Aaannd we're back!
Today's comic finishes up the origin story of the Batman of Japan, and is really cool for its deployment of ideas that would be fairly commonplace in manga (if such a thing can ever be said) but seen through a North American superhero lens. Lord Death Man's car flying through the air, crashing through apartment buildings and trains, yet remaining not only intact but airborne as Batman tries to pummel his way in, was strange to see for a moment, until I realized that it's not just the setting of these comics that is different from the usual Bat-titles, but the cultural aesthetic. There's a remarkable tradition of graphic fictions around the world, each incorporating not only particular narrative qualities, but technical ones as well. If Incorporated really is aiming to be an international title on a narrative level, it must in many ways try to be one on a technical level as well. If we consider, as we should never stop considering, that the medium is the message as well, then this medium has to be reflecting, at least on some perfunctory level, the message of the culture it is attempting to trasmit/channel.
Also, just for the record, I kind of love Yanick Paquette's version of Catwoman.
Onward.
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