Thoughts on Batman: No Man's Land, Vol. 1

I'm on a Batman kick these days, so I've decided to take a look at some of the Bat-Books on my shelf and share some thoughts. Rather than a straight up review, I'm going to pick the areas I find most of interest and focus on those. Up first is a new book I just picked up, Batman: No Man's Land, Vol. 1.

Welcome to the '90s.

The Premise:

During the '90s there was a yearly tradition of large scale crossovers among the Bat-Books, usually centering around some kind of disaster that befell Gotham City, each escalating in scope and significance. You had the destruction of Arkham Asylum and the resulting wave of murder and mayhem caused by the freed inmates (Knightfall), a deadly plague (Contagion), and an earthquake that quite literally shook the city to its core (Cataclysm). After the city was entirely destroyed in the quake, the US government finally caught on to the fact that a LOT of really bad stuff was happening to Gotham in a very short period of time, and had no sign of abating. Given that Gotham has never been known as a particularly pleasant place to begin with, and was much more notorious for being the home of scores of lunatics and corruption, the American government made the almost unheard of decision to just abandon ship. No Fema, no national guard, nothing. Rather than attempt to rebuild, the US declared Gotham a literal No Man's Land within it's borders. All citizens were ordered to evacuate, power was shut off, mines were placed in Gotham River, bridges were blown, and a 'no one in, no one out' policy was enacted.

Much like one would expect out of Gotham city, the evacuation procedure was less than stellar. The poor, the mentally incapable, those who could not care for themselves were left behind - along with criminals, and a few stubborn stalwarts. Gotham became a lawless feudal system where batteries and canned food were more important than money, and street gangs waged war and divided territory, marking buildings with spray tags. This was the world of No Man's Land, an epic year long story that stripped Gotham to its most basic, bloody, and brutal instincts. Like most Batman stories, Bruce's arc and the arc of the city itself run parallel. Both need to rebuild themselves after they have been broken down to their most uncivilized places. Bruce has returned from three months away licking his wounds, after failing to convince the government that Gotham was worth saving. In that time the city has fallen into this barbaric state, fueled by the belief that Batman has abandoned them. Jim Gordon, who has stayed behind, feels so betrayed that he has come to despise the vigilante he once called friend. Bruce is ashamed of his failure, and keeps himself at arm's length from all his allies, believing he has to take responsibility alone. But the city is totally different than before, and there is a question as to whether the symbol of the Batman has any power in this new system.

World Building:

While I had read the novelization of this story before, this was my first time reading any of the actual issues. Reading now I'm most impressed with the level of world building this storyline established, especially in the first arc. Much like the Age of of Apocalypse story in the X-Men that came out earlier in the decade, this was an opportunity to take the sprawling cast of the Batman mythos and repurpose them to an entirely new situation. However, unlike AoA, this is no alternate reality - all of this is happening in the 'real' DCU, and so the repercussions are felt even harder.

A lot of thought was put into the creation of this world, and it shows. It helps to create a rich reading experience for those of us familiar with the usual dynamics of these characters, one that rewards for having followed their journeys to this point. This Gotham is an inversion of the usual status quo in many ways, but some fundamental flaws of the city have risen to the surface in the absence of containment. The brutality of Gotham is unmasked as the architecture of civilization is torn down.

In Batman: Year One a younger Jim Gordon says he would never allow his wife to take the train into Gotham, that seeing the buildings of the city from the sky almost convinces you that Gotham is a civilized place. At the same time, Bruce, flying in, laments seeing a sanitized Gotham by plane and wishes he was in the thick of it by train. There is no plain or train in the No Man's Land - only feet firmly on the ground. NML takes this idea of Gotham's relationship to architecture to its furthest point, asking what is the true heart of Gotham when the infrastructure of our society is ripped away? What happens when the people of Gotham are forced to stand on their own?

