Batman 381

"Darkly Moved the Pawns"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils: Rick Hoberg
inks: Alfredo Alcala
letters: Ben Oda
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Len Wein

Grade: B+/A-

I have no idea what's up with that title. I'm not even going to try to make sense of it.

Well here it is: the culmination of a six month long story arc weaving between Batman and Detective (that's got to be a record by 1984's standards!). Jason's custody issue gets resolved here, Mayor Hill's fate gets (more or less) resolved here, and Nocturna's role in Batman's universe gets mostly resolved here, as well.

I've truly loved many parts of this run and was hoping to adore this issue, but I didn't. I think a big part of that has got to be Rick Hoberg. As I said last issue, he's a fine penciler, but he doesn't have the eye for tone, pacing, and arrangement that Newton did. It's a well drawn but visually boring story. Like last issue, he pulls off one clever visual concept (this time, the single panel page re-establishing Batman on p.18), but (like last issue) the visual, itself, hardly lives up to the concept. Again I wonder if the idea for this panel was his or Moench's. Oh, and Nocturna undresses on panel again. This is getting silly.

There are a few nonsensical moments in Moench's writing again, for example having Robin and Nocturna swinging around on patrol all night without anyone noticing while, literally the second Nocturna and Batman (dressed as Nightslayer) swing out a window, it makes front page news as proof that she's a criminal. Why is no one similarly troubled that Batman's longtime sidekick is out on patrol with her all night long on at least two occasions?

I still hate the whole Nocturna as superhero thing. She was a crime boss before, not a trained physical warrior who can swing across cityscapes and take down criminals.

And speaking of swinging, now that Anton is in Batman's costume, he swings around everywhere. How is he suddenly trained to do this? It's not like having a grappling hook suddenly gives you the ability to expertly use one. Why would he even bother to change anything about how he conducts himself beyond his outward appearance? He was a master thief to begin with. Why risk bungling it up by using a device that you are not familiar with? Once again, Moench treats it as if Batman and Anton literally became each other rather than having just switched costumes.


Enough nitpicking. Now onto the really strong aspects of this issue:

I really like how Moench makes this story about a battle for Gotham's trust. We get a lot of street-level chatter about Batman being suspected of criminal activity (thanks to Anton impersonating him) at a newsstand, a diner, and the entrance of a hotel(?). Moench gives the people of Gotham some credit, portraying differing points of view in intelligent, believable ways. He really shows an honest diversity of opinion out there, not a mindless sea of blank faces that all easily accept one fact or the other. These people get souls for the one or two panels in which they exist.

As a result, Batman's stunt at the end of the issue to expose Hill and Anton to the media/public at the same time felt really good. He won them all back, and he did it with brains. I can honestly say I wouldn't have had the foresight to have planned what he did, and yet it made sense and was believable. This would have been a far more powerful moment had that splash page of Batman's triumphant moment on page 18 been done by a different penciler. "Pretty good" just can't cut it here.

Still not sure why Gordon is able to take Hill away at the end of this scene, though. Gordon is still off the force for the moment, and Hill hasn't actually been charged with anything yet. I guess this is Moench's way of showing us that he has no intention of dragging out the denouemont in real time; no slow downfall for Hill as he faces hearings and lawsuits. It's just over.

I really liked the mini climax Moench gave to Jason's struggle with being Nocturna's ward. A nice rapport has clearly formed between them as they come off of patrol (though not comparable to the one between Jason and Bruce), but a little thing like Nocturna telling Jason to go to bed reawakens discontent between them. As Nocturna goes to bed, Jason reveals that he's been, at least partially, playing her and waiting for an opportunity like this one. He finds her stolen goods and lays the revelation on her in the most realistically adolescent of ways:

Jason: (sing songy) Moth-er Na-tal-i-a...

Nocturna: Mhn?

Jason: I think it's time to come out and face the Mu-u-sic...

Nocturna: Jason! What is it? Are you all right--?!

Jason: I'm feeling GREAT Nocturna, but YOU'RE in the soup. Proof. Your lily-white hands have just turned very red.

The conversation that ensues is a strong one, in which Jason raises very valid concerns about Nocturna's reformation, especially when, after she pledges to never steal again, he says, "And what're you gonna do when there's none of this left to fence? Go out and provide for me by being a waitress?"

