Batman #418

"Ten Nights of the Beast, P.2"
writer: Jim Starlin
pencils: Jim Aparo
inks: Mike DeCarlo
letters: John Costanza
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Denny O'Neil

Grade: A

I've been giving the title of this story arc some thought, and I have no idea why it was chosen. At no point in the story are the ten days that this storyline presumably lasts for made important. The only countdown is the number of people on the list (several of which are often killed in a single night). We're not counting down the days or anything, so why "TEN NIGHTS of the Beast?" If you're going to name a story arc (which was rarely done back then), make it count.

This issue is essentially more of the same from the first part, which is a good thing. I don't think the quality has changed much. It's still an exciting mad dash to figure out where the KGBeast will strike and stop him, and it's still full of realistic intrigues and tensions, particularly when the CIA agent and KGB agent engage in a surprisingly astute debate about the Star Wars Project and its potential ramifications on the Cold War. Yevtushenko accurately predicts the bankruptsy and subsequent fall of the Soviet Union that comes as a result of the Star Wars project, as well as the fact that the program, itself, proves, to be useless, and yet Starlin also does a fair job of representing both perspectives in the argument. Fascinating.

A few more lapses in logic in this issue. The Beast (who is clearly no longer concerned with being discrete after killing an entire Republican fundraiser party) is clearly made out to be Batman's superior (and I love his unorthodox method of fighting with knees and elbows), but he's given the opportunity to fire guns directly at Batman twice in this issue and, both times, he completely misses even while Batman is out in the open. How can the world's most dangerous assassin, and Batman's admitted superior, be such a bad shot?

I'm also a bit tired of the whole anxiety of Batman facing someone who's better than him. Didn't we just do this with The Reaper in Year 2? Batman should be the best at what he does by Year 9 or 10 (whichever this is) with his commitment to training and his mission. The Beast might pose new and different challenges to him, but he shouldn't be considered "better" across the board. He might have cybernetic implants and training with lethal weapons that Batman does not use, but I don't buy that he's received better training and developed better skills. How could anyone be more driven than Batman?? Motivation is his superpower.

Why did they make such a big deal about Silvia Burrows and the fact that no one could find her last issue if she was going to end up just as dead and unimportant as the four victims that came before her in this one? And how did the Beast know they'd drink orange juice (or even that particular bottle of orange juice since there were two in the refrigerator) when they got up?

Batman and Robin assume the Beast has a leak on the security force protecting the victims since he knew the secret new location of the Republican fundraiser dinner that everyone was driven to at the last moment. Isn't it just as possible (and, in fact, more feasible) that the Beast just tailed the head chef or impersonated one of the drivers?

So, I assume Batman intentionally leaked the false location of the senator. Was this just to give him a chance to trap the Beast, or will he be able to determine who the leak is from this?


The plot synopsis in one ridiculously long sentence:

The Beast finds and kills Silvia Burrows at her boyfriend's house, the Beast poisons and kills an entire Republican fundraiser party in order to get at the fifth victim on the list, Batman chases and fails to catch him, he and Robin (who gets all of three lines in this story) determine that the Beast must have an informant on the security team protecting the victims, Batman and Gordon agree not to tell anyone where they'll be hiding the next two potential victims (why only two? Four are remaining, and three are currently in town. The list doesn't have a specific order), The FBI agent who's been giving Gordon a hard time is furious at not knowing the location (and his agents, who were all named last issue, are long since forgotten), the CIA agent and KGB agent get into a debate about the Star Wars program, Batman interrogates a bunch of weapons dealers until he finds out what the KGBeast will be using and how he'll be using it, Batman sets up a phony ambush site with a dummy senator, The Beast takes the bait, but Batman has no real plan for taking him down, so the Beast gives out a severe beating and escapes, leaving Batman to finally realize he's facing someone who's "better at this game" than he is.


Good issue, once again. The excitement is high and still surprisingly grounded in reality and politics.

Post-Crisis Jason Todd in review (thus far)
For the sake of keeping tabs on where Jason has been Post-Crisis:

The first glimpses of Jason, as portrayed in stories by fill-in writers presumably directed by Denny O'Neil, depict him as being generally no different than his pre-Crisis counterpart, and (in fact) no different from the classic Dick Grayson Robin.

