Gotham Calling

Accessible superhero comics – part 2

Posted on February 16, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

If you read the last post, you know what’s going on. Here are another five brilliant, accessible superhero comics:

The One

In the mid-80s, with Reagan still churning out his initial rhetoric of Cold War escalation, and just before Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns channeled the widespread feeling of impending doom into the world of superheroes, Rick Veitch unleashed his own twisted take on the Zeitgeist.

When an old, decrepit version of Richie Rich manipulates the USA and the Soviet Union into the ultimate confrontation, the two countries enter a bizarre superhero arms race, spawning physically and mentally deformed ‘superiors.’ Meanwhile, humanity’s fears of nuclear holocaust take the form of mystic creatures fighting for our collective consciousness. More interested in superpowers than heroism, The One takes the basic concepts and aesthetics of the genre and uses them to tell a heady, maximalist, fucked up story of war, politics, lust, spiritual evolution, and a giant mouse called Übermaus! The result feels both rooted in a specific era and years ahead of its time, especially as many of these ideas have since then been reworked to death by other creators.

Influenced by New Age mysticism and counterculture, Rick Veitch’s comics usually combine despicable characters, pitch black satire, and seriously creepy imagery. The One is no exception, with Veitch’s freaky art depicting the grotesque cast and environment in all their seediness. And yet, this isn’t even his most cruel and iconoclastic attack on superheroes – that would be either the metafictional masterpiece The Maximortal, which examines the destructive power of the concept of Superman in the 20^th century, or the disturbing Brat Pack, which mocks the fascist and fetishistic role of sidekicks in superhero fiction.

Top 10

Imagine being a cop in a city where everybody has superpowers. Literally, everybody: kids, bartenders, telephone operators, prostitutes, and cab drivers. Oh OK, throw in a bunch of robots and monsters as well, for good measure. This is the setting of Top 10, a hilarious police procedural that borrows all the clichés from shows like Hill Street Blues and Law & Order and turns them into absurdist jokes, including an infestation of supermice and a murder in a bar full of gods (‘We’re police officers. Nobody move in a mysterious way…’).

Leave it to Alan Moore to take things farther than anyone else. Not only does he pack Top 10 with an insane amount of nods and gags (artist extraordinaire Gene Ha had to bring in Zander Cannon to help him fill in all the endless details the script asked for in each panel), but Moore gives a distinctly engaging voice to each member of the comic’s very wide and very diverse cast. In the end, somehow a deeper meaning emerges from the barrage of sick jokes and meta-puns, as Top 10 turns out to be a surprisingly touching celebration of diversity.

It’s such a fascinating high concept that it begs for more stories. Moore himself wrote a spinoff (Smax) and a prequel (The Forty-Niners) – and while Paul Di Filippo’s sequel wasn’t very good (Beyond the Farthest Precinct), Zander and Kevin Cannon did a great job with their own take on the series (Top 10: Season Two).

The Umbrella Academy

The first page of The Umbrella Academy features a wrestler in mid-jump, about to land on a comically bug-eyed, tentacled monster spread on a wrestling ring. The captions read:

‘It was the same year “Tusslin’ Tom” Gurney knocked out the space-squid from Rigel X-9…

It happened at 9:38 p.m….

It came from an atomic flying elbow.’

Although unrelated to the actual plot, that page tells you all you need to know about this comic: it’s funny, surreal, and shamelessly action-packed. In fact, there is something cool in every single page of this series about a dysfunctional family of superheroes facing the most hallucinating threats you can think of (yes, including a society of homicidal musicians called Orchestra Verdammten). With a childlike sense of excitement and taste for graphic violence, The Umbrella Academy is superhero comics at their most enjoyably preposterous!

Rock star Gerard Way hit the ground running with this series, creating an eccentric world worthy of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and filling it with explosive ideas no matter how much sense they may or may not make (if you can accept zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel, you can also accept that in this universe the USA was openly fighting in Vietnam during the Kennedy administration, just for the hell of it). The cartoonish and breathtakingly dynamic art is by Gabriel Bá, with colors by the reliably awesome Dave Stewart.

The Winter Men

Revolving as it does around a team of former Soviet super-soldiers, at first The Winter Men may sound like just another entry into the expanding subgenre of Cold War-related superhero comics (Superman: Red Son, The New Frontier, The Programme, The American Way, The Boys, Divinity, etc). However, this aspect is kept low-key in what is for the most part a dense crime story that also borrows elements from espionage and science fiction. Behind all the genre-bending, and above all, The Winter Men is an original and challenging exploration of early 21^st century Russia.

Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon have really crafted something special. The dialogue is written in sardonic broken English and peppered up with literal translations of Russian expressions (although some of the Russian text is actually screwed up, for example mixing у with ч). Rich characterization emerges from witty interactions as well as from small gestures in the corner of the detailed and atmospheric panels. The plot is intricate, but this is a comic that is not afraid to take digressions, whether it’s a violent trip to Brooklyn, an amusing Christmas party, or the moody interlude in chapter 4, which follows a couple of characters around Moscow during an eventful day with little connection to the main story.

Gripping, smart, brutal, and moving, The Winter Men is easily one of the best comics of the last decade.

Zenith

Interdimensional monsters want to destroy the world by possessing a Nazi superhuman and apparently the only one who can stop them is a spoiled, self-centered British pop star (with help from a feisty magazine editor, a drunken Welsh, and a hippie turned Tory MP). Well, that’s how everything starts anyway…

Written at a time when Grant Morrison was still trying to subvert superhero conventions (Animal Man, Arkham Asylum) rather than embracing them (most of his stuff since JLA), Zenith treats its protagonist as a cynical pop icon and replaces some of the obligatory slugfests with clever, anti-climactic twists. These last 30 years may have taken the edge off this then-revolutionary satire, but the series still holds well as an entertaining read thanks to Morrison’s wit and Steve Yeowell’s elegant pencils.

All in all, Zenith remains a cool comic that keeps pulling the rug from under the reader until the knockout final act, in Phase IV.

NEXT: Batman vs dinosaurs.

