rawdogging rogues designs with a brisk readthrough of the wikipedia page on the character, twenty pictures of the guy who isnt even being directly referenced in the name of the character, and a working knowledge of the wrong version of said character
Batman No Man's Land Retrospective Part 2: Aftershock
Welcome back folks. After a nearly year it's the grand return of my No Man's Land Retrospective! Part 1 is here
Hello all you happy people. This project's been brewing for a while now and i'm so happy to finally get to dive into it. For the next two ye
I apologize for the image. I needed visual aids for Chuck Dixon's downward spiral.
So you may be asking why the long gap. And that's simple.. scheduling was a bit of a nightmare as we planned to do each 16 issue omnibus on it's own, but Kev kept having other stuff he wanted to do. We ended up agreeing to split each omnibus in half which makes the retrospective longer but given the sheer SIZE of this thing, it's the only way to manage it both with my workload and so he can pay for reviews that aren't this.
When we left off a massive quake had destroyed gotham, the Vintriloquist made a new friend, and all our heroes were busy scrambling to deal with the nightmare.. except Robin who was out of town at the time and had to hustle to get back to help.
This next era, Aftershock, is looser: there's still ongoing story beats like Commisioner Gordon not knowing where his wife is, Bruce grappling with the fact he may need a succesor ready again far sooner than he or Tim are prepared for, and Tim's own plots, but this stretch is mainly there to sit with the tragedy: Batman now has to patrol a battered city full of looters, lost of hope. The quake is over but there's still people to be saved, tragedy to be explored, and questions to be answered. It's a small recovery period, a chance for the books to settle into the new status quo of Gotham in ruins.. and brace it for things to only get so much worse. Let's begin.
Batman Shadow of the Bat #75: Fire and Ice? and A Long Slow Death
We start with Shadow of the Bat, and fitting a milestone issue it's the only one in this batch with familiar Rogues and a backup that adds some tragic extra flavor to the first.
The Fire and Ice? .... is eh. It should be a bigger thing as you have two of batman's best rogues going up against each other and both stuck in a unique situation, both freed by the quake.
Their also both in this era likely due to BTAS: Freeze was reintroduced because Heart of Ice did such a masterful job reinventing the character, and Basil Carlo returned and ate the other clayfaces to become THE ULTIMATE CLAYFACE. He has fire powers due to the last time he tangled with batman as Looker, one of batman's old team the outsiders, a person from the center of the earth and also a vampire, sent him plumpeting. The fire and ice gimmick is neat and all but it's just not enough. Their reduced to just regular super crooks with no intresting motives and that's just.. not how these guys work best. It's a bland note to start on and a pretty weak 75h issue, especailly from Alan Grant who can do better and will later this block.
The good news is that there is one tiny thread that's really compelling and even more with the backup. A random man is commiting suciide as the start of the issue. Batman hears a crime in progress so he ties the guy to a bat pole and leaves him there. By the time he comes back the man is willing to reconsider and explains why: he lost his wife, his children, his relatives.. everything in the quake and questions why batman would do this. Bats explains the obvious: After so much loss.. life is important.. and after some time to think the man agrees.
This scene really speaks to batman's heart and is a nice counterpart to Superman rescuing Regan from a ledge in all star superman. There superman is gently reassuring a sucidial teen: even as he's close to death and getting things in order.. he stops to save one life because every life is important.
Similarly batman is in the middle of the worst days of his life: His city is in ruins, crime is nearly impossible to contain, and there's only so much he can do.. but he stops to try and talk a man down and makes sure to go back for him.. because life is precious. because this person matters. After saving his man he sees so many lives dead from the quake he won't add another. He may be gruff and seeem uncaring.. but the best batman to me is the one who doe scare underneath, who will comfort a child or in this case, stop a man because even if he's lost everything, there's reason to go on. Bruce knows that better than anybody. He's not trying just to keep one less casualty off the board, he's trying to help because while he's not the carring symbol of warmth like superman, he's still a good man. He may not see himself that way, but we do.