Max Collins began his run with Jason being a troublesome street punk (which fans overwhelmingly hated), but he evolved Jason to the point of being a good-natured, fun-loving, wise-crack making sidekick by the end of his run who was well in control of his anger.

Mike W. Barr began with a younger, happier Jason Todd than even shown in pre-Crisis continuity, but he ultimately reconciled this with Collins' approach, showing a happy, good-natured kid with some sincere anger deep at his core that rarely comes out.

Jim Starlin chucks all this out the window and uses Collins' origin story to make Jason into a truly troubled character. Yet Starlin only writes Jason into two stories (Batman #415 and #416) and then pretty much leaves him out of every story for the next year, finally giving him a central role in #424 that sets up the potential death that was already planned for him at this point (and that storyline began two months later).


The point of all this being that there really is no definitive post-Crisis Jason Todd. The character we tend to envision (the one I like that everyone else but Judd Winnick hates) is based either upon his first appearance as a troubled teen in Batman #408 (even though he quickly evolved out of this over the course of a few brief issues) or Starlin's depiction of him in Death in the Family (which uses the origin from #408 and some select prior events to set Jason's death up as a thematic inevitability for the character). Most people aren't even aware of (or just don't think of) Starlin's only two other Jason stories in Batman #415 and #416l. Our entire perception of this character is really just based upon Batman #408 and Death in the Family, whereas he was handled very differently and/or wholly omitted in nearly every other post-Crisis story that occurred over that two year span.

Just thought this was interesting to note. There truly was no definitive post-crisis Jason Todd until Starlin got the final word on him by killing him off while repeating his revised and heavily abridged origin story at the beginning of each installment of that story line.

Batman #419

"Ten Nights of the Beast, p.3"
writer: Jim Starlin
pencils: Jim Aparo
inks: Mike DeCarlo
letters: John Costanza (presumably. No one is credited)
colors: Adrienne Roy (presumably. No one is credited)
editor: Denny O'Neil

Grade: A

An even trade-off this issue, as the gaps in logic grow wider and the intensity/excitement accelerates. It's incredibly fun to finally watch the Batman best the KGBeast, pulling off one ridiculously cool reversal as the Beast is about to sever a cable while Batman is crossing it. I'm a bit confused as to how Batman suddenly became better than the Beast though. Just last issue, he was sure The Beast was his superior, and we didn't see him do any extra training or planning to bring about this new outcome. Still...it was darned cool.

And, even though it was darned cool, that awesome stunt essentially erased the long-running tradition of a de-powered, realistic Batman going back to Frank Robbins' time. Even Miller and Barr worked hard to show a realistic man with realistic limits working hard to better himself, yet the stunt Starlin allows Batman to pull in this issue is only marginally physically possible, and even then would require an absurd amount of luck. This has got to be the most absurd stunt I've ever seen Batman pull in copper/modern age history. Still, it was amazingly cool.


The logic gaps:

1. Just last issue, Batman was able to stay ahead of the Beast by shaking down every weapons dealer in town (except for the ones he just busted in the most recent issue of Detective). How, then, did the Beast get his hands on a portable stinger rocket launcher with which to shoot down an airplane, how did Batman not predict that course of action (real life terrorists have done this), and why wouldn't Batman have tracked down the custom weapons designer the Beast is working with at the end of the issue who, we're outright told, the police know about?

2. If the information is still getting leaked to the Beast, why continue to risk Gordon's career and create distracting tensions by keeping Agent Parker and the KGB agent out of the picture?

3. With 7 of the ten people on that list already dead, why are they still taking the targeted congressmen to hotels and fundraisers? We just saw the Beast kill all the attendees of a fundraiser last issue. At this point, don't you just lock them in a secure bunker until the Beast is dealt with? Surely, they'd see the wisdom in this.

4. The Beast has them all trapped in a stalled elevator and, rather than firing a missile launcher or grenade at them, takes his time gingerly throwing cement blocks down at them, giving Batman all the time he needs to climb the cable, miraculously being missed by every single block the Beast throws at him. Come on!

5. The world's greatest assassin gets hit in the hand with a dart and automatically stops firing at Batman to nurse his hand for several seconds, allowing the police to arrive and confront him. Really?

