Best of DC: Week of February 12th, 2020
Best of this Week: Pennyworth R.I.P. One-Shot - James Tynion IV and Various Artists and Colorists
Some people think Dick Grayson is the glue that holds the Batfamily together, some say that it's really Tim Drake, but we all know that it has always been Alfred.
Alfred has been by Bruce's side since the day that Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed in Crime Alley. Alfred raised the boy from a young age and watched as he became a hero that Gotham City could truly be proud of. Alfred even got to see Bruce raise many kids of his own over the years and sas there to pick up the slack when Bruce was too injured, angry or didn't know how to talk to them. Alfred was patient. Alfred was loving. Alfred was amazing and will be sorely missed.
Alfred met his tragic end during the recent City of Bane arc and even after that wrapped up, it still took time for the rest of the family to get together and mourn his passing. Bruce has been trying to cope with it all by throwing himself into his Gotham Renovation Project and various superheroics. Barbara’s been dealing with her own issues in the form of a rogue Oracle. Damian has the Titans, Jason is on the outs with the family and Dick (Ric) doesn’t even really remember Alfred.
In the end, Bane managed to do what he set out to accomplish in the first place: He Broke the Bat.
Not only did he break Batman, he broke the entire family as a whole as shown from the very first shot of this book. Eddy Barrows presents us with a pulled out shot, showing a statue of Alfred in the middle of the new Alfred J. Pennyworth Children’s Hospital - a momentous honor meant to save kids just like Bruce. However, this scene also symbolizes the distance between all of the family. Tynion IV does a great job of scripting their inner thoughts as told by an unseen narrator.
Damian, being the one who was there, feels the weight of his disobedience and sees things as his fault. Tim hearkens back to the time after Jason died and fears for Bruce, knowing the darkness inside of him. Jason was told to NOT come, but Alfred had always treated him right and Barbara feels like she knows how to fix things, but who’s to say that she’s in the right mind to do so either? And Ric… well, Ric doesn’t know why he’s there, but he feels obligated.
Barrows does an amazing job of showing the pain through their forlorn expressions and lowered heads. I assume that Adriano Lucas was the one who colored these scenes because they make excellent use of cold blues to emphasize the sadness of the Family. Barrows also does something that a few artists struggle with in distinguishing each of the boys from each other. They each have distinct hairstyles and facial structures and it’s a nice touch for such a tragic event. Soon after, Tim finds a little dive bar for them to meet in and they each bicker a bit before Bruce arrives for toasts and memories.
This book also does an excellent job of showcasing personal moments that we never see between the kids and Alfred. Beginning with Damian, Chris Burnham draws a flashback to one of the first times that Alfred bails Damian out after he disobeys Batman about going out on patrols. Tynion IV and Burnham capture Damian’s early petulance through his childish pouting superiority complex. We see that Damian loved Alfred because he was willing to be patient with the young boy and Bruce was just getting used to having a trained assassin as a son.
Damian is still widely considered the worst Robin, but that idea has long passed its expiration date as the young lad has grown significantly over the years. In the beginning he could have killed anyone and not felt a lick of remorse for it, but over time, thanks to the softening of Bruce and Alfred, the boy has learned to care and take responsibility for things that weren’t even his fault. He tears up thinking that the rest of the family blamed him for Alfred’s death and regrets that he didn’t do more to stop Bane before leaving the bar.
Tim speaks next and Marcio Takara takes over art for Tim’s flashback. The third Robin is still arguably the smartest, but during a hectic fight with Firefly, he leaves some of his gear and Alfred bails him out by sneaking into the GCPD to retrieve the items. It’s very action packed and does well to show that sometimes Tim loses his cool too, but after the recollection, Tim says that he would step in for Alfred if Batman ASKS him to do so. When Bruce refuses, Tim makes a point that this is exactly like how Bruce was after Jason, but this time he has to pull himself through like an adult before he too leaves.
Tim is usually the Robin that’s touted as being the one who saved Batman during his most destructive period. He’s always been the level headed one, but in recent years he’s been put through the ringer. From being kidnapped by an unseen entity and thought dead for almost a year (Detective Comics, 2017), to fighting an alt-future, villainous version of himself (Detective Comics, 2018) and finally reuniting with his Young Justice friends and dealing with the chaos of that (Young Justice, 2019). Tim is tired and even more so of the darkness that shrouds Bruce and the Family.