The backup twists the knife as we found out this guy went through.. a lot: He accidently dropped his son, having to help him through recovery, his wife got distant, he got shook down for protection money, then kissed by his employee... then everything got better over the next year only for the quake to happen. It's a decent issue.. a trauma dump yet but it helps show why this guy would collapse... he pushed past pain before and now he's lost everything. But he can preserver even if it hurts
Batman #555: Trapped like Rats
Trapped Like Rats is my faviorite issue of the block, a fantastic use of everything going on to tell a great one and done.
The premise is simple: A bunch of innocent civilians are trapped in a subway car, about to starve with rescue hard to reach as the tunnel's unstable. Batman, of course, has a way in.
What makes it intresting is that the way out... requires taking the rescuees through the batcave.. and like last time with Alfred there's no hestiation. Bruce is prepared to end his career to save lives.
It's a nice show of noblility..that uncovers something I suspect his Robin, Tim Drake, wasn't prepared for: Turns out the Quake has Bruce thinking about the future.. he's come close to both death and exposure and if he goes there needs to be a plan.
He also outlines how he's failed in the past: During the excellent Knightfall event he picked John Paul Valley, who wasn't ready, wasn't throughly vetted, and thanks to the cult programming he grew up with went insane and had to be stopped. Dick Grayson did step in when needed after the event but even with Bruce understanding Dick was willing to do it his son's heart just wasn't in it. If bruce goes down he needs someone determined, clever and with the will to go on.. he needs tim.
What bruce dosen't get is this is a LOT of pressure to put on a teenager and while he tries to hide it it's clear this shakes Tim a bit. He didn't expect to be next in line let alone anytime soon.. but the future has been shaken to it's core. There's no more promises, just a gotham that's broken and will always need batman and someone HAS to take on the roll. And Tim is seemingly the only one who can.
This is still.. suspect as hell as Tim is a teenager, has a healthy life, and has a lot he'd have to give up, not to mention the fact his dad could shut it all down if he finds out. But you get why Bruce isn't thinking clearly: his city is on the brink of death, he's lost a lot, and he just had to sacrifice two batmobiles just to get the cave open again. I do love that sequence showing off some early models and using them to pull the entrance open.
Bruce is not in a place to really be making these plans, but feels he has to, that gotham WILL fall apart without him and already has even with him. Someone has to perservre. He's just not talking it over because he can't afford to because deep down he knows this is defitnely wrong.. he just has to make the sacrifice. Has to destroy tim's childhood if need be because someone needs to save gotham. Always. Tha'ts the mission.. and if he can't keep the missoin going long after he's gone.. what was this all for?
We don't get answers but we do get Ratcatcher.
Ratcatcher is exactly what he sounds like: he's a former rat catcher who was arrested and seeking revenge used his ablility to train rats to get his revenge. Standard villian origin story and as a result he's been used here and there. His ablility to control rats and cool mask have gotten him a few appearnces in outside media being one of the villiams in Arkham Shadow and a complete revamp as a more sympathetic female legacy character in the Suicide Squad.
As much as i'm creped out by rats who didn't raise turtles to do ninjutsu I do wish Ratcatcher was used a bit more. The gas mask gives him a unique look and James Gunn just giftwrapped writers a fresher take they simply haven't used because
Here he had a pretty neat take it dosen't look like got more use. Maybe we'll see it as we go: He went mad, seeing himself as the Lisan Al-Gib of rats and wanting to liberate them.. and feed the people to them. It's unsettling and geninely neat, and shows off how powerful the character COULD be long before suicide squad did: he easily swarms batman and it's only robin distracting their own personal rat jesus that stops him. Their trapped, he has an army he's trying to lead to freedoma nd sweet sweet human flesh, he has the advantage. Again this character HAS potetial, it's why more adaptations are starting to use him , the comics needs to step on it. Get on it Matt Fraction.
This issue is pretty great the only hangup being the one time they try to incorpeate the stupid mandate that batman is not a public figure with the people who saw him being seen as suffering from exaustion and it's "as likely as seeing aliens".
