Sunday Splash Page #154

 

No Mixed Emotions Here," in Detective Comics Annual #5, by Alan Grant and John Wagner (writers), Tom Mandrake (penciler/inker), Jan Duursema and Rick Magyar (inkers), Adrienne Roy (colorist), Bill Oakley (letterer)

The only Detective Comics Annual I own, and Norm Breyfogle has nothing to do with it. Bizarre, I know. I feel as though I got this in one of those 5 packs on random comics you could get a grocery stores, and I liked it enough I actually held on to it.

This is, of all things, an Eclipso:The Darkness Within tie-in. I have no idea what that means, other than Eclipso is involved. And I don't know how much it relates to whatever the larger story was about, as Wagner and Grant seem to just try and fit the Eclipso stuff into a more general Batman story. Which is probably the way to go with these things. Over Marvel's last 15+ years of Big Event crap, the stuff I've liked the best is the titles that can use the Event to push forward what they were already doing.

In this case, Scarface is running a nightclub, where all the tables are bugged, so he can pick up intel on other mobsters' schemes. One of them mentions a $20 million heist the Joker pulled, but the money's never been found. So Scarface decides to bust the Joker out and get the location of the money. This is obviously a terrible idea, but he's made from a block of wood, so what do you expect?

But they are an interesting pair, the sort of old-school gangster in a suit, and the nutbag clown. The Joker's unimpressed with all Scarface's posturing and threats, just screwing around constantly. And Scarface refuses to play along with the Joker's antics, resorting the having his men punch the clown.

Batman stops a theft of a solid gold replica Ancient Egyptian bust, which had three black diamonds on his head. Commissioner Gordon ends up holding the diamonds, which feed on anger and hate. And Gordon's kind of pissed about the Joker being on the loose. 

Did I forget to mention it's the anniversary of Barbara being shot by the Joker? Funny how that works out. Barbara shows up in one panel, talking on the phone with her dad, telling him she's done her best to put it behind her, and he should too.

All of which leads to Batman, once again, protecting the Joker's life. Sigh. At least this time, it involves fighting a giant monster with the might of solar-powered toy lightsabers. You probably won't find another comic where Batman defeats a creature of shadows and hate by stabbing it through the heart with a knockoff lightsaber.

Considering the monster somehow doesn't kill anyone, I'm not sure Grant and Wagner made sure Mandrake was on the same page about that. We see one cop impaled on the creature's claw, and another basically eviscerated. Another falls out of a cop car the monster's holding above its head, so 20+ foot drop to the pavement. Then again, the one cop does says it's a miracle no one had died.

Sunday Splash Page #153

 

"You Have No Idea, Tim," in Detective Comics #621, by Alan Grant (writer), Norm Breyfogle (penciler), Steve Mitchell (inker), Adrienne Roy (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)

As you probably guessed from last week's hint, most of the Detective Comics issues I have are from Norm Breyfogle's run with Alan Grant on the book. At least the parts that are collected in the two Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle hardcovers DC put out a few years back.

Breyfogle and Grant (and John Wagner as co-writer), started at issue #583, and went to issue #594. There's a gap, and then starting with issue #601 and running until the issue shown above, it's the Grant and Breyfogle show.

The stories are a nice mix of done-in-ones, and two to four-part stories, kept within the title, rather than jumping across the various Bat-books. So there might an issue about a First Nations warrior coming to Gotham to retrieve items of cultural significance (and mete out a little justice) from some white guy that paid to have them stolen. Or Catman's pet tiger escapes and Batman ends up tangling with them while Catwoman looks on. 

There's an element of supernatural/psychological threat or horror to the stories. Whether it's Cornelius Stirk terrifying his captives because he needs the chemicals their brains produce in response to fear to keep himself sane, or a desperate man creating a monster from his own anger, fear and hate to protect him from mobsters demanding protecting money. The original Clayface gathers the third and fourth versions to make himself the "ultimate" Clayface, and while he's at it, dopes Batman up and sends him into a hallucinatory nightmare.

I'm not sure what Grant's trying to say about Batman with all that. His version is kind of all over the map. At times cracking one-liners and quips while knocking people out, other times snarling and gritting his teeth like he's severely constipated. His Batman is self-aware enough to recognize when he's out of his depth, and capable of being scared. He's also ridiculous enough that, when Vicki vale breaks things off with Bruce, Bats swings over the city thinking about how Batman needs no soft kiss on the cheek, and "Vicki? Who's that?"

Sure, Batsy.

Either way, it gives Breyfogle a chance to really expand his boundaries as the series goes on. Get a little more creative with some of the page layouts when it's the mind that's under attack. Make Batman appear as more of a looming dark shadow than a person. He seems especially fond of putting Batman's face and limbs either in shadow or hidden under the cape, but having the emblem on his chest clearly visible. I guess to emphasize the idea of Batman as a symbol rather than a person. He can still humanize Batman when he needs to, soften his lines when Batman wants to avoid frightening a child, or is feeling a little cocky. But a lot of the time, Batman looks more like something more than human.

