Best of DC: Week of March 25th, 2020

Best of this Week: Batman: Curse of the White Knight Book Eight – Sean Murphy, Matt Hollingsworth and AndWorld Design

And here we are at the end of the road.

The original Batman: White Knight gave us a tale of a hero who refused to see the error of his ways – a man that would lie to his friends and destroy his treasured city as long as villains received the justice that they deserved, but he never saw that he was becoming one of them. Enter Jack Napier, the former Joker, cured of the madness that led him down the path of costumed villainy for a time. He became a symbol for the change that Batman refused by offering to rebuild the broken down parts of Gotham and stopping Batman once and for all.

Unfortunately for Napier, he couldn’t keep the Joker at bay long enough to see his dream Gotham come to fruition, but he did manage to inspire, not only the people of Gotham and its police force, but Batman himself. Of course, not everything could remain peaceful. Soon after all of that happened, Azrael and the Order of St. Dumas cropped up to cause trouble and save Gotham from its false protector: Batman. Azrael serves as the logical conclusion to what Batman’s war on crime could have been.

After several issues of cat and mouse, Batman is finally on the trail of Azrael with the Gotham Terrorism Oppression Unit (GTO) at his side. Initially, Sean Murphy makes the chase look like a team effort with Dick Grayson leading the charge, but Matt Hollingsworth gives slight hints at Batman’s state of mind with an orange glow around the Batmobile before getting close enough to remote shut off the rest of their cars. AndWorld Design excellently captures the slowing down of the cars with their lettering going from high energy “VvvvvvvVvvvvvs” to slow, sputtering “Pkk, Pkk” sounds as the wheels begin to stop.

Dick, being the one closest to Bruce, had a conversation with him in the last issue and anticipated that he might have done something like this and tells the rest of them that it was because he didn’t want them to stop him from killing Azrael. Batman then zooms off to chase Azrael on his own, catching the villains foot with the cars grappling hook and hilariously swinging him around while drifting the car before reeling him in and reversing the car into a plane – all the way at the Gotham Airport.

Sean Murphy is known to be a big car guy and he showcases the 1989 Batmobile with beautiful side shots, powerful flames blasting out of the exhaust right into Azrael’s face and even a single panel of Batman using a six gear shift to reverse. All of this badass car action results in a massive and fiery explosion. The big panel is beautifully shot with the plane being small in the background, the huge, orange pyro coming out of it, a big “BOOM” lettering in red to accentuate the power and Batman wielding some kind of assault rifle.

Of course, this is a betrayal of everything Batman is about and Azrael even acknowledges Bruce’s “No Killing” rule as the bullets bounce off of his armor before easily gaining the upper hand on this desperate Batman. Azrael then holds him by the collar of his cape and thoroughly dresses down Batman’s mindset for this entire fight, comparing the struggles of Bruce’s war on crime and futile search for peace as being the same as his own.

Murphy and Hollingsworth draw the scene with a palpable sense of intensity as the fire rages around them while they stand on the debris of the plane and the Batmobile. The shot is pulled out, allowing for AndWorld to utilize the empty space for Azrael’s monologue while the hot oranges paint everything around them. As Batman fears his own end, Murphy draws him with terror in his eyes and a defiant gritting of his teeth as he tells Azrael to “go to hell,” for saying that they are one in the same and threatening to flood the city before Dick’s car barrels into the villain and causes another explosion.

Initially, I questioned why Murphy decided to invert the timelines of Jason and Dick as Robins, but this book understandably gives good reason. One of the things that Dick had been dealing with over the course of both of these stories is his conflict with Batman over what the proper course of action should be when it comes to Gotham. He’s been Bruce’s biggest critic when he was destroying Gotham and didn’t want to be another casualty like Jason was, so he joined the GTO to stop Batman.

Murphy draws on this when Dick confronts Batman on his recklessness and Batman recognizes that everything he’s done, including adopting Dick and dragging him into this never ending battle all played a part in ruining his life as well as the lives of everyone close to him. Jason’s dark cloud has always hovered over Dick, but with tears in his eyes, he tells Bruce that he still believes in him and that he needs to end this fight as Batman, not as Azrael. Hollingsworth lowers the intensity of the orange backgrounds to make the scene more somber before Batman rushes off to do things the right way.

With the Rapiers of Edmond Wayne by his side, Murphy and Hollingsworth give readers an excellent double page spread of the Batmobile VROOOMing down the streets while various panels of Bruce’s interactions with Alfred, Victor Fries and Jim Gordon remind use that there’s a good man under that cape and cowl, a man that yearns for justice and peace in Gotham City.