I'm certain I ranted about this stupid idea last time but as a recap: Batman has been in two public superhero teams, his sidekick is a public figure at the head of a team that saved the entire damn world. All three teams had an alien on them :Halo, The Martian Manhunter and Starfire specifically. The world's been invaded multiple times most notably with the invasion, a public event tha tende din a bomb giving people superpowers and the recent invasion by the hyperclan, which batman helped thwart and who were very public with their V style bullshit. This joke does not land and Doug Moench can do genuine humor, and I applaud the late great peter david for constantly mocking this mandate whenever it came up.
Detective Comics 722: Statistics
Okay I forgot about this one, which not only has the cover they ended up using for the Cataclysm trade, can't blame them looks utterly gorgeous, but has another fantatsic premise. The quake was a simple, brilliant story idea: A foe that batman can't easily face, that shakes up the status quo for every book but in a way that's not not hard to explain: Earthquake happened, most of gotham was total, everything batman owned that wasn't wayne manor was fine as it was the only thing he couldn't quakeproof. It's accesible and a nice launchpad for stories.
In this case we get two intresting plots: The A Story is simple: Robin finds a child scared and looking for her mom in the wreckage and goes to look for her. It's a fun one off as Robin has to avoid the national guard who while helping also have shoot on sight orders for anything weird, and try to find the Mother's boyfriend, Shakey.
We get a nice stopover at the Iceburg Lounge, one of my faviorite settings in batman. By this point Penguin's had his nice revamp as a "legitimate buisnessman" and go to target for info. Robin points out that for now Penguin isn't really a concern.. but if he dosen't help him find this child's mother he's their priority. Ozzie wisely decides to give him the info
The outcome.. is geninely sad. The mother was just straight up abandoning her child and didn't count on batman. It's all too common and an all too bitter sign that the apocalypse dosen't always bring out the best in people.
There is a happy ending somehow: The girl has an aunt and uncle who have a farm, and the mother stashed a bunch of money in her daughter's doll.. and tim naturally hides that fact and lets the little precious baby keep it for her college fund. It's a cute little ending.
The b plot is simple and moves fast: Sarah Gordon, Comissioner Gordon's wife whose been scattered in the city during all this and he hasn't been able to contact resurfaces trying to get water to a district that dosen't have it and gets an awesome moment as the beauracrat in charge refuses.. despite the giant earthquake that just happened and how long it'd take to get proper authorization. Sarah has the guy tied up and he's planning to sue and probably get himeslf a costume and become the dreaded BEAURUCRAT!
After creating a supervillian Sarah reunites with Jim and he's happy for the first time since he found out his daughter was okay issues ago. Awww.
Shadow of the Bat #76: The Gauntlet
Sadly there are no robots riffing on cheesey movies here, but instead Batman treis to rescue a trapped society party in a clever issue.. as the party is getting desperate and planning ot eath one of their own. Despite the sensationalist cover it's handled well with the creeping dread as they realize thir going to have to eat flesh.. and the selectoin of one by straws.. a man who decides fuck it i'm not going to go and ends up killing one of them. We also get a truly brutal twist that ties it all together well: Batman had a casual aquantinces trapped there.. and turns out they already ate him. He bumped his head and died.. so he was the first to go. It's a nice mediation on not only what people will do in a crisis.. but Batman's cry of sheer despair at the end hits. These werne't horrible people.. but more and more of the city is forced to resort to the worst solution.... that him not being able to find these people for WEEKS lead to this and there's just nothign he can do. He's utterly powerless and it wounds the soul to realize that.
Robin #54: Repercussions
Robin is the only book in this whole trade that dosen't star the Dark Knight himself.And that peaked my curosity. It had me realizing that as much as I love the concept of a Batman Family it wasn't really a thing in the comics after the first stab at it in the 50's when, in an attempt to give batman a case of the not gays and not pedophiles they introduced Batwoman, then to try an copy Superman's success introduced Robin's stalker Bat-Girl, 5th dimensional scamp Batmite and Ace the goodest boy to have wholesome adventures about how Robin can't not date because he's "too young to decide that".
After this failed for reasons lost to time the Bat Family shrank to just Batman, Robin, Alfred and The All New All Librarian Bat Girl Barbara gordon, with Dick, Babs and Alfred all getting backup features at one point or another and Dick and Babs teaming up. This remained largely the status quo with Babs quitting and coming back here and there, the only constant being batman ocasinally being a sexist douche about how she can't handle it, the one thing kept from the previous bat family because sexisim is timeless.