I'll give credit to Hoberg here. He does a pretty good job of conveying just a little too much smugness and cruelty on Jason's face, contrasted against Nocturna's honest shock and hurt. As a result, it makes perfect sense, a scene later, when Jason decides not to call the cops ("I just wish there was some way to convince the courts she's an unfit mother -- so they'll send me back to Bruce without putting her in prison...after all, she's not really a bad chick."). All of this feels so genuine to me, so close to my own memories of being an adolescent who could feel so righteous one moment and thoroughly remorseful of my actions in the next. That gray line of appropriate response was always so tragically elusive.

As a result of all this, when Bruce appears to make the same decision by the end of the story, setting it up so that the press does see that Nocturna is a villain, yet inviting her to the Batcave and never turning her over to the law (Nocturna answered his invitation assuming that he would), she's earned an uneasy place in both of their lives, surrendering Jason's custody (she would have lost it anyway, of course) and having been willing to let both Jason and Bruce turn her in. Though Nocturna has lost most of her original intoxicating charm for me (perhaps, upon reflection, some of this was intentional, since she has lost some of that appeal to Batman as well), she is earning a real place for herself in the Batcave. Moench is making her work, once again.

Bruce's return to Wayne Manor in this issue felt really good. I especially loved Bruce's prophetic line: "But explanations will have to wait. Right now, events are gathering both speed and force." It helps that Hoberg has Bruce smiling for the first time in many issues as he announces this. And, after all, Bruce had everything figured out from before the beginning of this issue. Part of the fun and triumph of this issue, after Bruce had lost so much (his ward, his reputation, and even his identity) was in watching him make a complete return to a state of control in the most clever of ways. Every event that happened in this issue was just a cog in his great plan. I really dug that. What an affirmation of who Batman truly is!

I'm loving the new relationship between Bullock and Gordon. Nothing new happens between them here, but it's still incredibly heart warming watching them talk like old friends as Gordon watches over Bullock's room, ready to put his own life at risk to protect him.

I hate that Anton is still out there by the end of this issue. I truly don't like the character and positively do not want to see him make a return.

Hoberg penciled the epilogue all wrong, in which Bruce returns to the blind girl in order to offer her some comfort. Moench's narration is ambiguous enough with lines like, "and he will make her fantasies come true," and "In the morning he will tell her about the Wayne Foundation and its excellent facilities..." But Hoberg's art puts their faces too close together and gives Bruce bedroom eyes as the girl caresses his face. I have to assume Bruce did not go back to offer pity sex to a destitute young blind girl, regardless of what Hoberg is showing me.

As a sad coda to this relatively strong conclusion to a near-epic storyline, this issue features the first ever teaser ad for "Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths." Worlds will live...worlds will die...and all of this beautiful storytelling will soon be unceremoniously wiped from continuity as if it never occurred.

Sad timing.

Oh, and Ben Oda was apparently having a rough time concentrating on this issue. Twice he accidentally leaves out a word.

Detective Comics #548

"Beasts A-Prowl"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils: Pat Broderick
inks: Bob Smith
letters: Ben Oda
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Len Wein

Grade: B+

Problem: you've just come off the conclusion of a 12 part story arc, and you only have 17 pages to transition from that into new territory. What do you do?

Looking at this issue from that perspective, Moench's solution is a good one. We get a very strong one page epilogue to the previous story arc in which an amusingly content Jason Todd explains all the ends that have wrapped themselves up while stuffing himself on Alfred's sandwiches. It's an endearing all-clear signal for the title. Finally, things have wrapped up neatly.

The remaining sixteen pages are spent on starting new stories, and none of them managed to turn me off in the short time that they were allotted. A new villain called Darkwolf is committing acts of terror in order to get Syrian prisoners freed, Catwoman is back (though her motives are not yet explained), and Batman fails in a mission against Darkwolf while Jason successfully completes his end of it. The seething rage and shame venting from Batman in the aftermath is impressive. I'm very curious to see where this goes.

