1987 and all that 023: two years in a year

by Matt Derman

...reading comics from the year i was born!

Batman #404-407 (DC)

by Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, Richmond Lewis, Todd Klein

and

Detective Comics #575-578 (DC)

by Mike W. Barr, Alan  Davis, Paul Neary, Todd McFarlane, Alfredo Alcala, Adrienne Roy, Richard Starkings, Agustin Mas, John Costanza, Todd Klein

I have officially been writing these “1987 And All That” columns for a full year now, which is pretty cool. I thought I would celebrate the occasion by reading one of 1987’s most beloved stories, and an especially appropriate tale to mark a one-year anniversary, 'Batman: Year One.' But then I thought, hey, if I’m doing that, I might as well keep going and read 'Batman: Year Two' as well, since it was published immediately after “Year One,” just in a different book and with different creators. Having read both stories before, I knew they had almost nothing to do with one another, and that “Year One” was excellent while “Year Two” stunk. Yet it still seemed like it might be fun to read them back-to-back, and then examine them side-by-side to see exactly what makes them so dramatically different from one another in quality. There are, of course, many reasons, but what it all boils down to is this: while released one right after the other and both technically canon at the time, these two stories are about two entirely different versions of Batman, not from the same world as each other or in any discernible way even the same person.

This division between the two begins with the simple fact that “Year One” is a retelling while “Year Two” is an original story (Editors Note: Technically, it is actually supposed to be a retelling of this story, but how well it does that is debatable -- Joey). Though it has a powerful, singular voice, and adds plenty of new details, “Year One” is still covering old, established ground. Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham with a plan, and after the famous bat-crashing-through-the-window moment of inspiration, he dons his cape and cowl and becomes the city’s Dark Knight. It’s the core of what Batman is, the essential narrative. The summary for “Year Two” sounds more like fan fiction or something similarly experimental and ridiculous. A man named The Reaper, who apparently used to be like a lethal Batman in Gotham twenty years ago, shows up again and starts killing anyone he thinks deserves it, which is more or less just anyone. Batman gets so frustrated by this Reaper jerk that he starts using a gun and teams up with criminals. That’s bad enough, but it gets worse, because the gun he uses is the actual gun that killed his parents. That’s right, all these years, Bruce Wayne has secretly been holding onto the murder weapon, I guess waiting for a special occasion. And even more foolish than that, the crook he partners with is also the man that killed his parents! This is such an outrageous idea, that Batman would not only compromise all of his values after one fight with one villain, but do it with the help of very weapon and person that caused the tragedy which gave him those values in the first place…it’s almost admirable in its brazenness. But it’s a far cry from something as fundamental as “Year One.”

In “Year One,” both writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli bring an old-school noir feel to the whole affair that fits with the classic nature of the story. The real star isn't even really Batman but Jim Gordon, the hard-boiled, stand-up cop trying to survive in a corrupt new city. The two men share a lot of parallel experiences in their individual struggles against Gotham’s greatest evils, but Gordon’s story packs more of an emotional punch. He has the strained marriage, the illicit romance, the near-loss of his infant son. He holds things together through his humanity, while Bruce becomes something slightly other than human. Giving the reader a more grounded character with more personal problems to latch onto allows Miller to take his time with things. Gordon narrates a lot, with Bruce filling in most of the gaps, and the constant insight into their thoughts adds detail and heft to everything. When one of them wrestles with a decision or learns a hard lesson, the reader goes through every agonizing step of the process with them. Yet the pacing is lively enough, and Miller’s writing is so efficient, that there’s no sense of things being slowed or over-explained. We get the perfect amount of information, relayed with precision, so that every beat of every issue is given ample room.

Meanwhile, “Year Two” is an exercise in rushed, hand-waving narration. Batman goes from meeting the Reaper to pulling out the gun that killed his parents by the end of the first issue, and the end of the second is when he teams up with Joe Chill, his parents’ murderer. There are a few narrative captions worth of inner turmoil about it, but Batman quickly reaffirms that he thinks working with villains is the only way to stop the Reaper, so he has no significant reaction to Chill and they just go ahead and work together. It goes too far into hard-to-swallow territory, and without even trying to take the time to sell it. The reader is asked to accept something so implausible just because it’s happening, not because we have been given a reason to believe.

