Detective Comics #527


"Avatars of Vengeance"

writer: Doug Moench
art: Dan Day

Grade: A-


Once again, Moench employs a rather generic story, in which Kirk Langstrom manages to forget his anti Man-Bat pills once again, producing a monster that still, for some inexplicable reason, believes that Batman killed his daughter (who is very much alive). It sounds like a terrible story, but Moench infuses it with energy.

Once again, Moench picks up on the unresolved themes from Conway's run. We've got an exhausted and clearly ill Jim Gordon being belittled and bullied by Mayor Hill (it's powerfully infuriating in this particular issue), as well as Batman feeling like he's overextending and exhausting himself, but not sure why or how.

Upon coming home from a particularly exhausting evening with no thoughts but a desire to quickly see Jason and then head off to bed, Jason suggests they go out for a movie that night. Bruce instantly puts off all other thoughts to make that happen. It's both touching and almost funny as we watch the two in parallel, dressing for the evening with the hopes of impressing the other. In contrast, Vicki Vale receives word that Bruce has broken a date with her again, and Man-Bat patrols the city looking for Batman...a reminder that Bruce truly is over-extended.

The issue culminates with Man-Bat finding his way into Wayne Manor from the Batcave (this is actually plausible considering their last encounter), correctly inferring that Jason is a sort of "son" to Batman, and then flying off with Jason, threatening to kill him like Batman killed his daughter. Batman, who has clearly made Jason the first priority in his life at this moment, screams after Man-Bat in a thorough rage:

"This is IT, Man-Bat! You've gone too far! No more will I treat you with kid gloves simply because I feel sorry for you! You've crossed the line--and I'm coming after you with blood in my eyes! DO YOU HEAR ME, MAN-BAT? I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

In stark contrast, an astonished Alfred can only offer:

Good lord, Sir, you're...you're hysterical...almost mad--!"

It's a powerful, powerful note to be continued on.

I should also add that Dan Day makes outstanding contributions to the success of this story as the new artist. His work is nearly as potent as that of Newton and Alcala, and his framing, perspectives, and action sequences are far more inventive. I was thoroughly impressed with his work.

Detective Comics #528

"Requiem for Skulls"
writer: Doug Moench
art: Gene Colan

Grade: C

With neither the inspired characterizations that Moench demonstrated in his first two stories nor the kind of compelling plotting that Conway demonstrated best during his tenure, this issue descends into blandness. Harvey Bullock is taking every opportunity to show up Gordon, beginning with reopening the Savage Skull case and attempting to prove that Gordon closed the case on a dangerous man still at large. Sure enough, they do find The Skull, but Bullock's reckless tactics get a good officer killed.

Ultimately, Bullock gets a lead on The Skull and finds him at an old Police Youth League building, with Gordon following, and Batman following Gordon. It just gets silly from there, as The Skull challenges Batman to a boxing match and is winning. Gordon has to root on The Batman and espouse his faith in him for Bruce to finally turn things around. What kind of crap is that? How does an ex-cop who boxed in his spare time at the Police Youth League take down a man who has spent years training his body and combat skills to the point of perfection in a fair fight? I also enjoyed Batman's boast of, "I've yet to duck a fight in my life." Ummm, how about twice with Killer Croc just a few months back?

There's also a random 2 page B plot where Waldo comes to visit Jason. That's really all there is to it, but Colan draws him menacingly, and Alfred comments "oh, dear" even though he was the one to bring Jason outside to see Waldo. I have no idea what Moench was trying to get at here, but I'm sure we'll find out next issue. Maybe it's really the Joker or something since Waldo is oddly still in his clown makeup, but Moench's words don't hint at any sense of foreboding beyond Alfred's odd comment.

Thank God for Gene Colan. His art is just about the only interesting aspect of this issue. Though I miss Newton/Alcala and even Dan Day (after that one powerful issue), Colan is still a master that absolutely makes the panels exude tone where Moench's words don't necessarily provide them with one.

Detective Comics #529

"The Thief of Night"
writer: Doug Moench
art: Gene Colan

Grade: B+

One page in, it's already obvious that Moench is putting forth a more serious effort this issue. He's already giving that fantastically rich characterization again, providing glimpses of ordinary Gotham citizens, all working the grave-yard shift at their own particular jobs and, in doing so, gives a soul to Gotham and, more specifically, night time in Gotham. This is a gesture that's answered by both the tone and plot of the story as it progresses, as each of these people reenter the story in some way, and the new villainess described and barely seen in this issue will go on to portray herself as the embodiment of the night, itself.