6. Batman traps the Beast by tying a cable around his hand, so the Beast cuts off his hand. Ummm...couldn't he have cut the cable instead, or even dragged Batman to some back alley where he could beat the snot out of him again? This extreme decision was exciting, but it definitely didn't seem warranted.

7. Did we really need Batman to dramatically reveal at the end that the final target is "RONALD REAGAN, The President of the United States"? We already knew the final target was "the President" two issues ago. Does Starlin truly expect his readers to be up on contemporary Cold War politics, yet ignorant of who the President of the United States is?


The plot synopsis in one ridiculously long sentence: A plane carrying another victim is blown up, Batman and Gordon learn to late that the Beast used a portable rocket launcher to do it, Agent Parker is still furious about being kept out of the information loop and is going to the mayor about it (for what it's worth, we still don't know anything about the post-Crisis Mayor of Gotham City), Batman and Robin have a brief dialogue in which Batman explains that Agent Parker's involvement in a radical student group in the '60s does not make him a Communist informant, Batman, Gordon, the FBI, and the CIA are escorting the next two victims in a hotel when the Beast blows up one with an explosive doorknob, leaving Agent Parker to huddle the everyone into an elevator (even a five year old knows this is an idiotic idea), the plant in Agent Parker's division appears to be Agent MacDonald, Agent MacDonald(?) cuts power to the closed Elevator car, allowing the Beast to start hurtling cement blocks at them, Batman manages to pursue him after he kills a legion of cops, The Beast swings across a cable to a different rooftop, Batman pursues, the Beast starts to cut the cable, so Batman uses his own explosive to cut the cable, uses the cable (which is now cut at both ends) like a whip while in mid-air to snag the Beast's left arm, The Beast cuts his left hand off to get away, it turns out that the CIA director and other previous victim secretly made their own escape plans and survived that airplane attack at the beginning of the issue, and Batman acknowledges that they have three days to figure out how to prevent the Beast from killing the President when he visits Gotham.

Very exciting issue full of fantastic action sequences, even though it did seem quite a bit dumber at times.

Batman #420

"Ten Nights of the Beast, p.4"
writer: Jim Starlin
pencils: Jim Aparo
inks: Mike DeCarlo
letters: John Costanza
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Denny O'Neil

Grade: A-

The final part of Starlin's Cold War epic attempts to pull out all the stops and, in doing so, creates a few more problems for itself. Generally, while this issue maintains much of the excitement of the previous installments, it begins to feel far more ridiculous, particularly the opening scene in which Batman kidnaps the president. Aparo's pencils made the image of Batman swinging away with Reagan under his arm look truly and laughably ridiculous, especially when the president doesn't seem to be the least bit alarmed by this in the helicopter only five panels later. Then you've got the diversion Batman creates for the Beast, in which Gordon impersonates the president, even though the Beast is likely going to kill him, although maybe not since Gordon does nothing to disguise himself (not even taking off the glasses) other than wearing a wig. And just how did Robin happen to be ready to swing out and intercept the terrorist's glider when they had no idea how the attack would be made? Then you've got the ridiculous amount of coincidences and conveniences involved in Batman fighting the Beast one on one, especially the gun jamming at just the right time in order to save Batman from being killed. If the Caped Crusader was that sloppy and that willing to jump into something so over his head on a regular basis, there's no way he would have survived as a crime fighter for ten years by this point.

Of course, we also have to talk about how Batman finally beats the beast -- locking him in a room in the sewer. I get the power of the decision -- he's essentially choosing to kill the Beast, understanding that he won't be imprisoned if he's captured alive, but this is just the lamest way to "off" someone in comics. The world's greatest assassin, who has repeatedly shown his resourcefulness and is equipped with a custom made weapon that can shoot bullets, project a bayonette, and even fire tear gas, isn't eventually going to find some way out of this room that was never designed to be a prison cell? He's certainly got time. Maybe that maintenance crew will even come back and wonder why the door is closed. I kept expecting to see Batman turn some valve that would unleash rushing water into that section of the sewer, drowning the Beast, but he's just left him with every opportunity to escape.