Knowing that Azrael plans to flood the city, Batman tells the GTO to shore up defenses and get everyone off the streets as he goes to finish the fight at the Gotham Reservoir and pops out of the Batmobile in an AMAZINGLY heroic pose with double rapiers sans cape, beckoning Azrael to take him in a sword fight. Murphy leans into Batman’s Zorro roots as he chooses to fight with honor, calling out Azrael’s faith, knowing that his sword’s Arabic name is God’s Will and that it is all that a God fearing man like Azrael should need and they duel valiantly.

Murphy, Hollingsworth and AndWorld Design give readers an amazing scene of Batman disarming Azrael rather than trying to kill him, removing one of his gauntlets with a deft flick, giving it a “HRRN” sound, removing his cape to get a rapier between his armor with a “WOOSH,” indicating the speed and flow of his movements. Bruce even goes so far as to let Azrael knock the rapiers from his hands so that he could knock the helmet off of his head by trapping it between the “CLINKing” panels of the Batmobile as they close before taking the villains sword.

Azrael, knowing that he’s going to lose and trying to throw Bruce off of his game for a moral victory, starts insulting Thomas and Martha’s deaths, calling them leeches of Gotham’s wealth. This causes Bruce, in a rage, to “HACK” across Azrael’s neck, slitting his throat. Murphy makes it look so sudden, Hollingsworth ratchets up the intensity of the flames in the background and emphasizes Azrael’s blood as it pours out onto the ground, proclaiming that Bruce “eliminated the last Wayne.”

Murphy and hollingsworth treat readers to a beautiful panel of Bruce looking at his beloved city, shadowed in the night sky with orange glows coming from the streets while Azrael bleed out on the boat, Batman quickly decides to suture his throat and use his blood to keep it flowing into Azrael while proclaiming that being the protector of Gotham has always been about more than being a Wayne or a Bakkar. It’s bigger than blood and that’s why Jason Blood gave Edmond’s Journal to Bruce, because Batman was always Gotham’s true hope.

The series then starts winding down with Bruce saying his goodbyes to Dick and Barbara and the rest of the GTO with varying levels of banter. Even Harleen has a moment where we think she’s going to drive Bruce away as he allows himself to be arrested for his vigilantism, but he convinces her that she’s done all that she needs to and that she saved his soul when he was at one of his lowest moments just like he did for her after leaving The Joker. It’s sad and sobering, especially as these scenes are given a blue hue and these characters have a mutual love and respect for each other.

Murphy also drops in some political commentary at the end where the City of Gotham argues over Bruce giving away all of his fortune to the City and whether or not it goes far enough or veers too far into socialism. While this particular White Knight story has been focused on the heroism side of Batman, I might have liked more of this commentary throughout the book, much like it was focused on in the original series. Though, who’s to say that that’s not where Murphy is going as this book ends on something of a cliffhanger with a SURPRISING reveal.

For the end of such a phenomenal book, I can gladly say that this was absolutely worth it. From the compelling story, to the amazing art, coloring and lettering, almost everything about this was perfect in every way. I really enjoyed seeing Batman’s journey from angry vigilante to true savior of Gotham and the dichotomy between him and Azrael as an angry war veteran. Knowing that Sean Gordon Murphy has been given free reign to start his own White Knight Imprint, I’m ultra excited for what the future holds!

Best of DC: Week of March 18th, 2020

Best of this Week: Robin 80th Anniversary

All of the Robins are awesome.

Every Bat-fan has their favorite as they usually define the era when they began their love of Batman and comics in general. Older fans love Dick Grayson for being the first and greatest Robin that helped make Batman brighter. Edgy 80s kids and teens both love and hate Jason Todd for being the bad boy that died. Younger fans love Tim Drake for being the one to carry the name in the later seasons of the animated series and being one of the best and smartest Robins. Girls get representation from the spunky Carrie Kelly and the awesome Stephanie Brown. No one like Damian. (I’m kidding, he’s super fun.)

There’s a Robin for everyone and this 100 Page Spectacular celebrates the long history of Batman’s greatest sidekicks (though misses a chance to give Carrie Kelly her own short story) and does an amazing job in displaying each characters personalities by some of the best people to have written them over the years. Because there are so many, I’m only going to talk about the ones I really enjoyed!

The first FOUR stories follow Dick Grayson and some of his best eras.

“A Little Nudge” is written by Marv Wolfman with pencils by Tom Grummett, two parts of the legendary team behind the best years of the New Titans (1989). This story follows Dick Grayson as Batman begins to nudge him in the direction of becoming his own man by being increasingly irritable to his protege. At this point in time, Dick was dealing with the stresses of outgrowing his childhood identity and Batman’s continuing overbearing nature. Where Bruce was all about being cold and methodical, Dick thought with his gut.