Jaybird raises his glass to Alfred next and offers a counter to Tim. He says that maybe Batman would have worked out his issues after Jason’s death if a new kid didn’t swing in and just try to relieve him of the pain. Jason has always been the most extreme of the family, but he’s never been above asking Alfred for help. As a street urchin, Jason doesn’t trust most people, but despite this Alfred always thought to check up on Bruce’s second son and tried to bring him back to the side of the angels. Jason never bit, but he appreciated the effort.
He tells Barbara that he won’t chastise Bruce for how he feels because they’re all in that same spot right now, but he does want Bruce to work towards fixing it. Jason knows better than the rest of them what it feels like to have lost (Heroes in Crisis, 2018), but he also knows what it’s like to be there on the fringes with no one there to help.
Batgirl is often lost in the conversations that usually revolve around the boys, but she shouldn’t be. Barbara’s intellect exceeds that of Tim by a wide margin, but that intelligence also comes with an intuitiveness given to her by her father, James Gordon, as they live in the heart of Gotham. Barbara makes the most logical statement about the general fear swelling in Gotham after Bane’s rise and defeat and the lack of trust in Bat themed heroes given everything that The Batman Who Laughs has done. Bruce’s reconstruction project isn’t helping either as it’s just another shiny coat of paint over a city whose problems run down to its roots.
Babs may not have grown up in the mansion like the boys, but Alfred cared for her just the same, effectively being Batman’s first daughter...niece maybe the better description? David Lafuente does the art for her flashback and it’s a more cutesy style with thick defining lines and lots of faraway shots as we see Alfred and Barbara hiking up a mountain just outside of Gotham City. The actions of Killing Joke absolutely still happened and to celebrate the anniversary of Barbara leaving spine rehab, Alfred wanted to celebrate with a hike and a cupcake.Barbara says that they need Bruce to come back and be the person that they all need him to be before she leaves as well.
Finally, we hear from Ric Grayson. The former Dick Grayson was another victim of Bane’s vendetta, getting shot in the head by the KGBeast in an attempt to further hurt Batman. Aside from his Flying Grayson memories and a few scant ones with Alfred and Bruce, he doesn’t remember his life as Nightwing, with the Titans or the rest of the Batfamily and that probably makes this book harder to swallow. Dick has always been the elder brother to each of them and truly is Batman’s voice of reason after Alfred, but Dick is gone.
So Ric, knowing he needs to step up and say something to get Bruce to help himself, asks him to tell whatever story Dick Grayson might have if he were still around. Bruce then speaks up about a time where Dick found out that Alfred had been leaving flowers at the sight of the Waynes murder to celebrate the anniversary of their marriage where Bruce had been leaving flowers on the anniversary of their deaths. Dick tells Bruce that Alfred always wanted to tell him that their deaths had saved countless lives and even the world at times.
It’s grim and kinda dark, but in the grand scheme of things, Ric is right. Batman has given everything he can to the world under his mission of Justice and that never would have happened if the Waynes survived, just look at Batman: The Gift (Batman #45 - #47, 2018). In that timeline, the Waynes did survive and it was a nightmare world where crime was rampant, Dick was crazed Batman like Flashpoint Thomas Wayne and everything was just wrong. Ric may not have known all of tht, but he did know that Alfred was right and that Bruce needed to be strong for him.
Before Ric leaves, he hangs a picture on the bar wall while Tynion IV and Barrows convey the emotional impact of Ric’s act through four panels without dialogue. Bruce looks at the picture and not only can readers feel the tears swelling up in the corners of their eyes, but we almost feel as if Bruce is as well as he stars upon a picture of the core Batfamily with Alfred as the focus between them.
I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know if I’m emotionally ready to deal with a Batman future without Alfred. He’s always been such a faithful companion and foil to our dour hero and his passing has only made Batman that much darker. The cynic in me knows that DC Won’t keep him dead forever, especially with an incoming Crisis that may undo everything from the last four years of storytelling, but at the same time it might not. I think the idea to kill Alfred was a good one to create awesome moments like it did in this book, but who will take his place?
Could this really be Tim’s time to step away from the masks and go behind the scenes like Oracle did? Could Alfred’s daughter, Julia, see a return since she hasn’t been seen since I think All Star Batman in 2016? Will Lucius Fox actually stay in the position as he’s there now in Detective Comics? Who knows?
All that matters is the life of Alfred and the mark he left on our favorite characters.
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