Posted in SUPER POWERS | Tagged 2000 AD, Alan Moore, Brett Lewis, Cold War, Dave Stewart, espionage, Gabriel Bá, Gene Ha, Gerard Way, Grant Morrison, John Paul Leon, Kevin Cannon, Paul Di Filippo, Rick Veitch, science fiction, Steve Yeowell, The One, Top 10, Umbrella Academy, Winter Men, Zander Cannon, Zenith | Leave a comment

Accessible superhero comics – part 1

Posted on February 12, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

As much as the Gotham TV show pretends that it isn’t the case, if you’re into Batman, you’re likely to enjoy superheroics. Although one can argue that Batman is not an actual superhero because he doesn’t have super-powers (I disagree), his comics are definitely superhero comics. Greg Hatcher really nailed it when he stressed that, no matter how much you disguise their fantastical elements, the core appeal of Batman stories is not their realism, but precisely their potential for escapism. Of course, part of what makes them so cool is the way in which they combine different genres, such as horror and detective fiction, but at the end of the day, what defines Batman comics more than anything else is the science ninja billionaire wearing a cape & cowl to protect his secret identity while punching thematic villains. Also, he sometimes hangs out with Superman.

Regardless of historical and cultural justifications, that stories about crimefighters with silly codenames, outrageous costumes, and supernatural powers became an actual genre is peculiar enough, but the fact that this grew into the most mainstream genre in American comics is insane – especially given the tendency for convoluted, interconnected narratives that span several decades and involve thousands of disparate threads. But this is not to say that they cannot be phenomenal pieces of fiction. Watchmen is a widely known example of a sophisticated superhero comic that is also friendly to readers unwilling to do background research, and there are plenty of others…

Astro City

Intelligently written by Kurt Busiek and beautifully illustrated by Brent Anderson (with designs and covers by Alex Ross), Astro City is a long-running series of self-contained superhero stories – or rather, stories set in a city full of superheroes, where the heroes themselves are rarely the protagonists. Played straight, rich in detail, with realistic art, three-dimensional characters, and mature, resonant themes, this is the brightest equivalent of Watchmen. While Watchmen deconstructed the genre by asking what it would be like if superheroes lived in our world, Astro City reconstructs it with a modern sensibility, asking what it would be like if we lived in a world of superheroes. How could journalists fact-check articles about intergalactic battles? How would courts work if invoking magic and shapeshifting aliens were reasonable arguments?

By focusing on the lives of what are usually peripheral characters (the average citizens, sidekicks, small-time villains, collateral damage) and showing how they are touched by large-scale conflicts happening somewhere off page, Astro City manages to capture a genuine sense of wonder often lacking in today’s superhero comics. Busiek and Ross famously used this type of street level point of view to great effect in Marvels, their ode to the Silver Age Marvel Universe, but Astro City comes with the bonus of being highly accessible to new readers. Sure, older fans can enjoy metafictional Easter eggs and homages, but these never get in the way of the stories. And although many characters start off as obvious riffs on famous creations from the Big Two (including a sinister version of Batman, called The Confessor), Astro City is less about commenting on those archetypes than about using them to explore small-scale human facets and quirks.

Catalyst Comix

Taking a radically different approach, Joe Casey sought to revitalize superhero comics not by making them more grounded and relatable, but by pumping up the hard rock stereo. At once old school and postmodern, Catalyst Comix unleashes the genre’s craziness and hyperbole, unapologetically going for relentless, mind-blowing, semi-poetic, Kirbyesque pop art surrealism. Casey opens the book with what appears to be the end of the world, goddamn it, and instead of pulling back for a flashback, he doesn’t let go, gleefully pushing forward with bravado, libido, and loads of exclamation marks! The pages above are from that very first issue, where the Earth comes under attack by a villain described in Casey’s colorful, over-the-top prose:

‘TO GIVE IT A PROPER NAME IS TO SOMEHOW DIMINISH IT. BUT WE’RE GONNA GIVE IT ONE ANYWAY…

IT IS THE ULTIMATE DEATH CONCEPT! IT IS THE FINAL NIGHTMARE MADE TERRIFYINGLY REAL!

THE ONLY WORD TO DESCRIBE IT ECHOES THROUGH THE UNIVERSE LIKE A MINOR METAL KEY, DROP D TUNED CACOPHONY OF CHAOS!

NIBIRU IS RELEASE!

NIBIRU IS DECAY!

NIBIRU IS EXTINCTION!

NIBIRU IS!’

Catalyst Comix tells three separate (but occasionally interconnected) stories. ‘The Ballad of Frank Wells,’ robustly illustrated by Dan McCaid, concerns a powerful superhero exploring alternative paths to save the world, from spiritual enlightenment to political activism (including a hilarious bed-in protest). With quirky art by Paul Maybury, ‘Amazing Grace’ takes place in Golden City, a utopian haven for forward thinkers (‘a socioeconomic theme park’) protected by the eponymous heroine, who has to fight off the sexual advances of a mysterious alien. ‘Agents of Change’ brings together a group of narcissistic superheroes past their prime, trying to regain meaning beyond their dead-end existence of S&M clubs and reality TV shows, rendered by Ulises Farina’s stylish pencils.

Empire

What if, for once, the megalomaniac supervillain actually won? Empire is set in a reality where a Doctor Doom-like figure defeated the local superheroes and successfully took over… and now has to deal with the politics of ruling a ruthless empire while keeping his various conspiracy-prone ministers in check. Every character has a hidden agenda in this chessboard of a story, full of plot twists and shifting perspectives. After years of reading about villains like Ra’s al Ghul wanting to conquer the world (hey, who doesn’t?), it’s refreshing to see such an in-depth exploration of the possible payoff – especially as the comic avoids the temptation to tell a straightforward tale of resistance or hero-driven pushback (a la Final Crisis) and keeps its focus on the despot and his mischievous underlings.

Empire came out around the same time as Mark Millar’s Wanted, with which it shared the overall premise, as well as generous doses of sex and blood. But while Millar buried some cool ideas under a pile of tasteless jokes and repugnant subtext, in Empire Mark Waid crafted an engaging superhero version of the court of the Borgias. Waid seems less interested in transcending or mocking genre conventions than in applying them to a different kind of setting – and he definitely knows what he’s doing, having written tons of great superhero comics throughout his career (including the JLA storyline ‘Tower of Babel’ where Batman comes up with ways to defeat all the major heroes in the DC Universe). And while I’m not a big fan of artist Barry Kitson, his collaborations with Waid tend to bring out the best in him (particularly their clever take on Legion of Super-Heroes). Recently, the duo have returned to the world of Empire through Waid’s innovative comics platform Thrillbent.