As for the other two plots, Darkwolf may prove to be an interesting antagonist. Obviously, the whole terrorist aspect rings a more immediate tone to a reader of today, but his brief characterization seemed interesting (albeit difficult to describe). He seems to be wearing the actual cut and skinned head of a Jackal. That, in and of itself, is impressive.

I'm very very disappointed to see Vicki and Julia at the center of a storyline again, but everything Moench does with them in this issue, all the warning Vicki gives to Julia about how insane and dangerous Catwoman is, all lead me to believe he's going to redeem Catwoman's character and undo the damage that Conway dealt with her previous depiction. I think there's a reason Doug gave Vicki all that time to whine about her before Catwoman even made her entrance. Hopefully, the lovesick stalker Conway depicted is gone, and the damnright impressive villainess turned unreliable ally that Wein wrote will return.

There are several mentions made in this issue of two rival gangs battling for territory in Crime Alley, the Metal Knights and the Skull Smashers. We see some of the Skull Smashers in this issue, and they're alternatively and indecisively played for jokes and presented as being dangerous to Vicki and Julia. I have a feeling Moench is going somewhere with these two gangs, and I also have a feeling that he'll have no idea how to depict street thugs. This seems like it's going to be painful.

No sooner do Vicki and Julia reemerge in the story than we get back to Bruce's blatherings about how he loves different women as Bruce than as Batman. This all occurs while Moench devotes nearly an entire page to a conversation Bruce and Jason have about how he used to be in love with Catwoman and thinks he's finally over her. I'd hoped Moench had finally gotten all this romance crap out of his system. It's not that I'm particularly opposed to romance; it's just that Moench keeps giving it the primary focus of the book, and he doesn't even write it well.

Things in the romance department get particularly weird when Alfred chimes in about Bruce's love life at the beginning of this issue: "...particularly with two fine women like Vicki Vale and my daughter Julia eager to...er, 'jump his bones,' as it were." I have not been able to understand in all this time why Alfred is okay with his daughter having a thing for Bruce, and this completely absurd moment just takes it way over the line. Alfred, mister prim and proper, as well as the person on the planet who understands more than anyone else why Bruce can never truly settle down with a normal woman and will most likely only break her heart (as he's done countless times before), is joking about the fact that his daughter wants to jump him. Doug...what in heck are you thinking??

So, it's not much of a story in and of itself, but considering the demands and limitations placed upon this particular issue, I think it meets its goals quite well.

Detective Comics #549

"Dr. Harvey and Mr. Bullock"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils: Pat Broderick
inks: Bob Smith
letters: Ben Oda
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Let Wein

Grade: B+

While last issue brought back my absolute least favorite aspect of Moench's run (all the melodramatic romance), this issue brings attention back to the run's most successful aspect: the development of Harvey Bullock.

For the first time ever, Bullock gets a story entirely to himself, and we get a glimpse into his inner self. That being said, I'm still not positive about what I saw.

I've been trying to ascertain who Bullock is ever since he made his big transition into a hero in Detective #546 and became a true friend to Gordan in the process. Parch's observation that Bullock is still being presented as a clumsy oaf in Batman #381 intrigued me because of this. Was Bullock again being relegated to comic relief? What a tragedy that would be.

At the beginning of the issue, Bullock is exactly that. We watch him loaf around the office, asking random cops how to get a hold of Batman because he has some valuable info on the remainder of Dr. Fang's gang, knocking over every item imaginable in the office, acting tough while his colleagues essentially laugh at his back, and then having to be told by Gordan that the Bat signal doesn't work during the day time. It's damn funny and impressively done, but it's also frustrating if you've watched Bullock's progression throughout this run and expected something more.

Then Bullock get back to his apartment. The narration explains:

Even in the trashed vestibule, and only halfway down the filthy hall, Harvey Bullock already feels it falling away...slipping behind him like a snake's shed skin...the retreat of everything on the outside and the release of everything he is on the inside...and as he crosses the threshold--the change is complete.

Sure enough, Bullock's apartment is an incredibly neat shrine to classic cinema. He examines his framed movie posters knowingly, quoting movie lines and having conversations with the actors and characters in his head. He is intelligent, passionate, and sensitive, and Moench works hard to emphasize that the Bullock of the outside world is an act -- something a sensitive man put on in order to survive in the tough world.