There’s other stuff crammed in there too. Bruce Wayne meets Rachel Caspian, who is days away from taking her final vows as a nun, and charms her out of it over the course of a single date. He meets her father on their next date (who is weirdly fine with his daughter giving up her whole life plan for a man she just met), and on their third date they get engaged. It’d be one thing if Bruce and Rachel had a natural, wonderful rapport with each other, though even then their romance would be moving at a dizzying speed. But their interactions are brief, strangely formal, and never at all playful or affectionate or in any way resembling love. Why include such an awkward romance? Because Rachel’s father is, unbelievably enough, the Reaper himself, which only matters insofar as she goes back to being a nun once he is unmasked as Gotham’s worst killer, to atone for his sins. It’s just one final blow for the Reaper to deliver to Batman, a hit neither of them anticipated. Not a bad idea, but executed poorly.

That’s a good way to describe all of “Year Two,” at least at the most basic conceptual level. I like the notion that, in his second year of costumed crime fighting, when faced with an enemy more wicked and powerful than any he’d seen before, Batman might go a little nutty and resort to reprehensible and reckless tactics. If things had stopped at that point, it might’ve been a worthwhile read. But to bring in all this needless stuff with Joe Chill and the gun, and the wedged-in plot with Rachel, and even having the Reaper be an old vigilante returning after decades of inactivity…it’s too much, and handled badly. Which is difficult to get past, especially after reading “Year One,” the story of all of Bruce’s years of training and focus finally coming together. “Year Two” is about all of it coming apart in almost no time at all, and it doesn’t earn that dismemberment of the character, that rapid unraveling of the incredibly tight work done in “Year One.” If more time had been taken, and more thought put into things, watching Bruce become unhinged under the pressure of his mission could have been entertaining as hell. I have seen that done before and likely will again. “Year Two” is just too much reason-less shark-jumping with nothing to back it up.

Miller and Mazzucchelli, as I mentioned, deliver a cohesive atmosphere to their story. And it’s worth noting they work with a single colorist, Richmond Lewis, and only one letterer as well, Todd Klein. A small, steady team. Though “Year Two” is written by Mike Barr alone, the first issue has Alan Davis and Paul Neary on art, while Todd McFarlane and Alan Alcala handle the rest. Oh, except, no, I’m looking again now, and it turns out Alcala isn't on the final issue, so McFarlane must ink himself on that one. Adrienne Roy is the sole colorist, bringing at least some visual consistency, but then there’s a different letterer each issue. Not that it makes an enormous, starkly obvious difference, but it does make some impact, and the point is that there’s way less creative stability in “Year Two,” which may account for some of its problems with timing and tone. There’s clarity of vision in “Year One” while “Year Two” is messier from start to finish.

As a final point of contrast, Miller and Barr write their Batmans (Batmen?) very differently as characters. Miller’s is stoic, largely silent, and when he speaks it is with intentional, almost theatrical gravitas. He cares obsessively about his fight for good, but carefully considers every move and mistake he makes. Barr’s Batman is much chattier, and more snarky than somber. He’s also friendlier, as Batman and Bruce Wayne both. He gives Gordon a pipe as a present, has casual meals with Rachel and Leslie Thompkins, and is just generally more engaged with people, less tucked away from the world. He’s also rasher, and less patient or reasonable. His craziness runs deeper, and it makes him wild and hard to predict. Miller’s Batman is angry but disciplined; Barr’s is out of control.

The only logical conclusion I can come to, the only way I can reconcile these two stories, is to think of them as existing in distinct universes. These are not narratives about the same man living through two consecutive years of his life, but, instead, they’re wholly separate tales. They both feature spins on the same character, sure, but there’s nothing connecting them to each other beyond that. And there are actually some in-story facts to back up this interpretation. Bruce Wayne is twenty-five in “Year One,” but then in “Year Two” he describes Joe Chill as “the man who, twenty-five years ago, created the Batman…” Now, I’m no Batman historian, but based on the fact that he could walk and talk and understand The Mark of Zorro, I am going to guess Bruce was older than one when his parents got shot, so those two things don’t quite line up. Also, Leslie Thompkins is not a character in “Year One” at all, but she’s an everyday part of Bruce’s life in “Year Two,” and privy to the fact that he’s Batman. Finally, and for me this is the big one, the very last thing that happens to Gordon in “Year One” is he gets promoted to captain. Then, pretty much the very first thing we learn about him in “Year Two” is that he’s just been made commissioner. Even if several months passed between the two stories, hell, even if “Year Two” is really just “December of Year Two,” it makes no sense that Gordon would get another promotion that quickly, no matter how beloved he is. I just don’t see any way that these two stories could be reasonably seen as tying into one another.