The closest Batman got was his own team, the Outsiders, who he treated as an extension of his war on crime consiting of rookie heroes Katana, Geo Force and Halo and Vetrans Black Lightning and Metamorpho. It was a good group and one I feel needs a proper revival.. most attempts lately have been eh. He treated them like he'd end up treating most of his crime fighting partners: Rather poorly, expecting them to shut up and do what he tells them and getting mad at Katana for being upset Halo went back to her seeming family despite it being his idea to have her adopt the young alien riding a corpse but they didn't know that at a time. This is an ugly trend that seeps into this era and got worse in some books: batman being a controlling dick to those who work with him.
Batman eventually purposefully drove the outsiders away, seeing they had outgrown him. He'd join them again just before their book ended, now seeing them as equals and even going to the lengths of setting up an LA cave since they were now based over there. Shame it wasn't under the hollywood sign. That would've been dope.
Instead he focused on the big shakeup in his status quo: Jason Todd, a young circus orphan with an identical history to dick grayson despite both existing who'd be wisely retconned into a mouthy youth, who wanted to be Robin, so Dick stepped aside or was pushed depending on which side of the crisis we're on to focus on the titans. Dick became nightwing, got a dope as hell Disco Collar and the rest is history.
The other big shakeup was the reason Babs became oracle: She got shot in the spine because Alan Moore needed a big moment for the killling joke and ediotiral said fine because they were asshats. Thankfully John Ostrander was horrified by this and rescued her in the pages of Suicide Squad, turning her into a computer expert and woman in the wheelchair for the squad, before becoming batman's woman in the chair after.
So with Dick busy and Barbra MIA till suicide squad, the status quo was largely kept to a dynamic duo, first Bruce and Jason then after jason's date with a crowbar and a rigged voter poll, Tim Drake. Knightfall shook that up for a bit, but aside from Azreal getting his own book and serving as a loose ally after his brainwashing was undid, but it largely stuck to either batman flying solo or batman and robin as a duo with Nightwing popping in once in a while before getting his own solo and his own town in bludhaven, his status quo at the time of this book. Catwoman also had her own book was largely a cat alone.
This ends up explaning WHY most of the heavy lifting for No Mans Land, and thus what got collected, is in the main three titles (There was a fourth but it was a new reader friendly anthology book Legends of the Dark Knight). Most of the solos were, as they tend to be even into present day, loosely connected to what's going on with Batman at best. Nightwing had his own city and Batman outright tells Dick, whose more than willing ot stick around, that he's fine going back as he knows Bludhaven needs him. Chuck Dixon for his buffet of faults we covered last time, did good work making Nightwing and Robin's worlds distinct from the main books, giving them deep benches of supporting characters and their own feel. Nightwing had his own arch enemy and rogues to deal with so he couldn't stay forever and Tim had his own life and subplots to deal with. Catwoman and Azreal.. no idea but we will see teh latter a lot apparently in the upcoming volumes.
This issue of Robin highlights this as the bulk of the focus is catching up with Tim's cast and seeing how their doing after this event.
Tim's main goal is his girlfriend Ariana, an immigrant whose parents hate Tim after they walked in on Ariana in lengire trying to seduce tim but tim said no thank you. I have as much context as you do. So he goes to the shelter she's at as her neighborhood was evacuated and ends up running into good old Stephanie Brown, who had her own adventures last time and is currently down a costume. She thinks Tim is there to see her and has.. zero reason to think otherwise. He dosen't tell her his girlfriend is here for also reasons.. but he did call her up for no real reason but to see her and when asked to sneak passed soldiers to get her costume he's okay. If that's not down bad I don't know what is.
At her place we get an intresting confrontatoin, as Cluemaster is still on the loose from last time and is curious why Robin is picking up the costume and wants to play keepaway because he's kind of a dick and dosen't get why his daughter dosen't want to follow her poppy into c list villiany. She does end up stealing the bandanda over the face look though, good for her. That shit is nice.