It's a cool idea, but I don't buy it. I don't understand why Bullock would ever choose to play dumb (and not just tough), why he'd go out of his way to be so clumsy, or why he wouldn't allow even a little of this to come across during those long nights with Gordan in his hospital room, when the two appeared to be developing a bond tighter than friendship. This feels like an arbitrary attempt to produce a clever twist as opposed to a revelation of something that had been there all along.

True, we don't get a full sense of who Bullock is at home. Maybe he's a little more like the outside Harvey than we see here, simply making an effort to be cleaner, less clumsy, and more cultured, though still a clumsy idiot at heart, but Moench doesn't seem to suggest as much.

This complaint aside, the rest of the issue is quite strong, as Harvey's sacred apartment is violated and vandalized by a neighborhood gang, prompting a teary eyed Harvey to take on the gang member himself, resulting in the entire gang showing up to take him on. Batman rushes to his aid, and a real feel-good fight ensues with Harvey playing the hero/protagonist instead of the bumbling sidekick.

At the end, he's able to take his awareness of his own dual identity and apply it to the punk who vandalized his apartment. It's a touching moment as Harvey picks the kid up, walks him home, and says:

'Scuse me, Batman, but I almost forgot what was real...like the fact that no one's all good or all bad.

Come on, son.

Let's go talk about our good sides...

and the issue ends.


Very nice story all around, beside the fact that I don't buy this new twist to Harvey Bullock. I preferred the slow evolution of a selfish simpleton who felt a little too real into a hero that I could get behind. Bullock was Gordan's greatest victory, a testament to his own example. Now though, Harvey is an exceptional man, and so the exceptional transformation of his artificial facade seems a lot more hollow as a result.


"Night Olympics"
writer: Alan Moore
pencils, inks, and colors(?): Klaus Janson
letters: Todd Klein
editor: Len Wein

Grade: B+

Can you believe it? Cavaleri takes a break from Green Arrow, and Alan Moore fills in as guest writer. While I am not among the many who revere Alan Moore as a god, I enjoy his work and was therefore excited to read this issue.

I was also curious to see what Klaus Janson could do as an artist after the bad impression I got of his work when he inked Detective #547. Sure enough, his art looked GREAT here, though still a little bit over-inked in places.

The issue essentially presents Ollie and Dinah's crime-fighting as a kind of olympics,complete with individual events. It's a cute story, filled with humor and great ponderables about superheroes ("It's like Darwinism or something...we're gradually weeding out all the just-plain-average goons, gradually improving the strain until only the flat-out-dangerous psychos are left in the running"), all while introducing a new villain with a mohawk and long bow who will clearly become important in the next issue.

Favorite moment from this issue: Dinah is about to take on two thugs in an alley.

Dina (in her head): "It's only a frail. Let's bust her head in."

Crook 1: Hey man, it's only a chick! Let's bust her head in.

Crook 2: Uh, listen, man. I dunno...I think we oughtta surrender, y'know?

Crook 1: Say what?

Crook 2: My brother, you know, my brother Artie? He got beaten up by Batgirl this one time. She broke his nose, man...all the guys started makin' remarks an' he had to leave town.

Crook 1: Artie did? Gee, I didn't know that...Hell, I guess you're right. I don't wanna be beaten up by no super-bimbo. Let's give up.

Crook 2: Right. We give up, Wonder Woman.

Dina: Wonder Woman?


A fun story all around, though nothing particularly exceptional yet.


EDIT: Neglected to mention an odd promise on the cover of this issue: "Plus Selected Short." I have no idea what this is in reference to, as the only features contained in this issue are the two reviewed above. Perhaps the initial plan during Cavaleri's absence was to provide a series of short Batman stories in lieu of the Green Arrow feature? It's been obvious for quite a few issues now that these covers are being drawn up far in advance and often don't end up matching the content as a result. This was just a particularly weird mismatch. Couldn't they have colored over that "Plus Selected Shorts" caption at the last moment?