It's not a pretty answer. Masked killers still rule the streets, they just do it openly now. Gotham is divided into separate territories, each controlled by a different gang or protected by a vigilante. This neighborhood system is a life or death high stakes version of our real world 'good' or 'bad' areas, amped to the extreme. Here Gotham is a war zone, and in a way this is a look at what parts of modern day Africa or the Middle East would be like with brightly colored serial killers running the show instead of warlords and hatemongers. A map shows where main event players like Zsasz, Black Mask, and Croc have staked territory and rule with a combination of fear and power. Even Gordon and the remaining police have changed - known as the 'Blue Boys' they are run as a combination street gang, urban army, and police force. Gordon is pushed to the limit, forced to make decisions that Batman would never dare to make. There is a very real sense that Bruce, Gordon, and the other heroes are being tested for having faith in Gotham all these years. They can't abandon the city for fear that they'll have been proven wrong after all these years and so they sink with it, hoping that eventually they'll rebuild it by sheer force of will, before they are also crushed like Gotham by the quake. Was Gotham a modern day Sodom, and the quake a divine intervention, a latter day flood? Are Batman and Gordon meant to bring about the next generation, or are they just willfully in denial about Gotham's true nature?

The very rules of society are changed in a world of no electricity, and so the methods of Batman's fight have to change as well. How does one become scarier than the world around you when the world around is a living hell? This is the question Batman struggles with, and he starts far behind the 8 ball. In the three months he took to prepare himself, the spirit of the people has become entirely subjugated. Not even the appearance of Superman, the most hopeful and savior like man in the entire DCU, can inspire them to want to lift off their shackles. There is only survival. To succeed at winning his city back, Batman will have to learn how to unite and inspire at a time when he is cutting himself off from and chasing people away. It is a total paradigm shift in tone that he'll need to make and at the end of volume 1, there is no conclusive idea that Bruce will be able to make the internal changes to become a leader of his people, rather than simply a protector. Maybe Gordon will be that man, instead.

Structurally, every area is marked by tags, and in a world of no technology spray paint becomes the only means of determining boundaries. Even Batman is forced to start using spray paint to spread his symbol. No one goes out at night, since there is no light and batteries are scarce, so almost all the stories take place during the day. This is a basic, but FUNDAMENTAL difference to pretty much every Batman story, ever, and gives a decidedly eery feel. Batman is totally out of his comfort zone. He can't race over rooftops because half the buildings are in ruin. He has to patrol during the day. For the first time Batman wants to be seen, and there is no method of distribution of his image. It's a different world.

Almost the entire cast is represented in the story, with the very conscious exception of Robin and Nightwing, who have been purposely pushed away by Bruce. For the most part the characters are used very effectively and in clever ways. Two Face runs an underground court where he acts as judge, jury, and executioner - playing on his past as DA Harvey Dent and his warped obsession with justice. The Penguin prospers, running an underground pipeline of smuggled goods and controlling the supply. Black Mask finally feels free to show his scarred face, just like the city has become 'unmasked,' and leads a cult like gang he mutilates to look like him. Characters are used to solve infrastructure problems in the story.

And my absolute favorite thing is Batman using Lockup and KGBeast to run a prison, because this is exactly what Lockup has always wanted to do. He's stoked about it, it is literally his MO as a criminal, and so Batman utilizes him. It's a small but GREAT little moment that shows how well the creators thought out where these characters would be in this world.

Bob Gale:

I have very little familiarity with Bob Gale outside of this book, and I have to say I was really impressed with his work. While the overall story and high concept of the crossover is a wonderfully nuanced idea, the individual issues range from good to mediocre. Gale's work is consistently the most attuned to the over-arcing plot, balances the character beats and world building well, and genuinely feel like they are telling a long form story rather than 'just an issue of Batman.' Good stuff.