Ex Machina

Ex Machina is comics’ answer to The West Wing, only focusing on local politics and with a great sci-fi twist. It’s set in an alternate reality where Mitchell Hundred, after a brief career as a costumed hero, won the 2001 New York City mayoral election. Less a superhero adventure than a political thriller in which the main character happens to be a former superhero, the series engages with several hot topics, from gay marriage to terrorism, as it switches back and forth between backroom discussion of real-world issues and fresh takes on superhero tropes.

Just like in the gender-themed adventure saga Y: The Last Man and in the Iraq War parable Pride of Baghdad, writer Brian K. Vaughan finds an original way to raise thought-provoking points. His plotting is ingenious and the dialogue heavy on profanity, pop culture references, and witty exposition. This, combined with Tony Harris’ photorealistic, cinematic art (which manages to breathe life even into long scenes of people talking to each other in boring rooms), makes Ex Machina feel like a precursor to TV’s Veep, although it veers into darker, House of Cards territory by the end.

Miracleman

If you think Alan Moore said all he had to say about superheroes with Watchmen, then you desperately need to read Miracleman. The series kicked off as one of the first 1980s’ gritty, revisionist takes on the genre, updating an old British superhero comic (itself a thinly veiled rip-off of Captain Marvel) into Thatcherite reality, but it gradually evolved into something much more ambitious as Moore took advantage of the fact that he was not restrained by shared continuity with other titles and took the story wherever it led him. In a way, Miraclemen (originally Marvelman) mirrors the history of superhero comics in general: starting out as simple tales with naïve archetypes and crude art, turning increasingly mature and engaging with the genre’s implications, and finally taking the concept of superheroes as far as possible by completely reimagining their world. It also includes Moore’s pet themes of transcendence and unconventional sex.

But it’s not just Alan Moore’s show. He was joined by amazing artists, such as Garry Leach, Alan Davis, Rick Veitch, and John Totleben, among others. And after he was done, Moore handed over writing duties to Neil Gaiman, who further expanded the series’ universe and took it in a new, interesting direction. After decades in limbo, Miraclemen is finally back in print, with new coloring, and even some new stories. It’s essential reading for any fan of the genre.

NEXT: More brilliant superhero comics.

Posted in SUPER POWERS | Tagged Alan Davis, Alan Moore, Alex Ross, Astro City, Barry Kitson, Brent Anderson, Brian K. Vaughan, Catalyst Comix, Dan McCaid, Empire, Ex Machina, Garry Leach, Joe Casey, John Totleben, Kurt Busiek, Mark Millar, Mark Waid, Miracleman, Neil Gaiman, Paul Maybury, politics, Rick Veitch, science fiction, Tony Harris, Ulises Farina | Leave a comment

People you should know in Gotham City

Posted on February 9, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

If you want to be a villain in Gotham City – an unwise but surprisingly frequent career move – there are some people you just have to know.

Once you’ve figured out your villainous name and shtick, you’ll want to find the best tailor in town to fix you up with a cool costume. No, not him. Jake, the biggest specialist in the field, actually has two drawbacks: 1) he can be quite expensive, and 2) he also works for the good guys, so there is the risk of bumping into one of his other clients….

Gotham Knights #52

That said, the Tailor doesn’t take sides, just takes cash, so at least you don’t have to worry about him ratting you out because he doesn’t like what you’re planning.

The next step is getting a base of operations that reflects your criminal persona. Gotham City is full of creepy and decrepit real estate, but it may not be easy to find and acquire the perfect place. This is where Sherman Fine, aka The Broker, comes in:

Gotham City Sirens #1

The thing about Mr. Fine is that he is less reliable than Jake the Tailor as far as loyalty goes… It does not mean that he cannot hold his own – after all, dealing with the likes of the Joker and Victor Zsasz makes this *literally* a cutthroat business!

Streets Of Gotham #4

After getting settled in your new place, you’ll want to make sure you install some good old-fashioned deathtraps, for when the Dark Knight inevitably shows up. Chances are, they won’t kill Batman, or even slow him down that much… but hey, it’s a tradition (not to mention a musical number).

Batman Adventures (v2) #9

The person you want to see for this is Jenna ‘Carpenter’ Duffy. A former pickpocket and con artist, she joined the Mad Hatter’s Wonderland Gang together with Moe ‘Walrus’ Blum (as per Lewis Carrol’s poem, ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’) and later went freelance as a craftswoman specialized in villains’ headquarters and secret lairs.

Streets of Gotham #12

Like the Broker, the Carpenter was created by Paul Dini, who populated his comics (and TV scripts) with all sorts of charismatic side characters. In fact, Dini imbued these two with so much personality that it’s a shame they never got their own series… I would love to read about them figuring out the logistics for one of those bizarrely decorated hideouts that Two-Face uses!

Anyway, once everything else is finally set up, there is only one more crucial contact you should have on your speed dial. When things go bad – and Gotham being Gotham, they will go bad – make sure you know the number of the Crime Doctor:

Detective Comics #494

First created in 1943, the Crime Doctor was a fascinating character, particularly in his second incarnation, when he was revived in the ’80s as Bradford Thorne. He wasn’t motivated by greed (he donated his earnings anonymously to health care facilities in order to help provide medical services to the city’s poor), but by an addiction to crime. Thorne’s Achilles heel was his Hippocratic oath, as he kept undermining his own plans because of his refusal to let people die… What’s more, the Crime Doctor found out Batman’s secret identity by recognizing a bandage he had put on Bruce Wayne, but – even with the Dark Knight after him – Thorne refused to reveal the secret to the underworld because this would be a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality!

The Crime Doctor has been reimagined a few times over the years, but it’s still odd that such a zany medicine-based villain hasn’t gotten more exposure. Thorne also seems like a natural candidate for a spinoff. I can just see a Grey’s Anatomy-type hospital drama set in the Crimson Crime Clinic, with increasing sexual tension between Doctor McCrimey and the lovely Nurse Rench:

Detective Comics #579

NEXT: Brilliant superhero comics.

Posted in GOTHAM CITIZENS | Tagged Gotham City, Paul Dini | Leave a comment

Smells Like Will Eisner’s Spirit

Posted on February 5, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

Detective Comics #600

In terms of stylish, offbeat crime stories featuring a masked vigilante and a pipe-smoking, irresponsibly lenient police commissioner, it’s hard to beat Batman comics. However, while The Spirit didn’t have such an engaging protagonist, such a fascinating rogues’ gallery, or such an eccentric city as background, it did have Will Eisner. Eisner was one of the greatest comics’ craftsmen of all time, and his work on The Spirit (at least after he came back from WWII) was a tour de force which left a lasting mark on the adventures of the Dark Knight.

