but Catwoman's plans and machinations to take over the area controlled by the Gentleman's Club just feel unnecessarily opaque. She also takes in the gay son of Don Tomasso, Dario, whose lover is favored over him to become the Don's heir. Nico Leon is the main artist on this phase and he's a downgrade from the art on Ram V's run, and then gets worse after an issue or two when all of a sudden objects like cars, buildings, and even Black Mask's mask start to look like crude CGI. It's a welcome respite when Bengal comes in for two issues of Kyle going on vacation with Harley Quinn where they wind up doing roller derby (these are the two best issues of Howard's run, by far).

Catwoman barely returns to Gotham though when she fakes her death and heads out of town again, this time with Valmont. They visit the original branch of the Tomasso crime family in Italy to save Dario from afar, which includes using a black glove which seems to have nothing to do with the Black Glove? Hasigawa runs around Gotham as Catwoman again, with Dario as her sidekick. Everything about Howard's plotting outside of the roller derby two-parter just feels so opaque.

For some reason, Black Mask brings Amygdala (a giant rage monster with poor impulse control) into the Gentleman's Club. Punchline sets up some sort of drug factory staffed by a new Royal Flush Gang in Ace Chemicals, which is located in Alleytown now. Look, the geography of Gotham varies, but having a dangerous chemical planet in that part of town stretches credulity, even for Gotham. Apparently, the three parter ending in #50 ties into Howard's Punchline mini, which is one reason for this element of the plot coming out of nowhere. Catwoman leads an assault on the plant,with a force consisting of Valmont, Batman, Dario, Hasigawa, and the Strays from Ram V's run. Oh, and Dario is now wearing a mask and calling himself Tomcat. Valmont kills Amygdala, and Catwoman kills Valmont when he goes to kill Batman while he's holding up a heavy beam above Kyle as the plant falls apart. She lets herself be arrested for murder, leading into the next trade, where somehow, things get even worse.