I was also very bothered by the lack of connection between Batman and Detective in this issue. It's been obvious from almost the beginning that O'Neil could care less what the two titles are doing and whether or not they intersect, but in this particular issue, we have Batman in a sewer right after he had a particularly difficult experience in a sewer in Detective. You'd hope for some kind of acknowledgement of this and, instead of getting one, Starlin goes so far as to have Batman tell us:

"Fortunately, I had a case that brought me down here before. I have this section of pipes and passages memorized. That's how I know about the back door."

I don't know if Starlin is trying to reference Wagner/Grant's Ratcatcher story (I doubt it), some other past adventure (we've seen Batman in the sewers before pre-crisis), or if he's just making something up, but that "back door" definitely did not appear in the Rat Catcher storyline, in which Batman was far too overwhelmed and pressed for time to worry about memorizing anything. This little clause just further solidified the fact that the two Batman titles have nothing to do with each other at this point.

Regarding Agent MacDonald, did anyone else find it a little hard to believe that an agent who rose through the FBI and its strict background/profile requirements would go on to sell out the life of the president of the United States for a measly $40,000? You couldn't retire on that even in the late 1980s.

Mike DeCarlo is growing on me. I especially like his choice to only darken the lower half of Batman's cowl. I don't think I've seen anyone else try that before...or would that have been an Aparo decision?


The plot synopsis in one ridiculously long sentence: Batman figures out what arms dealer the Beast will go to too late (he's already dead), President Reagan arrives at the airport and is promptly kidnapped by Batman as Gordon prevents Agent Parker from firing on Batman for doing so, they explain to Reagan that they don't trust Parker's division to protect him and Reagan agrees, they feed false info to Parker about how they'll be transporting Reagan next as Batman reveals that he knows who the informant is and has a plan for him, the Beast's terrorist accomplice attempts to suicide bomb the decoy president (Gordon), but is stopped by Robin, Batman takes the informant with him to the "real" transport site, and the Beast arrives as both he and the agent try to kill Reagan, the informant is killed, and Batman drives the Beast off and pursues him into the sewers after revealing that everyone was wearing bulletproof jackets (after if became apparent that no one was dying from the bullets, why didn't the world's greatest assassin just aim for the head?), after a long fight with the Beast in the sewers, Batman corners him in a room, and though the Beast beckons him to come in and fight to the death, Batman just locks and barricades the door and walks away, he returns to indirectly inform Agent Bundy that he has killed the Beast and then gets into his limo as we discover that Alfred had been impersonating Reagan all this time.


Though this issue was guided by strong ideas (especially Batman's decision about how to handle the Beast), the minor flaws finally began to bother me a bit this time.

Batgirl Special #1

"The Last Batgirl Story"
writer: Barbara Randall
pencils: Barry Kitson
inks: Bruce D. Patterson
letters: John Costanza
colors: Carl Gafford
editor: Denny O'Neil

Grade: F

Ten years ago, Barbara Gordon was the primary character in Batman Family, a top selling DC comic. A lot has changed since then, first demoting Batman Family to the primary feature of Detective Comics, then the backup feature, then just giving Barbara poorly written back up solo stories, then leaving her out entirely, then bringing her back for the Crisis on Infinite Earths just so that she can annunciate just how useless she suddenly feels as a hero, and then finally ending her career with this terribly executed special.

I honestly don't know where to begin. First off, so much of this story absolutely makes no sense, beginning by flashing back to Batgirl's previous run in with Cormorant (who?? when??? where???) in which she appears to die but then doesn't, and it's absolutely not clear how this happens. Just as we're trying to make sense of all this (I can't find a reference to "Cormorant" in any comic book story outside of this one), Barbara is visited by her close friend Marcy, and they immediately begin making tons of references to scraps of back story that none of us are familiar with, even going so far as to say that Batgirl was "theirs." I assume all of this makes sense if you read Batgirl's Secret Origins issue that was written a year earlier by the same author, but Randall really should have taken some strides to explain some of this to the casual reader. 9 pages in and this story is already pissing me off.