Batman is a Dick

There was a period of time when Batman wasn't portrayed as a complex, troubled, and driven man with no time for excess social niceties, but just as a straight up dick. I'm not sure if NML is at the apex of this period, but it is DEFINITELY in full swing here and more than a little off-putting, especially after spending so much time with the more well adjusted Batman of today. It's no wonder Gordon is pissed at him all the time - dude doesn't even stop by to say hello this entire volume. I forgot just how unlikeable Batman can be when his humanity is pushed to the background - and this is the key reason that Bruce Wayne should always be a major part of the equation. It's no coincidence that Bruce is barely to be found in NML, only the cape and cowl, and as such the supporting characters become the characters I want to spend more time with. This dickery made the character almost toxic by the early 2000s, when it became an actual plot point in the books leading to 52 and Grant Morrison's revitalization of the franchise.

Azrael

Azrael is a character I've never had any affinity for whatsoever. Specifically created to be a representation of '90s excess and a failed Batman replacement, he then became Denny O'Neil's pet project and the star of a 100 issue series I steadfastly avoided. Given all that I was surprised to find that I enjoyed his parts in NML. He seems a very different character at this point in his journey (about midway through his series) that the bland hyper-religious "Batman meets Punisher" killing machine he is in Knightquest. Instead I found a man who constantly feels the need to prove himself, to do better to overcome the failures of his past both in his mind and the minds of others. He has a certain self-deprecating charm, a dry humor, and level of fallibility that actually makes him a slightly more relatable protagonist than Batman at times.
Those are words I never thought I'd say, by the way.

So Azrael was a pleasant surprise, and while I'm not sure how essential his story will be to the main arc, in the absence of Robin and Nightwing it's nice to have another less dickish perspective on the ground.

Batman's Worst Plan Ever

It's common knowledge that Batman is the World's Greatest Detective, and the foremost strategist of the Super Hero community. Superman may be known as the Big Blue Boy Scout, but if we're going to start handing out out actual merit badges, then I'm giving them all to Bruce, not Clark. Superman gets stuff done because he's pretty much invulnerable and can fly. Batman is just straight up PREPARED.

He keeps Shark Repellent in the Bat-copter, just in case.

He knows seven ways to disarm you from this position - three with minimal contact, three are lethal, and one just hurts - and that's true for every position.

He made secret strategies to take out all of his teammates in the Justice League as a weekend hobby, and they worked. Like a charm.

Point is, dude's got always got a plan. And chances are it's a good one.

That's why it's pretty amazing to me that I recently came across Batman's WORST PLAN EVER.

It all happens in Batman Annual #16, part of the "Eclipso: The Darkness Within Event."

In it, the Joker discovers that powerful black diamonds which grant evil revenge powers are out and about in Gotham and decides, spoiler here, he wants one.

On a side note, he learns about the diamonds because a cop gets plastered and starts talking these babies up to anyone in the bar who will listen. This makes me think he was a recent transfer to the department, because as far as I know 'don't get drunk and talk about the crazy super weapons in storage while in a Gotham dive bar' has got to be the FIRST power point presentation new GCPD officers get - right after sexual harassment training and 'shoot the clown on sight.'

Anyway, Joker gets his hand on these things. The way they work is that it has to be at night, you have to be holding it, and you have to think about how much you hate someone specific. Once activated they manifest in one of two randomly selected settings: either a giant demon creature appears to track down and murder the person you were thinking of, or your body gets totally possessed by Eclipso - the original spirit of God's wrath, who then went evil. Batman spends most of the issue telling himself, Gordon, and us that anyone having these is a terribly bad thing, and Joker especially so.

So Joker gets a diamond, thinks of (spoiler again) Batman and gets possessed by Eclipso, turning into a roided up demon freak. Since his sunlight flashlight is broken, and instead of trying anything else, Bats immediately uses the cursed revenge diamond on himself and ALSO gets possessed. This then leads into a quarter of an issue where Batman's possessed body fights to the death with Joker's possessed body while both versions of Eclipso talk to to each other about how stupid this fight is since they are effectively the same person. It turns out, in a loophole to this point unmentioned, that Eclipso can't stop attacking until the target is dead. They are, of course, evenly matched. So even though logic dictates they team up to wreak havoc on all the innocent people in Gotham, they are contractually bound to have a giant endless slugfest with each other.