Detective Comics #550

"The Spider's Ninth Leg"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils: Pat Broderick
inks: Bob Smith
letters: John Workman
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Len Wein

Grade: C-

It was a really good idea that fell under the weight of Moench's weaknesses. This next stand alone story tells the tale of Joey Redwine, a criminal attempting to flee from Batman. As he runs and is pursued, Moench takes us on a tour of his life, exploring exactly what chain of events led him to this moment. It's a very cool idea...a very Wein idea, but it just doesn't work.

For one thing, the character never becomes likable or sympathetic. We first see his father beating a blank slate of a kid with no apparent hopes/dreams/personality, and next see that kid at around 9 years old beating up a girl and making her cry. Where was our chance to start liking the kid? There's no moment in the story where he becomes someone you can understand or relate to. I don't think Moench understands him either.

Broderick's art doesn't help. Granted, it's gotten MUCH better in this issue, but it has no opinion on Joey or his flashbacks. No emotion is conveyed beyond over-exaggerated tears and fear when appropriate. Neither writer nor artist gives this guy a soul nor evokes any feelings from us. I suppose his final heinous crime (beating his long lost first love to death--who is now a nun) was powerful in concept, but it lacked feeling and seemed a little over the top.

I also have to ask why Batman is spending all this time chasing and trying to reason with Joey to give himself up? He could take an average junkie like Joey down in a second, and we even see panels where this seems abundantly obvious (for example, pleading with him on a fire escape while Joey is literally four feet away and climbing a ladder). In the end, when Joey falls to his death, I see that as being Batman's fault. If he'd just taken Joey down, he'd still be alive. Since when does Bruce play guidance counselor to junkies whose souls were lost the minute their fathers beat them at the age of four?

Worse yet, Bruce waxes poetic (as only Moench can have him do), while trying to reach Joey:

There's no refuge in the dark, Redwine! What you've done is part of the night--a black face hungering for your soul.

Sigh.

There's also some reference to Redwine keeping a journal with two columns: fate and circumstance. I can't say this run of the mill high school drop out junkie seems like the type. Moench goes on to build some kind of metaphor about fate and the spider's ninth leg, but it was all noise to me (and I'm an English teacher!). In the end, we actually see Joey go to hell, get impaled by a giant spider's ninth leg, and then tell the ghost of his dad:

Hello, dad. Long time, no see. So tell me, how was the heart attack? And hey, dad--thanks again for the ride...

All of this awful anticlimactic sarcasm while Batman stands over Joey's body, mourning like he's witnessed a terrible loss. How could someone in Batman's position not see a junkie like Joey as someone who's already dead...been dead for years? He's got to see a dozen of these guys a night, and he surely doesn't stop to council and feel bad for all of them.

A better writer could have at least sold me on why Bruce chose to care tonight. What was he going through that made him want to invest so much into championing a lost cause?


"Night Olympics, p.2"
writer: Alan Moore
pencils, inks, colors(?): Klaus Janson
letters: Todd Klein
editor: Len Wein

Grade: B

Whereas the first part in this story was cute, but also primarily a setup for the introduction of a new villain, this issue resolves that plot line with astonishing speed and little interest, delivering an epilogue, and then being done before you can say "What the...?" It's a very odd pace, to have spent so long on setup and resolution with almost nothing inbetween.

Essentially, the new bad guy shoots an arrow at Ollie(?), misses and hits Dinah in the shoulder (leaving her seriously injured), gets confronted by Ollie, passes out from anxiety, and then Ollie goes to visit Dinah in the hospital. It's nearly as cute as the first part, and some of Janson's layouts are fantastic, but what a thoroughly frustrating way to tell a story!

Detective Comics #551

"The First Day of Spring"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils: Pat Broderick
inks: Bob Smith
letters: John Workman
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Len Wein

Grade: C+

I can't tell if this is something new, or if I'm just now noticing it in contrast to the fine art that Hoberg is dishing out in Batman, but Broderick is very very lazy. Overall, his art isn't bad, but there are numerous times in this issue where he'll just get a face COMPLETELY wrong, and I think most self-respecting artists would have gone back and made a change. On page six, for example, Bruce's jaw is larger than the rest of his head. He literally looks like an ape. On page 11, Julia looks happy and excited while pleading for Vicki to come back so that they can remain friends. Even on page 2, Broderick draws the grid on Calendar Man's smoking jacket from last issue (no attempt at drawing realistic dips, rises, and creases, by the way. The lines are completely straight) but neglects to fill in the days of the calendar on it. More generally, though, some of these panels look fantastic and some look terrible. Also, several times in this issue, the placement of word balloons makes the dialogue order very difficult to follow.