So Robin has to flee both cluemaster AND the armed guards and then decides Steph dosen't get her costume back because he's the boss of her now and he's not so big. I don't love the traditoin of Bat-Family men being patriarchal dorcuses.
There's also a very interesting b-plot: Tim's father Jack hired some men to do renovations and being a master detective, Tim picked up the men were scamming his dad, and didn't speak up because he knew his dad wouldn't listen. He ends up getting the money back as he happens to see the van on the way to get Steph's shit. It's a nice little bit of world and character building, showing no one is immune to taking advantage of this disaster, and that Tim's dad is an idiot. All in all a really good issue tha tends iwth Tim and Ariana starting over while he has another girls costume in the back, implying he held it from steph to avoid cheating on his girlfriend by seeing her instead of lettting steph down and letting her just.. operate.
Batman 556: Help, trapped, money, rescue, ruins
This issue is a nice cool down issue, a bit of a break. Batman still does his thing and saves people like his last few issues, but we get a chance to see the logistics of what's going on and what he's doing as Bruce Wayne to help
Ther'es still bat action with two small but fun cases: The first is a bunch of robbers stuck in a bank vault. He resuces them and when told their still going to be arrested they prepare to resist.. but Batman outlines that they can't take him on a good day let alone half starved and dehydrated. Batman isn't above punching a mummy but in this case he'd just feel sad after and it 's weird to make batman feel sad without a tragic backstory ya know?
The other is an old man who refuses to move having survived the quake fine.. but whose building is about to collapse> batman drags him out and convinces him he has more to live for. Not an original scenario but it's fine.
The bulk is focused on what bruce does now the crisis is mostly confined to search, rescue and occasoinal looter punching: The first issue is the bat cave. They need the mansion repaired, but obviously someone will see it but Alfred, as always has a solution: remove everything. The Batcomputer, the other equipment, the cars, the trophies. It'd be a pain in the ass but it'd allow the workers to take care of it and allow bruce to just feign having just found it. The cave would be known which could be tricky for the future, but Bruce wouldn't have to expose his identity or suspciously have his house never repaired and just leave the giant t rex there with a sign that sayd "Batman's don't steal". Tim does try to ask about the succesion thing but Bruce brushes him off for now.
The best part for me is him at Wayne enterprises, as it revals Bruce has suspended operations, is still giving his employees full pay, and is using the companies funds to deliver suplies, emergency housing, help relocate and rescue. His money guy whines that "We're loosing money as we do this".. but is quickly shut up. Gotham needs help, his people need pay, he's doing the right thing, fuck off. And while we wait for the villian debut of THE DOUCHEY ACOUNTAINT, we see Jolene Relazzzo again whose been helping with the rebuilding plans as companies are understandably a bit more willing to consider quake proofing now.
So we end on Bruce connecting with one of his MANY love intrests, Vesper Fairchild and hoping she dosen't leave as Gotham needs it's voice. HA HA foreshadowing.
SHadow of the Bat #77: Arwins Theory of Devolution
We're back to Alan Grant and that means we're back to getting weird with it. We also have a more aggro batman whose mad at some looters for pawning random shit. Bruce.. honey.. we're in the middle of a crisis zone. These are just random punks who probably have no other way to get money right now. It's very hard to be mad at looters when their not stealing food or anything worth while and the city is ruins. Go focus on something more important.
He could but being batman he dosen't and instead walks into a hostage situation as the Looter, who is legilty a scumbag to suit the narrative, is held by proffessor Arvin, whose a delightful one off antagonist and who decides to test his new theory: See Arvin survived the quake by hiding in a cabinet and was mid lecture during it. His class died, Arvins mind snapped and he now belivies pure luck rules the universe and evolution dosen't matter. God poor guy.. few years later and he'd have that sweet fox news blood money.
So we get batman blindfolded walking o na ledge, which is just a fantastic image. He later escapes after the goon struggls and batman arrests both, but the real purpose is a philsocphiacl one. Does anything matter when fate can just strike everything away? Does anything we do matter. Yes yes it does. It may be hard and an uphill fight.. but it's worth doing the right thign as batman does. Maybe focus more on looters who are actually harming people or stealing from homes that still stand though batman.