Clearly an effective use of Evil's time and resources.

This lasts until sunrise when Eclipso is excised by the sun, and Batman takes advantage of the Joker's momentary confusion to knock him out. Then he says, verbatim, to no one in particular: "My plan worked. We must've fought until dawn - when the power of the sun drove out Eclipso!"

Really, Bruce?

Your plan was to let yourself be completely subsumed by a malevolent godlike evil, assume that evil spirit would be contractually obligated to fight itself, hope for the best that you didn't die, you didn't kill the Joker, that no innocent bystanders were straight up murdered in the crossfire, that no major property damage would ensue in a battle all over the city, that both of you would be evenly matched until dawn, and that you could definitely take out THE JOKER IN ONE PUNCH once 'the power of the sun drove out Eclipso.'

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you were just wingin' this one, buddy.

But good "no really, I planned it all along" speech at the end. Very convincing.

Worst Plan Ever.

Why Scott Snyder's Batman #5 is the Scariest Comic of 2012

I’m going to talk in detail about this month’s issue of Batman, and about Scott Snyder’s ongoing run on the title, so before reading this you may want to catch up on Batman #1-5 to stay spoiler-free. Scratch that, you’ll definitely want to. Go ahead, the internet’s not going anywhere. Come borrow my copies if you like.

Okay, ready?

Scott Snyder1 has been absolutely killing the execution on Batman since taking over the title with DC’s “New 52” relaunch back in September. Without messing around with the uber-prepared, hypercompetent philanthropist billionaire ninja vigilante we all know and love, Snyder has made Batman’s world feel new and exciting- and increasingly spooky- by filling his continuing story arc with clever gizmos, Wayne family history, and details about the infrastructure of Gotham City that are as fun as they are frightening. I’m not kidding; Snyder is filling a superhero comic with architecture and city planning and it is riveting2. Most importantly, he’s doing the part of the job that must be the most difficult when writing Batman, which is challenging him. Batman, let’s remember, has been uppercutting crime and outsmarting his opponents since 19393. He has also beat up Superman a few times. Batman #1 opens with Bruce plowing through half a dozen of his most dangerous enemies while locked in Arkham Asylum with them, a feat that took gamers nationwide multiple sleepless weekends to accomplish and which takes Scott Snyder’s Batman a total of seven pages in the very first issue of his new comic book.

So how do you challenge this guy?

Snyder’s done it by introducing the Court of Owls, a secret society of that Bruce has long dismissed as a local legend, a nursery rhyme used to scare Gothamite children when the homicidal clown and the burlap guy with the fear gas aren’t scary enough. It’s starting to look like the Court of Owls is real and has been in Gotham for decades, influencing the Waynes and other families, building secret lairs into the architecture of skyscrapers and secretly dispatching enemies with an unkillable assassin called the Talon. The evidence is piling up too high for Bruce to ignore, no matter how much he wants to. Towards the end of Batman #4, he goes into the sewers of Gotham City, looking for the Court.

How's that working out for you, Bruce?

Oh. Oh, God. Not so well, then.

That’s not the scariest thing about Batman #5, though. Neither is the immense maze underneath Gotham where the Court traps Bruce for more than a week. Nor are the hallucinations where Bruce’s hands turn into talons beneath his gloves and owls crawl out of the mouths of his dead parents. Nor is the room lined with “Before” and “After” photos of other victims who aged and lost their minds while trapped in the maze. Nor is the way the artwork turns sideways and then upside down as the story progresses, so that you, the reader, start to feel disoriented and crazed. These are all scary, but they’re not the clincher.

The scariest thing is that Batman panics.