Regarding the story itself, the bulk of it centers on Batman arguing with Robin that he should not come out since Calendar Man has marked him for death. Of course, we have no reason to take Calendar Man seriously as an opponent, but Bruce and Doug Moench feel differently. As usual, Bruce tells Jason to go to bed, and for two years now, any time he's told Jason to do this, we've known he'd just sneak out as Robin and get into trouble anyway. So why doesn't Bruce know this?

Julia confesses to Vicki that she had a date with Bruce, so now Vicki isn't talking to her either. This, as well as Bruce's heart to heart with Jason, really need the Hoberg touch to make them accessible/interesting. Right now, it just feels like Moench is spinning the same tired wheels.

We meet Gotham's new mayor, Skowcroft, in this issue. While not apparently a bad guy, he's presented as a shameless self-promoting politician. I'm pleased to see that Moench avoided the easy solution of bringing in a "good" mayor to signal the end of the Hamilton Hill fiasco. A gritty city like Gotham deserves real politics at its center.

The plot in one relatively short sentence this time: Bruce grounds Jason to protect him from Calendar Man, Vicki isn't talking to Julia for dating Bruce (even though he stood Julia up), Calendar Man attacks an event hosted by the new mayor, Batman fails to catch him, and Jason is missing (presumably out as Robin).

A thoroughly adequate issue. Very little that stood out in a good way, and (aside from Broderick's laziness) very little that stood out in a bad way.

Oh, Calendar Man references Green Arrow in this issue and talks about taking him on as a nemesis once he kills Batman. A nice plug for the backup feature!


"Oliver Queen, for a change!"
writer: Joey Cavaleri
pencils: Jerome Moore
inks: Bruce Patterson
colors: Jeanie Casey
letters: Bob Lappan
editor: Len Wein

Grade: C-

No way this was an accident. For the second issue that Alan Moore wrote of this feature, it got a huge plug on the cover, making it clear that Alan Moore was writing. Clearly, they knew he was a draw. So this issue leaves out first names and jobs, simply (and largely) advertising itself as "A Cavalieri Moore Patterson Lappan Casey Wein presentation". The only reason I bothered to read this was because I knew Moore was a part of it.

But it wasn't Alan Moore.

"Moore" refers to penciler Jerome Moore. He's a solid artist, to be sure, but this was cheap bait and switch.

The story that follows is actually a half decent one for Cavalieri, though I'm sure the excellent art helped make it more digestible.

Ollie and Dinah are in a rundown hispanic diner when two immigration officers bust in waving guns, forcing Ollie to punch one out. If that didn't seem a little over the top, Ollie is told by a hispanic friend to visit his immigrant brother, who will tell him the immigrants' story (why Ollie needs this enough to go on a trip to get it, or why the friend couldn't just relay it to him, is beyond me). Immediately after Ollie finds this brother in a church basement, immigration busts in, waving guns again, and they're surprised to see Ollie there again (which means they hadn't follow him).

Hmmm.

Same officers...

other side of town...

exact same timing..

same over-the-top entrance...


Yup! It's bad writing.


This time around, they arrest Ollie too (presumably for punching the one officer). Now, I may be wrong on this, but it's my assumption that it would be beyond the jurisdiction of an immigration officer to make non-immigration related arrests. Maybe not, but it's not like the issue had a whole lot of credibility prior to that moment, anyway.

Considering the source, this is not a terrible story. It doesn't have the ridiculous villain, and it's trying to promote a necessary social consciousness message (very appropriate for a Green Arrow story). It's just that Cavalieri sucks. You don't blame an ugly person for being ugly or a mentally challenged person for being mentally challenged, so I don't fault Cavalieri for being Cavalieri. I do, however, fault, DC for tricking me into reading his work yet again.