Plus, there is always the matter of “Year One” being published in 'Batman' while “Year Two” got 'Detective Comics'. I’m not knocking Detective, because historically I think it may have the better track record, but 'Batman' feels more official. And whichever you prefer, that the two stories weren't published under the same title definitely makes it easier to think of them as fully disconnected. Two different books, two different creative teams, therefore two completely different worlds. Both of those worlds have a Batman, yes, but one of them is great while the other’s a dud.

1987 and all that 002: rebirth in the family

by Matt Derman

...reading comics from the year i was born!

Batman #408-412 (DC)

by Max Allan Collins, Chris Warner, Ross Andru, Dave Cockrum, Mike DeCarlo, Dick Giordano, Don Heck, Adrienne Roy, Todd Klein, John Costanza, Agustin Mas

I don’t know if Jason Todd ever stood a chance. At first, he was just a near-identical replacement for Dick Grayson when Grayson left the Robin game to become Nightwing. He was sort of a watered-down version of the young man for whom he was meant to stand in, the first Jason got the job done as Robin but offered nothing new, no reason for readers to warm to him or see him as anything other than a cut-rate attempt at recapturing the magic of the original Boy Wonder. So it makes total sense that in 1987 DC would take a stab at rewriting his background and personality in a post-Crisis world, providing an opportunity for Jason to carve out a more unique and possibly interesting space for himself in the Batman mythos. Sadly, though, I think they gave the task to the wrong guy, because Max Allan Collins wrote Batman as a lighthearted, almost goofy title, which did not really line up with the angry street youth persona of his revamped Jason Todd.

There’s too much silliness in the narratives that surround Jason’s introduction to take him entirely seriously. Yet he is so unstable and full of rage that he almost demands to be taken seriously anyway, to the point of sticking out as an abrasive and ill-fitting character in several places. Collins never marries the character’s attitude to the series’ tone, and that sets Jason up for failure from the get-go.

The basic concept for the character isn't terrible: a Robin with less self-control, but one more accustomed to hardship. Also more used to being self-reliant, which makes him less obedient but theoretically more capable in the long run. He's good enough to care for his dying mother for over a year, but brazen enough to steal the Batmobile’s tires, it’s easy to see why Batman is so quick to take on this new ward. There is obvious potential for an exceptional Robin in a decent-hearted kid who also has familiarity with crime in Gotham and can hold his own in a fight. The problem is neither Batman nor Collins handle Jason the right way, so he has wild changes in mood and behavior that make him too unpredictable and grating to be a serviceable sidekick.

His meeting with Batman and ultimate recruitment as Robin connects to a forgettable plot about a nefarious elderly schoolteacher who uses her students to commit crimes. Ma Gunn is a laughable villain, puffing on a cigar and correcting her kids’ grammar in the midst of their criminal activities. Her evil side is revealed as the cliffhanger to 'Batman' #408, where Jason is dropped off at her school and she sicks the other boys on him, saying, “Who wants to snuff the little stoolie for old Ma?” with a self-satisfied grin. It’s outrageous and overtly comedic, and continues through the next issue, culminating in her smacking Batman with her purse (even though she has a gun) when he interrupts a museum heist. It’s not at all a bad story, just a fluffy one, with relatively low stakes and a bad guy who never poses much of a threat.

And I think Collins was aiming for that with Ma Gunn. I think he was having a lot of fun getting to be the writer for Batman, so he cut loose and added a lot of humor to his short time on the title. In the next story-line, Two-Face commits a string of robberies, and the number-based puns saturate almost every page. From Two-Face working with the Dopple Gang to Robin saying, “He may be seeing double,” in the last panel of 'Batman' #411, Collins lays it on thick, writing a comic book that has no desire to be grim or gritty in the least. Two-Face robs casinos and ballparks doing minimal damage, guns are drawn but rarely fired, and all of his henchmen are twins.