Batman 557: Ballistic's Evidence
We end on a story the return of Ballistic, who I swear to god isn't a bid might up. That is not a comissoin I did for a joke. That's an actual character.
Ballistic debuted during the bloodlines crossover which was intended to create a very 90's breed of new heroes, all bit by a gnarly alien and given super powers. This didn't pan out and most of them faded into obscurity with only Hitman having any staying power and it's largely because Garth Ennis took a dump on the whole concept by having the 90's anti hero be a casual hitman who got x ray vision and that's it. Look I have my issues with ennis... he wrote this
And this
But I give him respect for Hitman: I haven't read the book, but the concept at least is brilliant and unlike his main universe punisher work dosen't seem to glorify his edgy anti hero. It also gave us this excellent seen in JLA
The last joke hasn't aged good at all, but the other two are fucking fantastic. From him casually mentoning murder to his quip to eventual recurit Aztek. Wonderful.
Ballistic is one of many of these also rans and comes off as the most 90's things to 90's: A former cop with generic powers (Your standard superman set minus flight), a gun themed name, and who later joined a team called the blood pack. Here h's back to being a merc but outright tells his sketchy employers if he finds shenanignas he's going to do hero shit and their bullets bounce off. He certainly exists and is one of many pieces of c list fodder on Superboy Prime's scoreboard. He's only here because his creator also wrote this issue. His creator also created Scarface, Harvey Bullock, Jason Todd , Nocturna and Killer Croc, so he gets a pass.
The issue at least has an intresting gimmick: Ballistic teamed up with batman.. but it was Jean Paul Valley, so Bruce has to play along. We also see ballistic blow up some cocaine. otherwise this one is just..e h. Ballistic is just so fucking boring.. he's so 90's it hurts but at the same time so generically 90's he's not funny. He's just a man with guns who dosen't need them because he has superhero powers. His name has nothing to do with his powers, his appearnce does. He just has guns because GUNS R COOL BRO but odsen't kill or anything so there's no actual tension with batman. You THINK batman whose anti guna nd anti someone else on his turf would be bitchier but no. The one time I want bruce to bitch someone out and he's just "eh sure whatever glowing red man, let's beat up some gangsters. Whatever gets you the fuck out of my city."
Overall this batch of issues is .. decent. Most are at least intresting and only the last one isn't very good and even that one has a large red man blow up cocaine. I've made my thoughts on ballistic clear but if they say made a snowflame book and made ballistic his arch enemy i'd read that. I'd WRITE that even just ask me.
For now though we close this chapter as Gotham still has hope.. and that hope's about to die a slow death. Some bat time, same bat channel and if you liked this review and wnat to help me keep making more please join my patreon
Jacob Mattingly | creating Animation And Comic Reviews | Patreon
So @quackerzzz made some suggestions on this post about a Batman roleswap AU that I was playing around with a long while ago, and now my brain is munching good and is having ideas!!!
However I am conflicted... Who should roleswap with the Joker...? My first decent thought was to perhaps do Clayface as parallels between Harvey and Clayface could be abundant, and Clayface could be a GREAT nemesis to Harvey trying to enact vigilante justice! But one thought led to another led to another led to another and just... My second major idea and option is to roleswap the Joker with... Gilda. Harvey's wife that he is rather malewife for! >.< There's certainly lots of juicy story potential there!!! But just... Damn... I'm conflicted on whether or not I'd want to do that to my girl!!!!!! But like... Genuinely within canon, Gilda does serve as like the polar opposite in Harvey's story to what the Joker serves to be........ But TwoJokes being part of the endgame of this AU...? FUCKKKKKK!!!!!
I hope the Suicide Squad Isekai makes fun of the cringe protagonist buying a slave trope. Like have a slaver offer a slave girl to the squad consisting of Harley, Deadshot, Peacemaker, King Shark and Clayface all look at him and the camera focuses on the slaver’s face before smash cutting to the same angle but the guy is injured and horrified as Harley is about to finish him off with his house on fire in the background and rest of the squad freeing the slaves. Also Harley explaining her reasoning to him is that they maybe in Rome but they’re not the Romans.