Detective Comics #552

"A Stump Grows in Gotham"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils: Pat Broderick
inks: Bob Smith
letters: John Workman
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Len Wein

Grade: D

One of the appeals of following this particular run of Batman stories is a very personal one. These were the issues published as I was growing up, even if I wasn't old enough to read or understand any of them. Batman #311 was published in the same month that I was born (February 1979), and only six short years later, we've now arrived at the very first comic book I ever bought. Of course, I flipped through the pages and had absolutely no idea what was going on, so I've been particularly interested in getting to this issue and finally reading and understanding it after all these years. This is the actual copy my mother purchased for me in a five and dime back in 1985. I was very touched to finally be getting around to reading this.

Then I read the damn issue.

Terrible. Just terrible. Once again, Moench acts on the temptation to have a character spend the issue waxing poetic and, once again, it's far more terrible and far less clever than he thinks it is.

This is an issue about Julia writing a front page newspaper article (she seems to have finally moved on from Vicki's paper) about a tree being cut down. No, it's not a special tree, a landmark, nor something even in a location that would matter to most people. It's a tree in front of an abandoned factory. That made the front page headline. I'm all for the environment, for protecting neighborhoods from rampant progress, and all that other fun stuff, but even I couldn't help but laugh when I read this crap.

An excerpt:

Man being interviewed by Julia: That tree's always been there--just can't imagine the corner without it--can't imagine the block without it. Its shade was a real comfort--security, permanence, and strength--and you always felt safe walking under that tree.

Man #2: Yeah--people in a city need a tree like that.

Julia's narration (a bit later): And then it was taken off, leaving only a stump of death and a void in the lives of the people on the block. By 6:33pm its remains were delivered to the North Gotham lumber yard, where its heart and soul would be cannibalized for lumber and cabinets...and whatever else dead trees become.

It gets worse. Moench tries to turn the tree into some sort of metaphor, going on to describe Batman as a mighty oak and repeatedly referring to criminals wanting to cut him down. The guy who finally tries it in this issue is even named "Cutter."

Cutter is a hotshot assassin who strolls into town, hitting mob bosses up for a contract to kill Batman. So much of this doesn't make any sense. What kind of an idiot who's never faced Batman strolls into town and promises to kill him? His deal makes even less sense. A thousand dollars a piece from every gang in town...each month from the moment Batman dies and for as long as their organizations last. What kind of an idiotic business deal is that? Whatever you do, DON'T pay me up front, but I'm somehow going to enforce you paying me for the rest of your lives long after the job is completed? Beyond the obvious enforcement problem, I'd be concerned that mob bosses would try to kill him later in order to get out of the contracts. And how would they know it's the corpse of the real Batman and not just some random body in a costume? All of this is just plain stupid.

So Batman confronts Cutter, pretends to get knocked out and killed entirely too easily (at least he thought to disguise his face in case Cutter unmasked him), induces himself with a pulse-slowing drug to induce a temporary death-like state (boy was he lucky Cutter didn't finish the job just to be sure!) and later busts out of his coffin to take down Cutter and the mob members at the end, all while Robin had been recording the evening's events and gathering evidence against all of them. As Robin later explained, "If not for Cutter, you never could've gotten so many choice mugs together at one time...there was enough said to put every one of these jokers away on conspiracy to commit murder charges...every word of which is on this tape." At least that aspect of the story made sense.

So Batman "came back from the dead" just as Julia noticed that a new sprout was coming out of the removed tree's stump. Not quite the poetic and meaningful metaphor that Moench and Julia thought it was. It's not like the city was trying to "cut down" Batman in the name of progress.

And Broderick's laziness is getting worse. While most of the issue looks quite good, there's a key panel where he has the wrong bad guy talking which completely mucked up the premise of the story for me. I had to re-read the page three times to figure out what had gone wrong. And he didn't even bother to pencil in the guy's hair in that panel. It's one solid piece.

Worse yet, a page later, Jason is drawn on the scale of a dwarf. I think it's just an awkward perspective issue since he looks okay compared to Alfred, but he comes up to Bruce's stomach while Bruce is seated. If he's actually in the distance as compared to Bruce being in the foreground, then why is he looking up at Bruce? I'm really losing my patience with Broderick. He does some great panels, but he absolutely does not seem to care when he produces crap along with it.

