*shiver* I HATED Danny Chase...

Anyway, I thought I'd post to let Shax know his favorite run (Dixon's Tim Drake minis) have a Vol. 2 coming out already... it's in the February solicits. Because that's what we need before the Spectre

I think you'll get all the way through Grant/ Breyfogle on Batman. It would be about this point that they head over to Batman: Shadow of the Bat.

Legends of the Dark Knight #17



"Venom: Part Two"
writer: Denny O'Neil
layouts: Trevor Von Eedon
pencils: Russell Braun
inks: Hose Luis Garcia-Lopez
letters: Willie Schubert
colors: Steve Oliff
editors: Kevin Dooley and Andrew Helfer

grade: C+

Two issues in, and I'm already losing interest. Whereas the first part of this story spent all its energy getting us invested in Bruce's motives, truly helping us to understand and feel what drew him to try Venom, this issue begins with him already behaving like a completely out of control addict, devoid of anything that we can latch onto with empathy. Given that this is a five part story, it seems like O'Neil could have transitioned into this more slowly rather than rushing head-long into the bottom of the downward spiral. This Batman isn't Batman anymore; he isn't a character we can even care about because we didn't see how A got to D, completely skipping over B and C. Yes, I get that O'Neil's primary mission is to deliver a social consciousness message and that, in order for it to work, we have to see how anyone can end up in this position if they aren't careful, but it's happening too quickly and has thus lost my emotional investment.

This is the closest thing to a transition we see in this issue. For one little panel, we can almost see a final ounce of fight left in him before he becomes supplicant in order to score another dosage of Venom.



And really, how many times are we going to see Alfred quit and then come back at the end of a storyline? This scene has been done to death.




Really, the only moment in this story that drew me in was when Batman used his amped up strength to stop some fleeing villains in a relatively unorthodox way:







But that's it. I'm not sure I'm up for watching three more issues of junky Batman. Of course, watching him work to get clean and return to his previous self might have some dramatic potential. Maybe this story isn't utterly lost yet.



Minor Details:

-Gordon is still married to Barbara and has "kids" at this point. That would suggest he has already adopted the other Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl and Oracle). Of course, the adoption hasn't been mentioned since Secret Origins #20 (four years ago). I've come to suspect that no one is really following the idea that Barbara isn't Gordon's biological daughter in the Post-Crisis anymore.

- O'Neil reminds us once again of his idea that Gordon is consciously choosing not to try to figure out who Batman really is.



plot synopsis in one sentence:

Batman has taken on a second costumed identity as a guy in a trenchcoat and hat, wandering around and beating up thugs for no particular reason instead of being Batman, Alfred confronts him about this and then quits, the guy giving Batman the Venom is secretly working with the guys who kidnapped his daughter and, along with a military general financing him, plans to control Batman through the Venom, Batman meets the general's mentally handicapped (?) son and, while pursuing some thugs involved in last issue's kidnapping, he is nearly killed by a driveby until the general's son shouts out a warning and saves his life, but Batman is too confused to make sense of this and generally finds his mind not working well anymore; he makes another visit to the guy giving him the Venom and is told that in order to "earn" another dose, he must kill Captain Gordon.

Robin (1991) #5



grade: n/a


As a reminder, I am reviewing these non-Batman issues solely based upon what impact they have on Batman continuity, thus no grade for, nor extensive discussion of, the story itself.


The conclusion to the first Robin limited series is a thematic continuation of the conflict posed in the previous issue -- Tim is over his head in this world and struggling to find power, as well as himself. He does find his own strength, largely by outsmarting opponents with clever misdirection. This allows him to land the winning blow on King Snake:



But, of course, Shiva wants Snake dead, so while Robin makes the right choice not to aid her, he makes no effort to stop her and does not seem conflicted about this either. He understands that he is in no position to stop her, and he appears to be at peace with that for now.




Really, all that's left is for Tim to get the obligatory praise from Batman,



as well as for Dixon to indicate that Robin's training is far from over. Certainly, if it wasn't, he wouldn't need Batman anymore and could go off on his own.

Of course, sales numbers were already in for the first issues of this series, so I'm sure DC was licking its lips and planning a second mini-series already by this point, so Tim's training really couldn't be over yet. Certainly, DC was suddenly very interested in Tim, and so we'll see him suddenly getting face time in the core Batman title after this (he hasn't even been mentioned there since Batman #457 as of this point), as well as the characters and events from this series continuing over into that title with the Shadowbox story arc.

Clearly, Tim Drake was no longer the Robin nobody wanted.



Important Details:

- Tim now utilizes both the staff and the sling. The staff continues to be equipped with a sound-generating device intended to distract opponents.


Minor Details:

- Henri Ducard FINALLY shows up, but he essentially does nothing more than provide information that allows Tim to wrap up the loose ends at the close. What was the point of involving him in this story?

I'd be careful about judging the title's success based upon how the first issue of Robin II sold. Remember that this was 1991 and that it had both a hologram and five different covers.


Beyond that, this data is confusing to me. On the one hand, it looks like Robin #5 was the top selling DC title for all of 1991 (Robin II aside). That's more impressive than I expected, actually. It's the only DC comic that made the Top 100 for 1991 without a gimmick of some kind attached to it.

