Bruce Wayne's very early story continues, and his return to the Alaskan village that began the story offers a fairly savage critique of the work of anthropology - always a colonial project, in this story, it is the downfall of a ritual practice, one unwittingly funded by the aforementioned Mr. Wayne.
The Bat deploys one of my favourite aspects of his crime-fighting in this issue: his propensity for disguise. And I'm not talking about the cape and cowl, but honest to goodness disguises that look like human beings. Matches Malone is perhaps his best known alias, but the shoeshine man that gets information from Captain Gordon in this issue is just a good. We're very often reminded of Batman's ability to pose as Bruce Wayne, and forget that if he can do that and be Batman, he can be whomever he needs to, really.
I will say, at least for this story, that it's moving very slowly. There's a real crime noir feel to it, and it's progressing at the same sort of sludgy, steamy pace that those old movies do. I mean, there's definitely the action-y bits with the Batman, but those take a back seat to the investigative stuff that Bruce undertakes as Bruce. It's a bit different from the usual Batman story, but, as I mentioned before, O'Neil has a handle on this character like few before or since, so I'm trusting to his instincts. I think they'll pay off.
See you tomorrow.
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