Grummett, Scott Hanna on inks and Adriano Lucas on colors illustrate Dick’s frustration through his increasingly sour facial expressions and sudden heroic actions. The costumes are as colorful as those old days with Dick wearing the bright yellow cape, bright red tunic and the elf shoes. In the middle of the dynamic duo’s fight with Natural History Museum thieves, Dick stops fighting when a child gets shot, against Bruce’s orders, and stays with him until the bad guys either get away or get taken down by Batman.

Later on, Dick tells Batman that he’s outgrown the Boy Wonder name and sets off to become his own man as Nightwing. Wolfman gives readers an excellent inner monologue from Bruce where he owns up to the fact that he was nudging Dick in that direction because he had just turned eighteen and Bruce believed in him. Batman always supports his kids, especially his first and it turns the story of separation into something heartwarming.

“Aftershocks” is a fun story by Chuck Dixon and Scott McDaniel who worked on my favorite Nightwing series in the 1996 – 2005 era of the character. This wasn’t anything major, just Nightwing doing everything he could to save people after an earthquake causes massive damage to a suspended bridge in Bludhaven. This era of Nightwing was characterized by him mostly striking out on his own and becoming a Bludhaven police officer, being inspired by Jim Gordon.

Dick really came into his own and developed a rogues gallery to himself during this time, not to mention the sweet costume with the blue “wings” running down his arms into his fingers and those big, bulky gauntlets and boots. This era was the epitome of the 90s with big set piece moments, big muscles and Nightwing just being a nice and generally charming guy. After diving off of the bridge to attach a winch to a falling car, the woman inside asks to name her baby after him and he smiles and says, “Robin works, right?”

“The Lesson Plan” is a story from my favorite modern age creators in Tim Seeley, Tom King and Mikel Janin. The Grayson series took place shortly after Dick’s identity was exposed to the world during “Forever Evil” (2013) by the Crime Syndicate. At this time he was acting as a spy for an agency called Spyral while spying on them for Batman. I never think of Tom King as a comedy guy, but this story was almost gut bustingly hilarious. It was just a world trotting adventure where he teaches one of the students of St. Hadrian’s how to be a spy.

Truly this series was Dick at his most handsome, witty and skilled. He jumps out of a helicopter and grabs onto the cords of a cable car before rescuing a woman held hostage by terrorists on walruses. Dick, the student and the hostage ten fight off more terrorists in Tanzania, riding a bus headed for Los Angeles of all places before Dick finds himself in something Dejah Thoris would wear and having a night with the hostage who reveals herself to be a gorilla from Gorilla City. It’s absolutely absurd, but it is immensely fun and welcome since that whole series is well regarded by fans.

“More Time” by Judd Winick, Dustin Nguyen and John Kalisz is a far more somber tale about Jason Todd potentially a short time after the events of Under the Red Hood. Jason Todd was the second Robin and met his unfortunate end in the 1988 story, A Death in the Family by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo. Jason eventually returned in the Batman: Under the Hood story where Winick and Doug Mahnke re-envisioned the former Robin as a violent vigilante Jason does have something of a strained relationship with Batman, but it wasn’t always that way as this story illustrates.

One thing that Dustin Nguyen has always been great at, it’s making kids super adorable and he does so in this story as it flips back and forth between the past and the present as Jason gives Bruce a birthday present in the form of his father’s watch, which Jason sought to fix. Nguyen and Kalisz characterize the past with Jason appearing as a happy, young kid under the dim lights of the Batcave and a twinkle in his eyes. He’s happy to have a home and a father to care for him so he wanted to do something nice for him.

Present Day Jason is characterized by dark backgrounds with bright oranges, smoke and heavy blacks for the shadows. Jason is far more tired, grizzled and angry, but he still finds the time to place the same gift box from all those years ago on the Batmobile for Bruce to find. At this point in time, they may have been at each other throats, but the love between them was still there, buried deep – culminating in two side by side panels of past and present Jason saying, “Happy Birthday, Bruce.”

“Boy Wonders” is a story about Tim Drake by James Tynion IV, Javier Fernandez and David Baron and sees Tim taking advice from all of his brothers. Next to Chuck Dixon and Geoff Johns, James Tynion IV has had one of the longest lasting impacts on the Tim Drake character throughout his run on Detective Comics by emphasizing the power of his mind in comparison to the other Robins and why he could ultimately be the successor to Batman above each of them or eke out a new life for himself.