On the other, how is it that none of the rest of the series ranked in the Top 100 at all? How did the final issue of the series score so much higher than the rest? That runs contrary to everything I know about comic book sales.



Thanks for this. I never think to look at Comichron this far back because the data is so incomplete, but this is still very valuable info.

Also of note was the very quick turnaround for the Robin TPB. Robin #5 came out in the middle of March and the trade came out at the end of April collecting the 3 issues of Identity Crisis and the 5 issue Robin series. It was a 192 page newsprint comic that sold for $4.95.

Detective Comics #629



"The Hungry Grass!"
writer: Peter Milligan
pencils: Jim Aparo
inks: Steve Leialoha
letters: John Costanza
colors: Adrienne Roy
asst. editor: Kelley Puckett
editor: Denny O'Neil

grade: A-


Wow. So Wolfman is gone just like that. It's funny; he spent nearly two years in the Bat Office, giving him the second longest Post-Crisis tenure on Batman yet (Alan Grant is still going), and still I felt like he was just getting started. Finally free of all those editorial edicts, he was laying down some real continuity for the franchise for the first time, and also closely aligning it with the Pre-Crisis incarnation of Batman. I was really enjoying it.

In contrast, we now have Peter Milligan back, no doubt in response to the high praise his Dark Knight, Dark City storyline received. Milligan is good; really good, but he fills a very different need than Wolfman did. Wolfman was a foundation-layer. He could introduce and develop characters and cultivate continuity with the best of them. Milligan is all about telling one dynamic story that exists in a void, beholden to nothing around it. Dark Knight, Dark City paid absolutely no attention to continuity and, in fact, railroaded over what had already been done with The Riddler in the Post-Crisis while also having Batman encounter the living supernatural soul of Gotham City. Not exactly stuff that plays nicely with the stories around it. This story is less clearly asynchronous, even having Batman working with Detective Kitch since Gordon is still recovering, but I don't trust Milligan to remember nor care about any of the universe building Wolfman had been up to in his final months at the Bat Office.

So, once again, there really is no true Post-Crisis Batman continuity yet, other than the facts that Jason Todd has died and Barbara Gordon has been crippled. Heck, we're not even clear on whether she's James Gordon's daughter (implied most of the time) or adopted niece (stated waaaay back in Secret Origins #20 and then seemingly forgotten).


But, as for what I like about Milligan here, well, it's funny. When he did Dark Knight, Dark City, I got the distinct feeling he'd been reading Grant Morrison's "Gothic" (Legends of the Dark Knight #6-10) and was trying to stay in keeping with that style (only he ended up doing it better in my opinion). This time around, "The Hungry Grass!" feels right in keeping with the kinds of stories Grant and Breyfogle have been writing for the past several years now -- a psychologically disturbed ordinary joe encounters supernatural powers and utilizes them to disrupt all of Gotham.



The tone is dead-on, the meticulous research into the occult is dead-on, and the writing feels reminiscent of Grant, balancing darkness and humor, only it's done better here.



Same with the "voice" of the insane villain, whose name is "Hungry".



Heck, even Aparo's style seems to have grown darker to accompany the shift in tone. In fact, I don't know if he'd already been doing this previously, but this is the first time I noticed Aparo drawing the Breyfogle-style Batmobile.



Of course, some of the difference in Aparo's look might just be from finally shaking Mike DeCarlo as an inker.

But, most of all, it's just a very well designed mystery, in which the people of Gotham are attacking one another and being assaulted by people and things that are not there whenever a mysterious villain's insane demands are not met. Even the reveals generally add to the story rather than feeling obligatory. The very idea that the reason "Hungry" places these ridiculous demands upon Gotham's citizens is because, as a wrongfully imprisoned inmate at Blackgate, he had to comply with "The pointless rules, the senseless violence, the uncertainty..." it's just so very well done.




I enjoyed this story a whole lot, but I don't know if I can handle two moody, atmospheric Alan Grant-style Batman titles each month with no straight-forward Wolfman-style approach to counterbalance it. I need some tales where Batman feels more conventional and traditional to me, not just trudging through shadows and filth in order to understand and stop a psychologically disturbed villain.

And really, I want to get back to a semblance of continuity and supporting cast building. Batman is not the only interesting character in Gotham.



Important Details:

- First mention and appearance of Blackgate Prison. At this point, it has been closed for five years.




- The Letter column announces that the Batman Animated TV series is about to air.

- In response of fan requests, O'Neil has just forbidden Alan Grant and Peter Milligan to utilize the supernatural in future storylines:






plot synopsis in one sentence:

A villain named "Hungry" is making ridiculous demands on Gotham's citizens and, when they don't comply (or possibly even when they do) he somehow causes them to start attacking each other and get attacked by forces that aren't even there, but Batman soon figures out that "Hungry" is a former Blackgate prisoner who believes he was wrongfully convicted for a crime; he gets his revenge by using magic grass created by an ancestor of his utilizing White Magic during the Irish Potato Famine which causes people who tread on it to experience traumas that occurred at that location previously, and, ironically, while facing off with Batman he is killed by the memory of the real killer whose crime he was framed for so many years back.