Heavily inspired by Citizen Kane and film noir, Eisner’s comics were full of experimental storytelling, shadowy atmosphere, expressionist violence, Dutch angles, pulp poses, and femme fatales. A recognizable trademark was the way in which the first page of each story used to integrate the series’ title, as if it was part of the opening scene:

The Spirit: ‘The Partner’

Will Eisner – and a host of ghost artists and assistants – kept coming up with new and effective visual tricks to suit each story’s specific mood. ‘The Killer,’ a psychological tale about a returned war vet, subtly used the same circular framing throughout the comic, in different contexts, including a Lady in the Lake-like POV sequence. Memorable escapades set in the Arab world such as ‘The Jewel of Death’ and its sort-of remake ‘Blood of the Earth’ riffed on Pépé le Moko and The Mask of Dimitrios. ‘The Last Trolley’ famously captured the feeling of swinging around in an old trolley:

The Spirit: ‘The Last Trolley’

Here was an author in complete control of the medium. One tale opens with the line ‘It will take you ten minutes to read this story…’ and damn it if it’s not true! Fifty years later, guys like Frank Miller and Darwyn Cooke were still trying to catch up with the kind of mastery of sequential art Eisner and his team demonstrated back in the 1940s…

The Spirit: ‘Lorelei Rox’

Not all stories of The Spirit are hits, with some sexist and racial stereotypes being particularly cringeworthy. Overall, though, these comics are a fun time capsule of the angst and aspirations of postwar America. Notably, they engage with different styles, from two-fisted action to goofy comedy, from magical realism to exotic adventure, from science fiction to children’s reading primers, or even a weird combination of all of these (‘The Story of Sam’). In the final years, Eisner handed over the writing chores and the series continued to explore new directions as the Spirit temporarily moved to the moon with a bunch of convicts (that’s right).

Although ostensibly the hero, the Spirit (aka Denny Colt) often played a supporting role in the series, serving merely as a pretext for short, self-contained narratives about a wide range of characters who came into contact with the masked vigilante. You can see Will Eisner’s fascination with the human condition and the dark side of the American dream, which decades later led him to exchange pulp conventions for straight-up melodrama in masterpieces like A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood.

It’s not difficult to see how The Spirit came to influence so many Batman artists and writers. In fact, I would argue that Eisner’s work proved influential already at the time… Take ‘Next Stop – Danger!’ (Batman #43), which mostly takes place during a subway ride. Like many tales of The Spirit, this 1947 comic begins by pushing the masked heroes to the background, focusing instead on the desperate lives of ordinary citizens about to cross paths with the Dynamic Duo:

Batman #43

Batman and Robin come into the picture while chasing a couple of crooks who seek refuge in the subway. Each passenger plays a role in the ensuing confrontation and, by the end of the ride, their fates are all transformed in some way. While the art is cruder than Eisner’s and the ending lacks both his cruelty and his sense of humor, one can easily imagine a slight variation of this plot in the pages of The Spirit.

That said, the Batman tale which most openly acknowledged The Spirit’s legacy came out four decades later, in Detective Comics #497:

Detective Comics #497

A rainy night in a Mexican small town. A sleazy bar where losers hang out and the owner complains that the rain is the only thing preventing him from burning the place down. A couple argues on the top floor, a spoiled wife walking out halfway through the honeymoon. A stranger walks in, with a bullet in his arm and a suitcase full of valuable documents. By the end of the story, he will have touched each of these lives… Once again, even though this is a Batman comic (the stranger who walks into the bar is Bruce Wayne), the fun of ‘Bad Night in Baja’ is watching all the subplots intertwine and pay off, as what would usually be peripheral characters are brought to the forefront.

Besides the mosaic structure and the focus on small-scale human drama, writer Gerry Conway includes various other winks to Will Eisner, from the hotel’s name (a play on Dolan, The Spirit’s version of Commissioner Gordon) to a criminal overlord called Squid (evoking the recurring villain The Octopus). The art, by the great Don Newton and Dan Adkins, also captures the noirish mood of hunched silhouettes and newspapers flying in the wind. And following the tradition of incorporating the series’ logo into the title page, the opening splash (above) features the words ‘The Batman’ as both a lightning and a shadow on the puddles in front of the hotel. All of this makes the comic cooler, although at the end of the day this is a cool comic not just because it is fun to spot nods to the master, but because aping The Spirit is such an effective place to start when writing a one-shot crime story!

Perhaps less obvious, Doug Moench’s script for ‘The Spider’s Ninth Leg!’ (from the anniversary issue Detective Comics #550) also displays a distinctively Eisneresque tone. In this comic overloaded with symbolism, Batman chases a junky called Joey Redwine through Gotham’s rooftops. Joey has just stolen a candlestick from a church and killed a nun – and the chase is intercut with flashbacks showing the eight key steps that led him to this moment. Given the on-the-nose religious imagery, it should come as no surprise where Joey ends up:

Detective Comics #550

As you can tell from this denouement, it’s not much of a Batman yarn, in the traditional sense. The Dark Knight is an outside force (‘fate,’ as Moench’s narration puts it) and doesn’t do anything particularly heroic, much less save the day. ‘The Spider’s Ninth Leg!’ operates on a different level – it’s a downbeat morality play, one where Batman plays an essentially symbolic and instrumental role. It’s an examination of delinquency, showing how the kind of street criminals the Caped Crusader regularly beats up can have quite complicated background stories, with particular emphasis on child abuse (a key point in the comic, which finishes with the implication that Joey encounters his abusive father in Hell).

One writer with a knack for self-contained, non-Batman-centric stories that finish with poignant twist endings is Chuck Dixon, author of ‘Death Comes Home’ (Detective Comics #716) and ‘The Factor of Fear!’ (Gotham Knights #19). A personal favorite of mine is ‘Rocket Scientist’ (Detective Comics #704), which deals with the most inept criminal since Virgil Starkwell:

Detective Comics #704

And then there is Dennis O’Neil’s and Denys Cowan’s The Question. I’ve mentioned before how this series crucially interacted with Batman comics, but it’s also worth noting that The Question came closer than anything else to capturing The Spirit’s… well, spirit. For one thing, there was inescapable visual continuity as both comics revolved around an action hero with blue gloves, trenchcoat, and a fedora. Moreover, The Question often spotlighted the doomed lives of marginal characters who were part of an intricate tapestry of twisted coincidences and interrelated plotlines, all told with a nasty sense of irony worthy of Will Eisner:

The Question #5

Taking all of this into account, you would be forgiven for thinking that a Batman/Spirit crossover would be the most awesome thing ever…

However, you would be wrong.