So this was my first comic. Strangely, as bad as it was, it was no worse than Batman #311. Somehow, both of my historic childhood moments thus far seem to correspond to the absolute worst Batman/Detective issues.

Detective Comics #553

"The False Face Society of Gotham"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils/inks: Klaus Janson
letters: John Workman
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Len Wein

Grade: A-

Along with new penciler Tom Mandrake in Batman this month, Detective gets Klaus Janson. Both are extremely capable, and both do their own inking. Once more, Wein has managed to make art a priority in these titles, and I appreciate that immensely.

Well now that the origin/explanation of Black Mask has been covered, Moench is free to simply advance the plot this issue, allowing Black Mask to seek vengeance as Janson pours on the style. It's a darn fun issue. Black Mask is given to graphically torturing his victims by forcing them to wear masks that are essentially lined with poisonous acid. I'm not aware of any Batman villain acting in so gruesome a fashion prior to this. I'm ashamed to admit that it's really fun to watch.

Gordon presumes that Black Mask is filling the power vacuum that gets left every time a crime boss in Gotham gets taken down (let's see: Falcone, Thorne, Squid, Croc, and Fang, thus far), but Black Mask doesn't appear to be any kind of expert crime lord, here. He's just a guy with a lot of money who knows how to get the attention of common thugs. He's simply paying them to enact his vengeance and (I presume) keeping his wallet safe at home so that they have no reason to take him down. He's more a crime customer than a crime boss in that respect.

An interesting twist with Black Mask in this issue -- he's convinced for some reason that the elements used to make up the mask help to forge the wearer's new identity. As a result, he carves his mask from the wood of his father's casket. Doesn't exactly make sense, but it's morbid and intriguing.

Certainly my favorite part of this issue was Moench's follow-up on Bullock. He's done very little with the character since we found out in Detective #549 that, essentially, everything we know about Harvey Bullock is an act that he puts on. It was an odd, out-of-nowhere twist that didn't sit right with me, but Moench does a little more with it this issue. First off, we watch him purposefully "accidentally" spill his mug all over the Bat Signal. I'm still not sure why he'd ever go out of his way to pretend to be a Klutz, but there it is. Moench is at least being consistent.

But this is all handled in a more meaningful way when Gordon gets called in to have a meeting with the interim mayor. Skowcroft wants to bribe Gordan (who is now a celebrity after taking down former Mayor Hill) into endorsing him in his bid for mayor. Gordon discusses this with Bullock, and the following conversation ensues:

Gordon: Whatever you do...for once, just remember to be yourself in the acting mayor's office, all right?

Bullock: Huh? Whaddaya mean, commish?

Gordon: Just don't freeze up on me--don't get suddenly careful, if you know what I mean.

Bullock: Heh heh--you sly old fox. Gotcha, commish.


I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that was Gordon telling Bullock that he's onto him; he knows it's all an act, and he wants Bullock to keep using the act to their advantage.

Sure enough, Bullock intimidates the heck out of Skowcroft and puts him in his place, "accidentally" knocking things over everywhere as Gordon calmly explains why Skowcroft needs a deal far more than Gordon does. The two walk out victorious and giggling like school girls.

As I've said several times in these reviews, Bullock is the character I've enjoyed watching develop the most on Moench's watch, and his growing relationship with Gordon has been immensely gratifying to follow. Gordon letting on that he knows Harvey's secret here, and their using it together to make the two of them unstoppable in the face of shady politics, was a powerful turn of events and a great way to use the twist that Moench just seemed to dump on us last time. I still don't fully understand why Bullock needs to execute his deception to this extreme length, but I'm feeling a lot better about it here.

The plot in one long sentence: Black Mask assembles his False Face Society, they torture and kill members of the Wayne Foundation who were involved in the takeover of Black Mask's cosmetics company, the deaths are threatening the the value of the entire Wayne Foundation (this actually makes sense when you read it), Bullock and Gordon intimidate the new acting mayor and show him who's boss in the wake of the Hamilton Hill scandal, some of Black Mask's people start following Bruce Wayne, Bruce and Jason are able to change into costume and take them down, and Black Mask deforms his former lover who had left him, now forcing her to be his partner in crime.