Sure enough, this is the setup for, and cameo first appearance of, Nocturna, and Moench coats the book with intense, eloquent, borderline flamboyant narration and tone in anticipation of her arrival. It's a beautiful gesture, and I absolutely savor it here. Already, I can see how some fans claim that they eventually get sick of these overly poetic words, ideas, and tones that always accompany Nocturna, but they're certainly welcome at this early point.

The plot, itself, isn't anything all that special. It still appears to be Moench's weak point. The Thief of Night is working for Nocturna and, somehow, after a week of losing to him night after night, Batman still can't come up with a single strategy to take down an otherwise average thief who blends into shadows. There are some other smaller plot problems as well, though nothing major. Meanwhile, Bullock is still causing trouble for Gordan, and Jason becomes tired of being a secondary priority in Bruce's life, spending more time with Waldo and wanting to rejoin the circus. This last problem really doesn't interest me as there's no real threat involved. Waldo wants what's best for the kid, and there's no way anyone's going to think that Jason would be better off leaving a willing adoptive parent in order to be an orphan in the circus. Yeah, it always takes a suspension of disbelief to wonder if Batman will overcome his obstacles, but I just can't get myself to worry about this particular obstacle, especially after all the anticipatory build-up Moench gave it in the last two issues.

Finally, there's an odd moment in the Wayne Foundation boardroom as Lucius Fox is briefed on a tragic work-related accident involving a Ms. N. Knight (who will obviously and conveniently turn up as Nocturna just next issue) and the question of whether or not the Foundation should pay for her extremely costly medical bills. Lucius' response is to postpone the payment so that the Foundation can look into whether or not she's due for even more compensation than she's requesting. I realize that the dual purpose is to give Nocturna motivation for turning to crime as well as to depict how kind and charitable the Wayne Foundation is, but I have several problems with this:

1. It's one thing to be a generous and equitable company that pays a fair wage and looks out for its employees, but why in the world would you offer an employee more than they're looking for without even knowing the story? It's one thing to feel responsible, but Lucius knows almost none of the facts involved.

2. From the report's perspective, the accident sure sounds like it was Nocturna's fault, in which she decided to utilize a laser in her astronomical studies and was injured in an accident that stemmed from such a decision. Granted, only a jerk would automatically jump to that conclusion without seeing the evidence, but it certainly should be looked into. How can any company stay afloat if, every time there's a work related claim, the CEO personally and automatically decides to pay out more than the person is asking for REGARDLESS of fault and facts?

3. How in the world does Lucius think he's helping by holding up the status of the claims? These are old bills and Nocturna probably needs them paid asap.


So there's a lot about this issue that doesn't make sense, but the overall tone and characterizations more than make up for it.

The major differences between Bronze and Modern age comic storytelling

Ever since I began this run back in June(?), I've held off on reading current comics. I've mentioned this before, but somehow I always find switching between older comics and new comics jarring. They just feel too different to me. Well I finally did spend tonight catching up on four months worth of new Batman and Detective comics, and a lot came into focus as I read them. There really is a total difference in the way new comics are done versus the way old comics were done, and it isn't just decompression and glossy paper.

As I followed these newer stories, what became immediately apparent to me is that each storyline is an island unto itself. Whereas Conway (improving upon a strategy first begun with Wein, and furthered by Wolfman) plotted his arcs like a professional boxer, throwing one story concept at you while pulling back the other arm and preparing to hit you with another after, all the while using careful footwork to shape a larger pattern that would only come into focus with later successive hits, the new style seems to be bludgeoning the reader with one fist repeatedly. We're generally given one plot, existing outside of any other meaningful continuity of events, stretched out for five issues (where one or two would have done), and attempting to justify itself by making the story out to be so much larger than anything that came before it; so much more personal, complicated, dire, or what have you, than anything the hero has ever faced before. There's no A plot, B plot and C plot occurring within the span of a single issue. It's one A plot dragged out for ever and ever. Even Morrison, who has free reign over the Bat books, writes each story arc in this way, with each threat or mystery fully occupying an issue, unwilling to share with any other ideas Morrison might be entertaining on the sidelines or setting up for future issues.

