The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1163: Detective Comics #639, December 1991

Back with a proper entry finally.

Peter Milligan and company continue an excellent run on the Bat-titles, this time crossing over between the two books to tell a weird little story about "The Idiot."

A few years back I picked up a set of books that were all writings about the Arctic and the Antarctic. The Antarctic is a very interesting case in literature, as it's a continent, a landmass, that has no native literature. Unless there's something buried deep beneath the ice, there's never been a literature-producing society there. So all we have are writings by people from outside of the area, unlike just about everywhere else on the planet. One of the writings that really took me, the author of which I can't remember at the moment, told the tale of a "Third Man" out on the ice with two explorers. It wasn't that there was actually someone there, but the isolation and desolation of the endeavour created such a synergy between the two men that it seemed as if a third person, or personality, was accompanying them on the ice. The piece is very clear that this really felt like another presence to both of them.

"The Idiot Root" appears to be relating a similar story, except that the third man is a fifth man, and the first four aren't Antarctic explorers, but four people who have suffered severe mental trauma. Unlike, perhaps, the gestalt entity of the explorers, however, the Idiot (derived from Id) wants to be real, and isn't afraid to kill to get there.

Batman has other ideas. There's a wonderful moment in today's comic wherein Batman is attacked by young followers of the Idiot and there's almost panic in the internal monologue as he tries to figure out how he, of all people, can fight children without hurting them.

I should note that this comic actually contains another comic, a Sonic the Hedgehog story as a 20-page insert attached in the middle of the comic. Strange choice of placement, given the remarkably dark nature of today's issue, but it is interesting in that I think it must be the very first Sonic comic. Sonic now is a venerable institution at Archie Comics, but this one is accompanied by an ad for the very first Sonic game, back before the nightmare of Sonic '06. That said, I didn't read it, as it wasn't the comic I had selected for today. I will note that there is another comic in there, though, and I'll read it at a later date.

More to come...