NEXT: Batman fights a one-eyed octopus.

Posted in WEBS OF FICTION | Tagged Chuck Dixon, Dan Adkins, Darwyn Cooke, Denny O'Neil, Denys Cowan, Don Newton, Doug Moench, Gerry Conway, noir, The Spirit, Will Eisner | Leave a comment

Gunning for Batman – part 2

Posted on February 2, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

While Batman getting shot at may by itself generate some kick-ass covers, over the years several artists have gone out of their way to make such a premise even more rock and roll.

A recurrent strategy has been to come up with cool angles involving Batman’s reflection:

To give their comics more of a summer blockbuster vibe, other artists have taken advantage of the fact that, because of his unusual lifestyle, the Dark Knight often dodges bullets in the most unlikely places…

…and sometimes even while being broadcast:

If the ‘where’ can get a bit nuts, then the ‘who’ usually feels like it’s on drugs! People shooting at the Caped Crusader tend to elevate what could have been a pedestrian M.O. through their peculiar fashion sense:

Among the many unconventional objects used to gun down Batman, you can find a weapon that shoots by itself and a freaking ghost airplane from WWI…

…and, needless to say, a couple of Civil War cannons:

As screwy as all this is, things can still feel a bit boring every once in a while, so artists have also gotten quite creative with the overall cover design…

At the end of the day, though, all I ask for is to see the Dark Knight facing the barrel of a gun in the most intriguing circumstances…

NEXT: The Spirit of Will Eisner.

Posted in COVERS OF BATMAN COMICS | Tagged covers, guns | Leave a comment

Gunning for Batman – part 1

Posted on January 26, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

In the past, I have expressed my passion for covers that feature the Joker at his most creepy and surreal, as well as covers with some kind of visual twist involving their logo. But just in case you think I’m hard to please, or that there is anything remotely refined about my tastes, let’s get this straight: I am also a huge sucker for covers where it looks like Batman is about to get shot!

Just in covers alone, more guns have been pointed at the Dark Knight than at the average character in a Johnnie To thriller. Yet it’s a formula that keeps on giving. There is something about the simple immediacy of danger brought on by a pointed gun which generates dynamism and urgency, with Batman for once seeming helpless and vulnerable…

On the other hand, the fact that Batman has to face a loaded gun can sometimes serve to reinstate his action hero credentials, with the Caped Crusader coming across as more badass than ever:

The same is true of covers where Batman is not just threatened, but actually getting shot at. While some give out a sense a desperation…

…many just highlight how much of an unstoppable crime-fighting machine the Dark Knight can be, relentlessly going up against a violent sea of bullets in the name of justice like a Bizarro version of Tony Montana:

Which is not to say that, every once in a while, things don’t get delightfully goofy:

Fighting Kite-Man with the help of a bat-shaped paraglider? Rolling on jet-skates towards an armed alien? Struggling with demon possession in front of the Flash? Magically flying around on another planet? An ad for the Viking Prince? Things cannot get much sillier than this!

NEXT: Things get much sillier than this.

Posted in COVERS OF BATMAN COMICS | Tagged covers, guns | Leave a comment

Batman and fascism

Posted on January 20, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

Some people apply the label ‘fascist’ to a specific early 20^th century ideology, and perhaps to some later derivative political projects. Others use the term more loosely, applying it to people who come across as authoritarian, unapologetically violent, and/or intolerant of different world views. For me, ‘fascist’ is what I call anyone who pisses me off. And you know who pisses me off? People who think they’re being clever when they call Batman a fascist.

I get it. There is something about a masked vigilante who resorts to torture and extrajudicial invasion of privacy that reflects totalitarian urges. Arguably, there is a fascist subtext inherent to superhero iconography in general, what with all the uniformed Übermenschen imposing order through brute force. But sticking this label on Batman still feels more like a superficial insult than a poignant analysis. I mean, the character himself is not supposed to be an actual fascist!

Except, you know, when he’s written by Frank Miller:

The Dark Knight Returns #4

The Batman of Dark Knight Returns can be seen as ‘the worst sort of reactionary fascist,’ even if at one point he does fight an Arian woman with swastikas for nipples.

The thing about Miller’s take on Batman, though, is that this is not meant to be the familiar Caped Crusader, but rather a self-conscious twist on it. And once you start counting all the purposely alternative versions of the Dark Knight, then anything goes. For every story where Batman’s authoritarian tendencies take over (like Kingdom Come or the underrated ‘The Tyrant,’ in Shadow of the Bat Annual #2), there is an opposite comic with him as a committed anti-fascist. In ‘Berlin Batman,’ Paul Pope reimagines Bruce Wayne as Baruch Wane, a Jewish Dark Knight helping out oppositionists in 1938 Germany. In Howard Chaykin’s very cool Dark Allegiances, Batman is a plutocrat in the politically charged atmosphere of the Great Depression who goes up against homegrown American fascists.

Dark Allegiances

Likewise, the movies are a whole other universe. Christopher Nolan’s trilogy seems to endorse mass secret surveillance as well as police hordes gleefully marching with their batons in the air to beat up civilians – which of course no democratic government would ever support, right? Anyway, it’s not as if anything in The Dark Knight Rises really makes sense.

In the regular comics, Batman is less of an Übermensch than a Renaissance Man, powered not by genes but by training and study. He does believe in instilling fear, although not of the state but specifically of Batman (what the Scarecrow once called ‘chiropter-homophobia’), and sees himself as a crime-fighter rather than a ruler. The Caped Crusader is also more of a Gothamist than a nationalist. And he does not advocate genocide or anti-Semitism… in fact, he doesn’t discriminate, beating up thugs from any ethnic background:

Batman #418

What’s more, Batman has kicked more Nazi butt than Indiana Jones! Sure, he didn’t personally punch Adolf Hitler during World War II, like Superman or Captain America did, but in 1942 the Dark Knight took care of a network of Nazi spies operating in the US.