My mind goes back to Marv Wolfman's highly anticipated return to Nightwing a few years back. It was terrible, and I think that was largely due to the fact that Wolfman handled this new style of plotting worse than most. One story spent five issues trying to show how Dick taking down a bunch of mutant experiments was the pinnacle of his entire identity search, culminating in his bursting out of a grave, figuratively and triumphantly reborn. The next one spent five issues on Bride and Groom, a semi-intriguing villain pair that might have made for one good issue, but they got extremely boring by the end of five. Wolfman, a master of the bronze age, could not work his magic in this new age of comics, hands figuratively bound by this new vision for how comics should be written.

I wonder if the reason these Bronze Age books work so much better is that the comic industry was afraid of its fans back then. You can see the desperation and uncertainty in the letters columns, as writers and editors panicked to try to understand these new adult readers who would no longer go for the old style of stories targeted at kids. The only thing they knew how to do in response was to write with as much quality as they could, and though they weren't always successful, the ambitions were honest. Now it's all a machine. They understand us well, and they know how to manipulate us. They know exactly how to create the hype to get you reading the first part of a story arc, keep reading with interest for another two, and then finish up the last two because you might as well -- you already bought the first three. Then they reprint the whole thing as a trade to attract even more readers and make even more money. And the true beauty is, with no real continuity, and with constantly rotating creative teams on most books, you keep coming back to these stories without any real impression of what it will be like and whether or not you'll like it, all while the hype keeps on enticing you to try it just in case. It's an incredibly successful business model, but it's optimized for churning out fluff. Many of these arcs have decent ideas at their core, but that's all they are -- five issues exploring one idea to a fault.

Modern writers would have had us spend an equal five issues on the Thief of Night and Killer Croc, on the Sports Master and The Lazarus Affair. There are no bigger stories and smaller ones, no greater and lesser villains. It's all treated equally, both in length and in tone. It's all about selling the 5 parter, not telling good stories, one after another, and crafting a continuity in the process. Worse yet, when each and every story idea gets 5 months to run its course, it's a total slow down in ingenuity. The Bronze Age gave us new villains and conflicts nearly every month. Now we get 2.5 of them a year.

I don't know. There's still something charming about picking up new books each month, but I'm really starting to see the strings operating the puppets. Reading semi-quality classic books is killing new ones for me in contrast. I wonder if, in a sense, I can now look back at the second half of Conway's run on Batman as a sort of Golden Age for plotting and continuity. Sure, the stories had their flaws, but those one-two punches of A, B, and C plots, all developing in concert, is something that had never been done well prior to Conway, and I'm beginning to doubt that it will ever be done better after.

/end rant

So...it only took me a month to get to the next issue in the Batman run. Sorry for the long delay, but I spent the past month catching up on nearly six months worth of unread new comics. Now that I'm caught up, I'm ready to jump back into things.

Detective Comics #530

"Passion Nocturnale"
Writer: Doug Moench
Art: Gene Colan

Grade: B

First off, anytime you ever have Gene Colan on art and Dick Giordano inking, you're inevitably going to be in for a treat. Portions of this issue are a visual feast, especially the climax, in which Moench's words, Colan's layouts, and Giordano's inks almost seem to sing in angelic harmony. Additionally, Adriane Roy does an excellent job giving color and, therefore, expression to the night during this scene, playing with shades to keep the panels dynamic, yet also providing a uniform identity for the backdrop.

Of course, then there's Moench's writing and plotting. Moench is desperately trying to make this story a thing of literature, which I respect but, as a piece of literature, it absolutely fails. The writing is stilted and over the top, even having Batman deliver the line "She's long gone...leaving nothing but an arrogant scatter of gem fragments." Why Batman, I had no idea you were such a fan of personification and playful adjectives.

There are a few lines that do connect, such as when Batman "roves streets starved for love, driven by a passion dangerously close to hate," but most of the rest is arrogant, overly-stylized fluff.

Moench attempts to employ metaphors and thematic parallels, beginning and ending with an owl attempting to find love, and attempting to link Jason and Nocturna's pursuits of love, though the connections are never crisp and clear. I still can't decide which love Nocturna is referring to when she tells Jason "Maybe his hands are tied. By emotion. Maybe he loves you too much...and fears losing you to the freedom of what you want to be." Obviously, she is saying this to Jason about Bruce, but it's clearly meant to be taken on another level as well. On the one hand, she might be referring to Batman loving her too much and fearing what she wants to be, but such feelings are never hinted at between the two of them anywhere in this story. It's also likely that she means the Thief of Night, since she then goes on to rescue him, but what does he fear her becoming, and why does Moench warn at the end that "obsession changes the love which spawned it," when neither Nocturna nor the Thief of Night are spurning the other nor seem to be particularly obsessed? Is the love a more existential love of crime or consciousness? The most likely bet is that Moench does mean there's an obsessive love between Nocturna and Batman, but the clues are beyond subtle in this story...they're non-existent. As a result, the whole owl metaphor seems labored, unnecessary, and irrelevant by the end. If an English teacher with years of writing and editing experience can't easily decipher the theme and metaphors of this story, how the heck is the average reader going to?