     The problem with this approach, though, is there is very little room to explore the deep and significant damage from which Jason Todd is trying to recover. You see this clash in the Ma Gunn story just a little, inasmuch as the severity of Jason’s life story—drug-addicted Mother and career criminal father both died, leaving him to fend for himself on Crime Alley— doesn't fully mesh with the levity of Ma’s whole shtick. But it really becomes a problem in the Two-Face story, which actually does attempt to further develop Jason’s history and identify some of his wounds, but can never fully pull it off because it still wants to be a comedy in the end. Jason, having recently discovered that Two-Face murdered his father, nearly strangles the villain to death, which is pretty much on par for an already short-tempered kid who was told he could be a superhero and then faced with his father’s killer. But there is no space in Collins’ script for Batman to address this incident appropriately, because by the end of the same issue Two-Face has to be defeated and Robin has to be an enthusiastic young hero again. Corny jokes about the number two don’t really fit next to in-depth conversations about loss and rage and revenge. So Batman just tells Jason that these are hard things to deal with for everyone, and then immediately says all is forgiven and takes the kid back into the field. It is rushed, irresponsible, forced, and unfortunate, and it completely explains to me why Jason never outgrew being a broken, unlikable rebel.

In his final issue on the book, Collins shifts his focus away from Jason almost entirely. Technically he’s there in 'Batman' #412, but the story barely needs or uses him. Another none-too-impressive villain, The Mime, steals church bells, shoots a honking car, and disrupts a rock concert because she has an agenda against noise, and Batman effortlessly shuts her down. Robin assists, but his role is a minor one, and adds nothing to his character. Not every story needed to center on Jason just because he was new, but it would have been nice if there were more than a single, two-issue arc with him as Robin before he became a supporting character.

This is all the work Collins would ever get to do with the boy hero he rebuilt, and it is sketchy and uneven at best. Though individually these issues make for humorous and fast-paced Batman tales, the overall portrait they paint of Jason Todd is too unclear and/or simplistic. Other than his short fuse and enormous baggage, we know very little about him, which is likely why those few elements became his defining characteristics. Collins did not give himself room to give Jason the space in which to grow, heal, or even learn, so he became trapped as an insolent punk. That’s not a guy people are eager to hang out with, and less than two years later, readers voted for his death.

     It feels inevitable, now, that Jason would grow so unpopular so quickly, but I guess that’s only because I know that it happened. As shoddy as Collins’ establishment was, the character could have been salvaged in theory, made somehow redeemable by a clever trans-formative story. Instead, his wildness and fury were leaned into, a logical next step considering the direction in which Collins had been heading. It wasn't just that Jason was angry, but that even under the tutelage of Batman he had no fitting outlet for that anger, no means of facing his true problems and moving past them. You can’t just keep throwing a berserker into fight after fight with the hopes that eventually he’ll run out of rage. That’s not how violence or anger operates, and it certainly isn't the kind of training or therapy Jason needed. But Collins’ style had no place for truly deep, painful, emotional storytelling, so even in his short time at the helm he managed to make Jason quite the stunted, damaged young man.

But at least Collins had a good time doing it, which is evident throughout. It’s important to see the lighter side of Batman once in a while, and remember that good and interesting stories can be told through him without all the brooding doom and gloom. If only these issues did not try to simultaneously introduce a kid bursting at the seams with doom and gloom, I think they’d be far more successful as a run. Perhaps even Jason would have been more successful as a character, too, if his retooling had been handled with a little more depth and care. We’ll never know, and now the poor guy is the poster boy for DC’s teenage angst. His first misguided steps down that road began here, all the way back in 1987.

episode 017: dark knight discourse

in this episode joey and alec take a quick look at punk rock jesus #1 by sean murphy before diving into a long conversation about christopher nolan's 'the dark knight rises' film as well as his whole take on the batman franchise and our history with it (and there are spoilers if you are sensitive to that kind of thing).

music by hans zimmer

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