That story, published in Batman #14 (cover-dated December 1942-January 1943), starts off with the saga of Fred Hopper, a young wide-eyed amateur movie photographer trying to break in as a newsreel cameraman. Just to get rid of the annoying wannabe, an editor sets him up with the almost impossible task of getting shots of a reclusive multimillionaire, but Fred succeeds when a couple of veteran cameramen help him infiltrate the millionaire’s home. It’s an old-fashioned paparazzo success story! Except there’s a catch: Fred Hopper is actually called Fritz Hoffner and he is a member of a spy ring whose headquarters even have a swastika-shaped lamp:

Fearing that Batman could get in the way of the Nazi plot to sabotage America’s war effort, the spies decide to kill the Caped Crusader. Conveniently, Fred is soon tasked by the Gotham City Newsreel Company with filming a publicity stunt the Dynamic Duo is doing for the war bond campaign, but the assassination attempt fails. Later, Batman and Robin barely make it out alive when they try to prevent the spies from blowing up storage tanks for the gasoline that takes American bombers across the ocean. The whole thing culminates with a showdown at the Nazi headquarters, where the Dark Knight puts the weird lamp to good use:

Yep, in a non-too-subtle ironic twist, that swastika-lamp totally saves the day:

Decades later, in the awesome ‘The Angel, the Rock and the Cowl!’ (The Brave and the Bold #84), Bob Haney retroactively establishes that Bruce Wayne was in France just before D-Day, following secret instructions from Winston Churchill himself. There is some Notorious in there, but mostly that comic feels like a balls-to-the-wall war movie in the style of Kelly’s Heroes, Secret Invasion, and Where Eagles Dare, not to mention Inglourious Basterds. And it is only one of many instances in which Batman fought Nazis and neo-Nazis in the pages of The Brave and the Bold…

The Brave and the Bold #188

Seriously, poor Jim Aparo is responsible for more images of Nazis than Leni Riefenstahl!

By the 1990s, writers were clearly struggling to innovate. You could read about Batman fighting Nazi zombies (Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #1) and Nazi demons (Hitman #3).

As far as threats from the past go, it’s safe to say that there is only one kind of villain that seems to get Batman giddier to fight than Nazis…

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #6

NEXT: Batman gets shot. A lot.

Posted in POLITICS OF BATMAN COMICS | Tagged Batman's personality, Bob Haney, Christopher Nolan, espionage, Frank Miller, Howard Chaykin, Jim Aparo, Paul Pope, politics, World War II | Leave a comment

Spotlight on Batman: The Animated Series – part 2

Posted on January 13, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

In 1997, Batman: The Animated Series gave way to The New Batman Adventures, which had an edgier attitude. The animation became more fluid and the character designs highly stylized. Gotham gained a more modern look that combined late 20^th century yuppie fashion with remnants of the original retro-avant-garde aesthetics. Bruce Timm and company also shook up the status quo: they brought in Tim Drake as Robin (with Jason Todd’s post-Crisis origin), promoted Batgirl to Bruce’s main sidekick (and even more than that, according to the spin-off movie Mystery of the Batwoman), and played with conventions by having Catwoman closely flirt with Nightwing. If anyone could pull it off, though, it was this team – after all, these guys even got away with making Superman sound noirish as hell.

Again, different fans of the comics can find plenty to enjoy:

Although this incarnation of the show doesn’t have that many episodes primarily informed by crime fiction, Judgement Day provides a well crafted mystery tale set among Gotham City’s peculiar underworld, as a violent new vigilante goes after various members of the rogues’ gallery. He calls himself The Judge and if you think Antonin Scalia’s approach to the law is scary, wait until you see this dude literally throw the book at the Riddler!

Some of the most psychologically charged BTAS moments involved villains facing the challenges of reforming. Double Talk, in which a released Ventriloquist struggles to keep his sanity, fits into that noble tradition. Of all the Scarface episodes, this one comes the closest to matching Read My Lips for sheer spookiness.

And then there is the episode where the Bat-gang goes up against Calendar Girl, a supermodel who commits colorful, conceptual crimes together with three semi-naked, bowtie-wearing bodybuilders in order to get revenge on the sexist, ageist politics of the fashion and entertainment industries. While engaging with serious real-world issues in typically idiosyncratic terms, Mean Seasons is above all an orgy of visually delightful set pieces, including an amazing 2½-minutes-long, totally gratuitous fight against a giant robotic dinosaur!

As far as edge-of-your-seat action goes, the episode to beat is The Ultimate Thrill. Introducing the animated version of the adrenaline-fuelled Roxy Rocket (a character first created in the cool Batman Adventures Annual #1), this episode makes great use of the new, slicker animation style through a series of frenetic chases, mostly through the air. Keen, clear, and exciting: current Hollywood could learn a thing or two from these guys!

The most out-of-the-box plot can be found in the brutal Over The Edge, which starts with cops shooting at Batman and blowing up the Batcave while Commissioner Gordon yells at a megaphone ‘Bruce Wayne, stop where you are!’ What is more incredible, the episode manages to downright top that scene every couple of minutes, never letting go until a denouement that feels, not like a shameless copout as you might expect, but like a well-earned, powerful payoff.

Finally, the most amusing episode of this era is Joker’s Millions, which has a lot of fun with the Joker’s relationship with money. It includes an almost Mel Brooks-like barrage of one-liners and sight gags.

Having proven their superior skills with a streamlined (yet relatively conventional) take on the Caped Crusader, the animated team then went on to reinvent the wheel. Batman Beyond moved the continuity decades into the future, where an aged Bruce Wayne tutored a teenage Terry McGinnis into playing the role of the Dark Knight in a cyberpunk Gotham City.

What could have been just another series about a young, impulsive hero with a wise mentor was in fact able to carry the weight of the backstory established in the previous shows, creating a reality that drew on Batman mythology yet also felt fresh and daring. The new status quo brought forth interesting identity questions about what really defined Batman (given a neat visual depiction in the episode Lost Soul, where Terry had to fight the Batsuit itself). The overall look seemed straight out of Akira and the soundtrack was now made up of techno music and industrial rock. The plots revolved around teen issues and sci-fi themes – if BTAS had often been about rogues with sympathetic motivations taken to violent extremes, Batman Beyond’s villains usually reflected technology’s destructive impact on their body and eventually their mind.