While taking down the cast of The Warriors on a speeding train with Nightwing, Tim contemplates what his future will be. He looks to Dick as the one who did everything that he’s doing now and Dick tells him that as the smartest Robin, the best thing he could do is use that mind to bring up the next generation of heroes. Jason, the reason he’s even wearing the costume of Robin in the first place, tells him to take everything he’s learned from Batman to become BETTER than him. Arguably, it’s Damian that gives him the best advice by telling him that he’s the most capable of all of the Robins and that he should choose a path himself instead of relying on the advice of others.

Of course, this story takes place before the events of Detective Comics Rebirth where Tim does chart his own path in making Gotham safer with his Gotham Knights Protocol, but things don’t exactly turn out well for him. For all of the talk about how Tim is the smartest, he unfortunately could never get out of his own way long enough for things to go right…especially now that he’s going by “Drake” in that awful brown costume.

“Fitting In” is a Stephanie Brown story by Amy Wolfram, Damion Scott and Brad Anderson which sees Stephanie trying to live up to the standards of each of the boys that came before her. Stephanie was absolutely the shortest term Robin that Batman took on, as he only allowed her to take up the mantle in an attempt to get Tim back after his real father told him to hang up the cape after discovering his sons identity.

Even still, Stephanie did everything she could to earn Bruce’s respect and Wolfram plays on this and that past story by making it more about Tim than Steph. She has to train in the same costume that Tim did, but she proves more…voluptuous than Tim. Her costume bursts at the seams and Alfred designs the costume that she’s known for. She and Batman then get a call about fire at an amusement park and ride off to take down Firefly.

Unfortunately for her, she gets captured, but being the innovative girl that she is, she manages to free herself and take down Firefly at the same time. Damion Scott’s art is very well suited to the cartoonish action and paints her as a capable sidekick despite initially being a damsel in distress. I honestly wish her run as Robin would have been longer because she honestly fits well in the role as the bubbly Robin in contrast to the hell that Tim was going through at the time.

A point can be made that this story also had some needless sexualization, but given Bruce’s lack of respect for Stephanie and him just wanting a replacement Tim at the time, this was well written from that perspective. He never cared for Stephanie and her time as Robin was mostly her trying to live up to Tim’s standard which eventually left her to try too hard and “die” because of it. I’ll always take more Stephanie Brown as I can cause even now there’s not enough of her and I’m damn sure not reading Young Justice by Brian Michael Bendis.

“My Best Friend” is the one that makes me the most sad as it revolves around Jon Kent writing an essay on Damian as well…his best friend. I feel like the Super Sons series was also done a dity hand by BMB as he took Jon and aged him up for his Superman story when we could have gotten more fun stories between Damian and Jon. As far as homages to one of the better Rebirth series this one was just fun.

There’s not much to say other than Jon reminisces over a few of their adventures and tells readers about the side of Damian that we don’t often see because the Bat-boy is always a little bit too intense. Jon reminds us that they’ve fought for most of the time they’ve known each other, but when it comes to being heroes, Damian always had his back. It’s heartwarming. Of course there’s the continuity issue of them going to the same school in this story cause Jon was only ten at the time and Damian was thirteen, but honestly I only care about the friendship.

“Bat and Mouse” is a story by Robbie Thompson and Ramon Villalobos which sees Bruce and Damian having separate brooding inner monologues about how neither understands the other anymore and about how they want to open up to each other, but the distance between them has grown too wide. Admittedly, this is a much darker story in the respect that Batman and Robin haven’t really been the same since Damian started his new Titans team and started down a darker path that his father has yet to find out about.

Thompson captures this feeling that Damian is arrogant but scared. He feels like he’s outgrown what Batman has become because he’s willing to get rid of threats almost permanently through erasing their memories and villainous tendencies (see Teen Titans, 2018). At the same time, he’s afraid that maybe what he’s doing isn’t the right path and he so desperately wants to reach out to his father, but feels like he can’t.

Batman is the same way in that he loves his son more than anything and wants to regain the relationship that they had in the past, but doesn’t know how to say the words either. He knows that Damian is hiding something big, but he doesn’t want to accuse the boy and deepen the already cavernous rift. Even as they take down the robotic villain Quietus, they show signs of breaking through their equally cold exteriors, but fail to do so and I get the feeling this will all come to a head soon.

The Robins will always be some of my favorite characters in all of comics. Each of them have distinct personalities and quirks that set them apart from a lot of comic characters, especially when it comes to the trauma that they’ve faced alongside Batman. This special won’t be for everyone, just like each era of Robin isn’t for everyone, but overall, I really enjoyed it and the creators selected to honor these fantastic characters.