Anarky's probably the biggest character actually created during this run, and the legion of homeless guys he'd later employ in the Grant/Breyfogle mini-series (see Sunday Splash Page #25) are recurring characters throughout. Other than that, I don't know if Stirk got much traction. Kadaver fucked around with the Penguin (shown repeatedly committing actual crimes, instead of pretending to be a nightclub owner or politcian), which didn't end well. Corrosive Man was neutralized (neutralimed?) I guess Ratcatcher pops up in crowd scenes.

People who are allowed to fall through the crack in society are something Grant at least touches on regularly during the run. That and people who suffered hardship or loss like Batman, but decided to be a bit more lethal in how they handled it (see Ratcatcher and also the aforementioned guy who summoned a demon from his mind). Batman tells Tim Drake (who starts showing up right near the end of this stretch, but won't become Robin until Grant and Breyfogle switch over to Batman), to accept the anger, because one day it'll be his friend. I'm not sure that's a great message, but I guess the idea is it's your friend, not your master. Bats tells Stirk something similar, that he lets his fear have its say, then he chooses to listen to it or not.

Overall, it's a solid run. Fun stories that aren't trying to redefine the character for all time (futile as that would be), where Batman is allowed to be caught off-guard, overwhelmed, or just plain out-smarted (temporarily).

Sunday Splash Page #72

"Alas, Poor Mustache Pete," in Batman #475, by Alan Grant (writer), Norm Breyfogle (artist), Adrienne Roy (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)

I own about a half-dozen issues of Batman. One is issue #500, when Jean-Paul Valley builds his own Bat-suit (you know the one) and takes down Bane. Everything else is in the Legends of the Dark Knight - Norm Breyfogle collection, except for this issue. Which is also drawn by Norm Breyfogle. 

This will be a bit of a recurring pattern over the next six weeks, just telling you now. I don't give much of a damn about Batman, but the late Norm Breyfogle? That's another matter entirely.

For this issue, Scarface gets shot up by a new gang taking over his territory, and the Ventriloquist declares himself retired. That lasts less than one issue, so it's surprising Batman actually took the Ventriloquist at his word when he told him that.

The more relevant thing in this issue is it's the first comic I recall seeing Renee Montoya, who would go on to be one of Gotham's more prominent cops over the next 15 years, then take over as the Question. She's bringing Gordon some files when Bats comes to visit and pulls a gun on him. Breyfogle draws Bats as visibly human from the six-pack down, but all cape and strangely elongated shadows from there up. Points to Montoya for not being fazed when Batsy pulls his usual mid-conversation disappearing trick.

There's also a scene where Batman is about to swoop in to save Vicki Vale from some drug dealers, but the photographer she's with does it first. Then they kiss, while Batman swings off insisting to himself it doesn't matter. He didn't like Vicki anyway, he has The Night. Sure, Batsy, sure.

During the day, Breyfogle draws most of the buildings standing straight up and down, fairly clean. Maybe not classy, but solid, presentable. At night, he and Roy give them this look that could either be shadows, or just grime. Everything looks dingy and rundown. The buildings all seem to tower up out of these narrow panels into the sky. It's a little claustrophobic, and the buildings are drawn at angle, so they're almost reaching for something, or about to topple over. It's more menacing.

Sunday Splash Page #26

"Lost in an Alien Realm" in Anarky (vol. 2) #2, by Alan Grant (writer), Norm Breyfogle (penciler), Joe Rubinstein (inker), Noelle Giddings (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

So after the 4-issue mini-series, Anarky got his own ongoing, where he tried to change the world by exposing the corrupt framework and by encouraging others to think outside its limitations. Most of that was off-panel. In-story, he fought a creature from outside their universe alongside Kyle Rayner (after the obligatory fight), and stopped Ra's al Ghul from kicking off a world war. In other words, he ran up against other forces bent on changing the world, but only in ways that suited their interests, at the cost of many other lives.

Then the last two issues were a Day of Judgment tie-in and one where Lonnie goes to visit the Joker, who he thinks is his biological father. That goes as well as you think it would. Not sure why Grant thought that was a good way to go. Especially since he and Breyfogle had set-up the idea that there were U.S. politicians getting nervous enough at Anarky to make him a target at the end of the Ra's story, but never ended up getting to it.

Breyfogle's still excellent, of course, especially since there are no pages of Lonnie lecturing his dog on the history of human thought. Actually, I'm not sure what happened to Lonnie's dog.

Sunday Splash Page #25

"Man, This Philosophy 101 Prof is Weird", in Anarky (vol. 1) #2, by Alan Grant (writer), Norm Breyfogle (penciler), Josef Rubinstein (inker), Noelle Giddings (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

What I know about Anarky, the character, comes from this mini-series and the short-lived ongoing that followed it, which we'll look at next week. What I know about anarchy, the political system, comes from books I read about the Spanish Civil War, but that's neither here nor there.

Anarky's a 15-year old, brilliant and inspired by Batman to take changing the world into his own hands. By building a machine powered by energies stolen from Etrigan, Batman, and Darkseid. Grant takes the approach that Etrigan has no free will, and that what we think of as Darkseid is just one part of him in a particular form. Which is not a notion I had ever seen before.

Watching Anarky argue and fight with them, especially as drawn by Norm Breyfogle, is a lot of fun. It was Breyfogle being the artist that made me track this down. I know that's not the most dynamic full-page splash up there, but I love some of the layouts he use on pages with more than one panel, and he's always good at drawing fight scenes.