For all these radical departures, there were still recognizable elements. April Moon was a rare, film noir-inspired episode. Sneak Peek showed a villain’s tragic rise and fall in the tale of a ruthless techno-paparazzo. Shriek, which was full of memorable moments, introduced a rogue with a creative sound-based gimmick (one that worked in ways it never could have on a comic). Black Out provided tremendous fight scenes with the malleable assassin Inque (and so did the sequel, Disappearing Inque). Eyewitness was the show’s take on Over the Edge, as Commissioner Barbara Gordon had the police hunt down Batman after he killed Mad Stan, a terrorist bomber who hilariously spoke only through rants made up of enraged libertarian clichés. The Eggbaby was the obligatory episode played for laughs – successfully so – with Terry having to take care of an electronic baby while battling a gang led by Ma Mayhem (‘A tabloid gave her that name. It was the golden age of alliteration.’). And if the first seasons were still quite hit-and-miss, by the third season almost every episode topped the previous one in terms of utter coolness.

One tale set in the Batman Beyond universe managed to combine all elements. The direct-to-video film Return of the Joker included a cleverly constructed whodunit, the Joker at his sickest, an over-the-top climax, hardcore action, and an unforgettable, subversive twist on the Batman family, as well as some pitch-black comic relief. Yet be warned: the film – especially in its uncut version – is dark enough to make Christian Bale sound like Adam West.

At the end of the day, whether you’re a long time comics reader or just taking your first steps in Gotham City, the Bruce Timm-produced animated shows are a great place to get your bat-fix, if nothing else because they were created to be accessible to everyone – from kids to parents, from diehard fans to casual viewers. You don’t need to have read a thousand stories before jumping in and there are no convoluted crossovers to trick you into buying scattered issues just to figure out what the hell is going on… That said, if you really want to know how the whole animated Batman saga wraps up, you’re still going to have to track down the second season finale of the Justice League Unlimited TV series!

But hey, what if you’re a whole different kind of Batman fan? What if you prefer light-hearted escapades, anything-goes superhero fantasy, and larger-than-life adventures in which the Caped Crusader interacts with the rest of the DC cast? Well, in that case, screw the BTAS – just go watch any episode of the wonderfully witty Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon:

NEXT: Batman kicks Nazis in the face.

Posted in WEBS OF FICTION | Tagged Batman Beyond, Batman: The Animated Series, Bruce Timm, science fiction | Leave a comment

Spotlight on Batman: The Animated Series – part 1

Posted on January 6, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

A couple of months ago I recommended films for fans of Batman comics, so I figured this time I’d suggest some TV shows. Once again, I tried to think of different types of connections, including shows with resourceful, anti-gun action heroes (McGyver), super-detectives with a dark, eccentric supporting cast (The Pretender), mind-bogglingly intricate traps (Mission: Impossible), atmospheric horror and science fiction (The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, Black Mirror), bizarre rogues that are both frightening and grotesquely amusing (Twin Peaks, The League of Gentlemen), self-contained suspenseful and psychological tales (Alfred Hitchcock Presents), and even obvious parodies (Darkwing Duck). There’s also some show called Gotham that everyone keeps telling me about…

But at the end of the day, there is no getting around it: I just can’t ignore Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS).

Co-created by acclaimed producer (and amazing artist) Bruce Timm, BTAS distilled the essence of the best elements of the Batman universe into their purest form. The Dark Knight was a cool, well-adjusted hero, sometimes working together with a likeable, teenage Robin (Dick Grayson). Most villains had a tragic origin story and sooner or later tried – and mostly failed – to reform, thus appearing as nuanced characters that usually mirrored one or more aspects of Batman himself. BTAS also featured what is arguably the best rendition of Gotham City, setting it in a time that never was, the future as imagined in the 1940s: art deco buildings, zeppelins in the sky, advanced computers alongside TV sets that still played black & white, ’90s motorbikes and Depression-era newspaper boys sharing the same streets…

Along with the stylish animation, every technical detail was just right, from the sound to the casting to the freaking credits’ font! The writing started off as effective and – the occasional misstep aside – soon moved on to excellent: BTAS delivered thrilling bat-and-mouse games between the Caped Crusader and the rogues while also exploring themes such as obsession, empathy, recidivism, and trust. The storytelling approach varied, ranging from straightforward tales like Mad as a Hatter, which elegantly took a simple premise and allowed it to escalate until a twisted conclusion, to more experimental narratives like Dreams in Darkness, which was built around the flashbacks and hallucinations of a Bruce Wayne gradually descending into madness (thanks for the lifelong childhood trauma, guys).

My aim here is not to give a simple list of favorite episodes (aka a list of practically all the episodes written by Paul Dini) nor is it to provide in-depth analysis of BTAS (I could never be as insightful as Steven Padnick or as comprehensive as the folks at World’s Finest, from whom I took the stills below). The purpose of this post is to guide Bat-fans who are still more or less unfamiliar with the show to episodes that may speak directly to their specific tastes…

If you want to see Batman in crime stories:

In P.O.V., Detective Bullock and police officers Wilkes and Montoya tell their superiors different versions of a sting operation gone wrong. The fun is not just in putting the narrative puzzle together, but in how each tale illuminates its narrator’s character. Bullock persistently lies to cover up his recklessness and to justify his dislike of Batman. Wilkes’ narration betrays his own admiration for the Dark Knight by describing him as a supernatural figure. Montoya gives an honest account of what happened, humbly acknowledging her shortcomings while also diplomatically picking holes in Bullock’s version of events. Leave it to the BTAS to do a Citizen Kane/Rashomon homage on a kids’ show, especially in the pre-Pulp Fiction era when this kind of non-linear storytelling had not yet become as commonplace as it is today.

Not only does “It’s Never Too Late” flawlessly mimic the look and feel of 1930s gangster sagas and 1940s film noir, it also borrows from those genres tropes such as estranged brothers, mobsters, priests, a war between crime families, a blown up Italian restaurant, some poverty row-like social drama, plenty of mob slang, and a couple of ingenious flashbacks. What is more, the plot keeps throwing the viewer one twist after another until the final emotional payoff. The only way this thing could get any more legit old school crime drama would be if Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield had come back from the grave to make voice cameos!

Someone is out to get Bullock, so he enlists Batman for help – what you get is not exactly a buddy cop comedy, but there is still plenty of fun to be had in watching these two characters grudgingly play off of each other. Sure, it may seem too easy to go with a clear-cut adaptation of a comic by Chuck Dixon, whose writing is already as cinematic and as peppered with hardboiled dialogue as they come. That said, even for fans of the original, A Bullet for Bullock is pure delight. Almost 20 years on, it can still hold its own next to the millions of cop shows on television for sheer style and tight plotting. Also, the story’s resolution shows Gotham City at its deranged best.