Worse yet is the lame attempt it makes to take up feminist issues. On the one hand, the issue centers on Barbara trying to take down a female vigilante killing rapists and wife beaters, and virtually every man in this story is a condescending jerk to women, but while this lousy attempt to take on feminist issues by simply demonizing all men is painful enough to watch on its own, its similarly interesting just how stereotypical Randall is in her treatment of Barbara. She was once a tough, strong-willed crime fighter by night, as well as a tough, strong-willed politician by day. Now she's only known by others for being Gordon's "kid," and she spends the entire story doubting herself and acting like a coward just because she's still haunted by the memories of this Cormorat guy once trying to kill her (uhh, hasn't every villain she's ever faced?). It was particularly devastating when, on page 7, she begins to finally suit up to become Batgirl and then decides to go to sleep instead.

Being a feminist should mean the exact opposite of seeing all women as victims who are intimidated by men. Batgirl once stood for something -- now she's just another victim and barely a hero at the end for beating up the guy who once scared her.

But it doesn't matter anyway, because this issue unceremoniously ends Barbara's career. Even though her doubts about being a crime fighter were entirely entwined with her feeling of victimhood at the hands of Cormorat, finally finding the inner strength to defeat him does not give her the confidence to go on fighting crime. Quite the inexplicably opposite, she goes ahead with her plans to give up being Batgirl and, instead of giving this any serious reflection or meaningful goodbye, Randall spends the last frame having Barbara playfully decide about what to do with the costume.

If I could punch Barbara Randall for this one, I would (and wouldn't that be ironic considering the theme of this issue).

But who am I kidding? Alan Moore's going to do far worse to Barbara just next week...

Batman: The Killing Joke

writer: Alan Moore
pencils: Brian Bolland
colors: John Higgins
letters: Richard Starkings
editor: Denny O'Neil

Grade: B+


So much to discuss in this one, and I suppose it begins with The Joker. One brief cameo in Batman #408 and a largely out of continuity story by Mike W. Barr aside, we haven't seen him post-Crisis. From Denny O'Neil's point of view, DKR redefined Batman into something darker and scarier, and it was wildly profitable and bought him tons of acclaim as an editor. It must have only made sense to reinvent Batman's arch-nemesis in the same way.

In recent years, one could easily argue that Ras Al Ghul had surpassed Joker as Batman's primary antagonist but, from a story perspective, Ras was an international villain and would require Batman to repeatedly leave Gotham (and his element) in order to battle him regularly and, from a sales perspective, the Joker was more easily identifiable to the wider audience, and so this story re-establishes the Joker as Batman's primary antagonist, while redefining him as a darker villain for the late 1980's at the same time.

What's interesting is trying to determine what place TKJ was supposed to have in the wider continuity. I've argued before that I believe O'Neil intended DKR to be “in continuity” at first, envisioning it as the future (or at least a possible future) for Batman up until the two continuities diverged with the death of Jason Todd. In contrast, while TKJ redefines a post-Crisis Joker who behaves very differently from the Joker(s) we've seen before, Moore goes out of his way to acknowledge past continuity, from the Red Hood origin story that is so meticulously adhered to and cleverly altered, to Batman pulling up to Arkham in the 1940s Batmobile and pulling up a Dick Sprang era Joker profile on the Bat Computer. In many ways, this feels like it was intended to be a timeless story with no clear ties to a specific continuity, drawing from the full spectrum of Batman's past legacy and future. Of course, then, the story goes out of its way to cripple Barbara Gordon and have both the Joker and a doctor comment that she'll probably never walk again. It's for that reason that I still suspect the decision to cripple Barbara Gordon was a last minute decision suggested/imposed by O'Neil in order to make the departure of a character he had no interest in pursuing a bit more sensational. And the double meaning of "The Killing Joke" only works if someone dies in this story (no one does). Perhaps Moore originally intended to show the limitless madness of the Joker by having him murder a bit character rather than cripple Barbara. As always, just a theory.

From the perspective of a Batgirl fan, this is inevitably a frustrating issue, especially since all Barbara does is get coffee for her father, worry about glue stains, refer to her job at the library in the past tense (as if all her life consists of now is getting coffee for Jim), never once mention having been Batgirl, and look horrified beyond the ability to act simply by having a gun pointed at her. How upsetting to the feminist within me. She's already functioning as a useless appendage before she obtains two of her own. I believe the pre-Crisis Batgirl would have disarmed Joker or maneuvered out of the way long before he fired that gun. Once you get to Joker undressing her and taking pictures of her, this story just gets so thoroughly demeaning to women. Barbara's only usefulness in this story is as a victim (with sexual abuse strongly implied) and a tool for breaking her father's spirits. She has no importance as an actual character independent of him.