He moves blindly through the Court’s maze, keeping to the shadows out of instinct but otherwise unable to get his bearings. We don’t see him doing any detective work to find his way out, or trying elementary maze stuff like always keeping to the left. Granted, we first see Bruce in the maze after he’s been there a week, which means he’s probably tried all that and given up. His thoughts are all over the place; at one point he’s hiding from the Court and later he tells himself he’s chasing after them, but this is all vague and unfocused, something he tells himself to keep himself moving. The Court guides him through the maze by switching lights on and off, illuminating some rooms and herding him out of others. He uppercuts cameras and wooden owl figureheads, which helps no one. He stumbles across clues, like an entire Gotham City in miniature with the names of the Gordons and the Cobblepots chiseled on the walls, and a room full of coffins that may hold the bodies of generations of Talons, but he does a really un-Batman thing here and tries not to think about the clues that could help him solve the case. His inner mantra is him saying "Not listening" over and over and he's screaming it out loud when the Talon gets the drop on him. There's a great page-by-page analysis of Bruce's breakdown here.

For purposes of comparison, let me point out that Batman #2 opened with Bruce Wayne, in his civilian persona, being thrown through one of the windows of Wayne Tower, with three throwing knives sticking out of him and the Talon diving after him Point Break style to finish the job. Bruce not only survived this encounter, he kept his head enough to continue narrating fun facts about Wayne Tower and its relationship to Gotham’s tourism industry while catching hold of a gargoyle and watching the Talon plunge to his apparent death.

Dude is hard to rattle.

Going back further in Batman’s history4, let me point out that in Grant Morrison’s run alone Bruce has been memory wiped, buried alive, kidnapped by a space dictator who was also a god of cosmic evil, memory wiped again and sent back in time to fight cavemen and pirates with a Lovecraftian leech monster chasing him across multiple eras. Never, during any of that, did he panic or give up.

If anything gives Batman an edge over the rest of the DC Universe and makes people buy “What Would Batman Do?” T-shirts, it’s not that he’s a master martial artist (paging Black Canary and Bronze Tiger) or a billionaire with an ever-growing arsenal of crimefighting gadgets (hi, Green Arrow), or even that he’s a detective (yo, Elongated Man). Batman’s real superpower is that he’s always prepared, he always has a plan, and he is never, ever in over his head. The minute Batman stops outthinking his opponents, he ceases to be Batman and becomes a self-financed Delta Force commando with a pointy bucket on his head.

Which is why it’s so scary to see him lose it down there, in the maze. It’s like when you were a child and for the very first time you saw your dad get lost and upset on a family car trip and all your illusions of security were shattered as you realized this towering man did not have all the answers. That’s a life-changing kind of fear that Snyder has tapped into, and even Batman's triumphant return next month won't be able to chase it away.

Right, helicopter thugs?

Well, maybe it will.

1 Penciller Greg Capullo and inker Jonathan Glapion have also been killing it, drawing a sprawling, built-up Gotham city with plenty of room for creepy things to hide in it and a Batman who looks like a 21st century ninja gladiator and who has this wonderfully unnerving little smile right before he does something like ramp jump a motorcycle into a helicopter. I’m not going to write as much about their contributions here since I can discuss story far better than I can discuss art. Assume the art is uniformly top-shelf.


2 Here’s an example. In Batman #3, Bruce goes down to the train tunnels beneath Wayne Tower to shake down toughs for information. He tells us that there are five separate train tunnels that converge beneath the tower, and that each one is controlled by a separate gang. He narrates all this while fighting a Ukranian gang with iron masks soldered onto their jaws, and then defeats them all by magnetizing a passing train, which then drags the entire gang down the tunnel by their masks. This all happens in four pages and is relentlessly awesome.


3 Even though DC officially restarted continuity with the “New 52” relaunch back in September, I’m going to ignore that and talk about Batman as a character with continuous history. It’s pretty easy to do with this title, which keeps most of the elements of Batman’s recent history from the last few years of comics, including his extended family of Robins and ex-Robins, one of whom is his son, Damian, whom Bruce fathered with Talia al Ghul and who was raised by an elite order of international assassins. I would never in a million years want to lose that part of Batman’s family tree and I’m glad DC didn’t either.


4 Again, ignoring that all this happened before the continuity reset. Trust me, if the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh survived Crisis on Infinite Earths, stuff we like from before The New 52 will survive The New 52. It is going to be okay.