If you like the psychological elements of the rogues’ gallery:

This reimaging of Two-Face’s origin includes a great scene where Harvey Dent undergoes hypnosis in a shadowy room. The rain builds up outside and a flash of lightning lights up half of Dent’s face, briefly foreshadowing the transformation to come as his voice and expression begin to reveal the monster inside him. The atmosphere then grows increasingly tense as Harvey starts trashing up the place and threatening his psychologist at the sound of thunder before finishing on a typically melancholic note. Man, Two-Face is the show at its moodiest.

Read My Lips brings Scarface to the screen, proving once and for all that he is one of the most disturbing Gotham rogues. A doll warehouse is the suitably eerie setting and a jazzy soundtrack evokes the speakeasies that inspired the gangster’s looks and accent. The direction is full of neat touches, with Batman emerging from shadows, windy blinds, and steam that rises from the street. And crucially, Joe R. Lansdale’s teleplay perfectly captures how downright sinister Scarface can be, right until the final, cruel shot. Talk about frayed ends of sanity, folks!

Although the BTAS’ take on Killer Croc isn’t always the most sophisticated (or the quirkiest), Sideshow really packs a punch. Batman chases his reptilian foe into the wilderness and we get a closer glimpse of Croc’s soul when he finds shelter among a band of secluded circus freaks. Shoving Croc into Denny O’Neil’s and Neal Adams’ deservedly classic story ‘A Vow from the Grave’ while throwing out the original’s murder mystery plot, this episode is full of mesmerizing sequences of the two protagonists facing each other away from the Gotham turf, out of their element, in the middle of nowhere, exposing who they are at their core.

If you enjoy ingenious set pieces, including creative capers and escapes:

Appropriately for a story about a villain obsessed with time, The Clock King’s plot has the precision of a wristwatch mechanism as Batman has to match wits with someone as good at planning as he is. Also, and at the risk of sounding too alliterative, there is a beautiful balance of pathos and puns – and it all culminates with a formidable face-off at a giant clock that is at once suspenseful and symbolic.

Elliot S! Maggin reworked his 12-page story from Detective Comics #450 into this episode where Batman has to face one sadistic deathtrap after another, building up to a keen twist ending. The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy brings a great comic to life on the screen, and it even manages to provide an alternative solution to the wax museum challenge that is just as clever as the original one was.

The Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, and the Penguin play poker while exchanging stories about how they nearly killed Batman. Almost Got’Im doesn’t get a single beat wrong: not only does it have the wittiest dialogue of any episode in the show, its direction is masterful – from the opening shots of each player’s hands to the timing of Catwoman’s perfect closing line.

If you’re looking for kick-ass action:

Perhaps ironically, Batman fighting an invisible man makes for some seriously awesome visuals. The icing on the cake is that See No Evil is also emotionally complex, since the villain, for once, is not so much an outlandish rogue with a megalomaniac plan but an average crook with common motivations who ultimately engages in a sadly recognizable crime. The scene with Batman desperately clinging to the top of a speeding invisible car cracks me up every time, especially the reaction of a nearby bum: ‘I didn’t know he could fly, too.’

Despite resorting to one cliché too many, you have to admire the Heart of Steel two-parter for ticking so many boxes: there are high stakes, a 1950s paranoia vibe, weird-looking sci-fi gadgets, out of control A.I., creepy clones, and a handful of violent proto-deaths, not to mention a pre-Batgirl Barbara Gordon… and the sequel, His Silicone Soul, is even more intense!

Off Balance sees Batman go off against Count Vertigo, which ushers in some freaky, distorted sequences. The episode gets away with a few cheesy lines and even the odd stodgy animation bit, not least because it gets the James Bondian feel it is going for just right, especially with the introduction of the mysterious, foreign-sounding Talia al Ghul. More importantly, in the best Batman tradition, it includes some truly neat moments of heroes overcoming physical challenges by figuring out a logical loophole in their trappings.

If you like your Batman stories with a twist:

Bruce Wayne wakes up to find out that all is right with the world after all and his life as Batman was but a dream. Perchance to Dream is a great example of taking what could have been just a plot gimmick and turning it into a meaningful statement about the Dark Knight, thematically rich and topped with one of the show’s most heartbreaking denouements.

The notion of Batman accidently getting killed by a common thief would be an intriguing premise in itself, but the fact that said thief is basically 1970s Woody Allen really nails it. What makes The Man Who Killed Batman so great is that we get to keep our batcake and eat it too: despite the title, any viewer knows that sooner or later the Caped Crusader will turn out to be alive and ready to continue kicking butt for at least the remaining episodes of the season. What the story lacks in suspense, though, it pays back in entertainment value as we are treated to the reactions of the criminal underworld to Batman’s odd demise. The Joker’s hilarious funeral service is a high point, with the Clown Prince of Crime showing sadness at losing his straight man, anger at having been beaten to the punch, and, finally – because, no matter what even beloved writers say, the Joker is nothing if not adaptable – just happily moving on.

The Caped Crusader is put on trial by Arkham Asylum’s inmates as the new D.A. grapples with Gotham City’s unconventional guardian and dysfunctional criminals. Trial gets some laughs out of the rogues’ wacky role-playing, but it also adds to the show’s overarching interrogation of Batman mythology. Watch out for some nice high-contrast animation in the sequence where the lights go out.

And if you just want to have some good old fashioned fun in Gotham City:

When Harley Quinn is released from Arkham Asylum, she gets involved in a screwball crescendo worthy of Howard Hawks, to the point that she finds herself being simultaneously chased by the Dynamic Duo, an angry Bullock, and a fish truck driven by a mobster in boxer shorts. Oh, and a freaking tank! Harley’s Holiday may not be the deepest episode, even if a dark subtext about Harley Quinn’s psychology is looming under every slapstick gag… This is not even the best Harley-centric episode – that would be Harlequinade… But this sure is the show at its most hilarious and damn it if the final scene isn’t at once funny, tragic, and heartwarming.

NEXT: More cartoons.

Posted in WEBS OF FICTION | Tagged Batman: The Animated Series, Bruce Timm, Chuck Dixon, Denny O'Neil, Elliot S! Maggin, horror, Joe R. Lansdale, Neal Adams, noir, Paul Dini | Leave a comment

Have a Gotham 2015

Posted on January 1, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

The Batman Adventures Holiday Special

Posted in GOTHAM INTERLUDES | Tagged Kevin Altieri, New Year | Leave a comment