It's important to keep in mind that the origin story Moore provides for the Joker here is clearly depicted as being unreliable. The Joker seems to have a sincerely difficult time recalling his true origin and describes it as being “multiple choice.” This helps to explain why certain parts of the origin work well for drama but don't quite make sense, like Joker going crazy the moment he emerges from the chemical waste. He hasn't seen his reflection yet, so why would the act of falling in the chemicals drive him insane when finding out his wife was dead or being confronted by Batman didn't trigger it before that time? What about the act of falling and seeing his wrist looking white is the final push that sets him over the edge? Again though, it doesn't really matter since it's an unreliable flashback.

By the way, anyone else find it disturbing how much he looks like actor John Tuturo in those flashbacks?

So lets get to my biggest problem with this issue. Okay, so we're trying to redefine the Joker here, and yet it's clearly established that this is the Joker that Batman's been fighting since 1940, not a rebooted criminal with a new past and set of characteristics. So what prompts him to suddenly become so much more dangerous and perverse? He's trying to prove a point to Gordon – but why? This is a very significant change for the Joker (and was probably intended to be), but Moore never bothers to tell us why he's suddenly seeing his (possible) past everywhere he looks, why he's suddenly trying to turn others crazy and prove to them why one bad day can change everything, or why he's suddenly so willing to cross the lines he carefully observed before. To be clear, the Joker had been an established murderer long prior to TKJ, but this intentionally sadistic attack on the Gordons certainly surpassed the demented cruelty he'd exhibited before.

I always preferred the approach Doug Moench tried in Detective #532 in which the Joker is thoroughly aware of the rules of the game he plays with Batman, knows how to break those rules and win, but prefers to color within the lines and play the game to its logical conclusion. He's not just some crazy and unpredictable nemesis – he's smart enough and funny enough to see the setup for the joke and wants to help it get to the punchline. That type of Joker might not even actually be insane; he just enjoys playing the role (possibly as a means of hiding from some deeper truth about himself) I like that character a lot better. It's more complex and more sophisticated, regardless of how shocking and spectacular this approach might be, but then again, this is Denny O'Neil's Bat Office, and Denny knows that shocking and spectacular writes his paychecks.

Interesting, still, that although the Joker seems far more insane in TKJ than he ever did before, he also clearly portrays insanity as being a choice. I'm not sure I believe him on that one, especially when Batman offers to help him reform and he says, "No, it's too late for that. Far too late," seemingly with sincere regret.

So, in the larger scheme of things, here's what TKJ does for Batman continuity:

1. Batman and The Joker had previously been depicted as uniquely linked/connected (going at least as far back as Batman #321, where they almost seemed like a bickering married couple), but Moore makes a bigger deal of it, making much of the reading public aware of that notion for the first time.

2. The Joker had been a merciless killer since as far back as Batman #251, but Moore pushes that sadistic cruelty to a new level of unpredictability, with seemingly nothing off limits.

3. Barbara Gordon is paralyzed.


Beyond that, it's a compelling story that is well told and very cinematic in its visuals. Bolland did a great job on art, masterfully assisted by John Higgens on colors, though Bolland's Joker looks a little too Brit Pop Rocker for me, and The Joker's pouty-face when asking Batman, "Why aren't you laughing?" has always disturbed me in a way that it probably wasn't supposed to.

So it's a strong story, and an important story, but I'm not entirely pleased with how it reduced Joker to a raving homocidal maniac without any real subtlety to him beyond his origin story and the pathos Batman feels toward him, and I'm definitely not pleased with what it did to Barbara Gordon. Had this been an out-of-continuity one-shot (as we all thought it was when it first hit the stands), I would have been a lot happier with it. But it was a sensational shake-up for the sake of being a sensational shake-up, and that's what the fans crave.
Last edited by shaxper; 07-11-2011 at 08:00 PM.