There's also a troubling moment in the story where Bruce learns Jason has run away and decides to pursue Nocturna instead of trying to get him back. He tells this to Alfred and asks Alfred to go instead. Now Alfred's primary function in the Batman mythos is to give Bruce a chance to talk about what he's thinking inside, but that opportunity is entirely wasted here. I need to know that he (and Moench) understand the consequences of this decision; that there's a motivation behind it. Instead, Bruce simply makes capturing a white collar thief more important than getting back his confused and angry ward with no hint of this being out of the ordinary nor a cause for concern. That bugged me.

I think Moench has an amazing story in his head, one in which all of these motivations and actions make complete sense and, together, weave a powerful tapestry that warrants heavy metaphors and dense, descriptive language, but little of that is actually coming across at this point. I love Nocturna visually and as an idea, but what the character actually says and does fails to impress me, as does the way that Batman responds to her, making his pursuit of her his #1 priority without any real explanation nor hint of why. If it's out of obsessive love, we need to see and feel it, and we need to understand why. What attracts him to her beyond the fact that they both have a deep connection to the night?

Detective Comics #531

"The Face of the Chimera"
writer: Doug Moench
art: Gene Colan and Alfredo Alcala

Grade: B+

The conclusion to the Chimera storyline doesn't disappoint, for the most part. Jason grows a bit more of a personality as he's left to wonder how to handle Chimera, believing that he's alone in handling all this. His methodical solution in searching for the Chimera is practical, and his final guess as to the true nature of Chimera is quite brilliant. Granted, it was only a guess that ended up being completely true, but it was still brilliant.

I really like the final answer to who Chimera was. He was never any of the individual circus members. He was a master of disguise floating amongst them all along, changing faces as often as necessary in order to blend in. Fascinating. I still would have liked to have seen his real face and learned his true identity in the end. Jason is only partly right that it doesn't really matter. There's always that need for a sense of closure, and if he ever comes back again, I'd like to know his true alter ego. It's not like Batman doesn't know his identity now, so it's a bit of a stupid mystery to leave open for us.

It seems that Moench must have changed his plans for Chimera partway through. When Waldo first showed up at Wayne Manor several issues back (Detective #528), there was a dark undertone to the visit, and Jason wondered out loud why Waldo was wearing his makeup while he was off duty. The answer to those odd clues would appear to be that it was Chimera, but in the next issue, that same Waldo talked to Jason like a friend without any clear agenda in mind, and we saw only last issue that Chimera hadn't considered kidnapping Jason until just then. Oh well. Loose ends.

Oh, and by the way, why the heck would Chimera make a second attempt to get Jason if he now knows Batman is pursuing him? Just last issue, he was terrified at their first encounter. Why not let a good crime spree be good enough, go back to hiding amongst the carnies, and keep making scores the way he'd been making them all along? Sure, Jason would fetch a large ransom, but Chimera was clearly way out of his league.

Such confusion aside, my only regret with this issue is that it doesn't leave much for the artists to do. Colan and Alcala teaming up on art is a dream come true, but Moench has all the action take place during the daytime when their best work is in expressive shadows, and his focus is more on tying up the story than it is on tone and drama. The script works fine on its own, but it doesn't really consider the visual aspect. Colan and Alcala still do an amazing job, especially on faces, but they lack the freedom of expression that comes with Moench's moodier scripts.

The plot summary in one long sentence: Batman wakes up and scares away a bunch of lions that were planning on eating him, Jason decides Chimera isn't Waldo and escapes, Gordan is in a coma from which he may never awaken, Jason begins a systematic check on all members of the circus to see who wasn't there the night before and is therefore Chimera, he figures out what Chimera really is (actually, it's a wild guess), he finds Batman and Chimera (only he's confused which is which), a fight ensues, Chimera is captured, Bruce agrees to take Jason on as a partner, and Vicki Vale begins a plan to go undercover and expose a weapons deal between Russia and Cuba.