The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1166: Detective Comics #643, April 1992

This issue marks the last Peter Milligan script and the last Jim Aparo art on this title. Well, for the time being, anyway. A nice little story that was creepy and interesting, and eschewed the more mystical side of Gotham that Milligan's run has expressed. This is simply a short story of obsession gone awry. And, in a few ways, it's a critique of those who focus their study too much on the minutiae. Not like anyone I know, certainly.

I've enjoyed Mr. Milligan's early Batman stuff. It's an interesting read when considering he was writing Shade at the same time - the subject matter of the two runs interweaves without ever actually connecting. But it would be mad to think that Shade and the Idiot never met one another. Or that the madness that overtakes the killer in today's comic couldn't have sprung full-formed from the forehead of the American Scream. Aside from an occasional cameo, Shade steers clear of the DCU proper, so these Batman stories could be seen to fill in the ways in which Shade's adventures across the US affect Gotham City.

What was that about paying too much attention to the minutiae?

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1165: Detective Comics #640, January 1992

The Idiot and his root wind down in a fairly typical Batman style, I think. Were this a weirder comic, things wouldn't have wrapped up quite so nicely but, again, that's what Milligan is doing over in Shade. I'm curious as to whether or not The Idiot ever shows up again - the ending is left fairly open.

I really am convinced that Mr. Milligan was working out in this story what would happen if Shade gave in to the baser instincts of the body he inhabits in this particular era - that of a convicted murderer. The body does take over once or twice in the series. More that that, though, I could see this as a view of how Shade might move through bodies were he to care little about who or what he inhabits.

One more Milligan 'Tec (that's what the fans call it) tomorrow, and then on to something pretty different.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1164: Batman #473, January 1992

Basically, this story is Batman versus Shade. The Idiot is a hallucinogenic nightmare that inhabits "The Idiot Zone," which must be a neighbour of the Madness Zone that powers Shade's vest. Shade, which Mr. Milligan is writing at the same time he's writing this. Now, I can't imagine Shade eating the minds of children to gain a foothold in reality, but it wouldn't be the weirdest thing he's done. And he usually finds a way to put it right in the end.

How will Batman put things right? Find out tomorrow.

More to come...

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...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1162: Batman #472, December 1991

Same story as yesterday, I'm afraid. Busy day with the 'rents and work. But I'm digging this new story. The Queen of Hearts is great, as is The Idiot.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1161: Detective Comics #638, November 1991

So, my parents are here and it's been busy. I'll try to get back to proper blogs when they've left.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1153: Detective Comics #633, August 1991

We come to a break in Mr. Milligan's Bat-works now, with a cool little story that, unlike the previous ones, actually involves someone with superpowers. The mistaken identity trope is played out in a very novel way in this tale. I've no idea if the pro/antagonist of this piece has any other appearances, or if he was created just for this story, but it was a neat device.

I'm still not sold on Batman. I don't know what it is, but he's just too goddamn grim, I think. Like, lighten up, just a bit, every now and again. Isn't that why there is a Robin? So that there's a little light in the Dark Knight's world? But we see that so rarely, I think. Perhaps it's just that I haven't been reading sustained runs of the title. And these are guest-written stories as well, meaning that they're not likely to have any of the character development stuff that the regular creative team would probably handle.

I was mentioning how little interest I have in Batman to a local comic shop owner the other day, and noting how happy I was to find Milligan's stuff, as it's a bit different from the usual Bat stuff. He looked at me and said that with 80 years to choose from, there's bound to be something to enjoy in there. Which makes so much sense.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1152: Detective Comics #632, July 1991

There's a wonderful twist in today's comic that very nicely deals with an aspect of the generational trauma of the Holocaust in a way that I've not seen done in comics, though I'm sure it has. The trauma I'm speaking of is the trauma of the collaborator. While there might be those who say that this trauma is deserved, it's difficult to say unless one is in a particular situation whether or not one would break. The character in this story is revealed to have betrayed a resistance group to the Nazis under torture, and has tortured himself for 50 years since.

In our present time, we're seeing a lot of men revealing, or having revealed, damning behaviours for which they are, rightly, being called to account for. The conversation I'm not hearing, and maybe it needs to not happen for a little while, is how do these men, should they truly want to, recuperate their lives and reputations? How do they make amends? Today's comic raises a similar question: how long should someone punish themselves, or be punished, and what constitutes the kind of restitution that is required?

I'm sure I could have articulated that more clearly, but it's late and I'm tired. One more Peter Milligan Detective tomorrow.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1151: Detective Comics #631, July 1991

It's cool to see the legend of the Golem cropping up in comics. The link between superheroes and the Golem is made most explicit in Michael Chabon's The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but I think it's an idea that's been around much longer than that. Let's not forget that Superman was created by two young Jewish men reacting to what they saw happening in Europe. There's always been a lot of the created protector to the Man of Steel, and thus to all his children.

Peter Milligan is drawing on some very cool ideas in his Bat-tales. He wrote three issues of Batman not long before this Detective stuff, and he's so far delved into Illuminati-style shenanigans featuring the Founding Fathers, Irish angry ghost stories, and now Jewish mysticism. Which, honestly, is totally why I decided to track down some of his work outside of Shade. I know, from Shade, that Milligan's got a weird mind. I'm just not so sure why it's taken me this long to start reading his stuff.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1150: Detective Comics #630, June 1991

Today's issue has Batman tracking down another vigilante who is wanted by the FBI. This vigilante, known as Stiletto, actually only preys on bad people, but the fact that he pushed past Batman's rule of no killing puts him in the Dark Knight's sights.

There's some interesting moments where Batman is reviewing information about Stiletto and almost, almost feels sympathetic to his cause. But then the killing part comes up, and all bets are off.

So, a good tale with at least on gruesome murder (a wheelchair-bound crook gets super-glued upside down to a ceiling - truly chilling visuals), and Batman gets to confront what he might have, or may yet, become.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1149: Detective Comics #629, May 1991

I'm in the process of rediscovering a couple of things. The first is Batman, about whom I've been somewhat disparaging over the last decade or so. I have similar feelings about Batman as those I have about Wolverine - there's just too much. Back when I had my comic store, I think there were about 10 monthly Bat-titles being published. At some point you hit a saturation point, I think. We have, as consumers, to be able to take in and assimilate information into our lives, but a constant stream of new information doesn't allow this process to occur. Even with stories, we need this. We need to be able to mull a story over in our heads before having it supplanted by a new one. I have found this to be exceedingly hard with Batman. I've only ever collected the title while Grant Morrison was running it, at a point when there weren't actually that many Bat-titles, and even then it was occasionally difficult to keep up.

The other rediscovery is of writer Peter Milligan. I was first exposed to his work in his short and wonderful follow-up to Morrison's Animal Man, and then I discovered the sheer brilliance that is his revamp of Shade, The Changing Man. I've never been disappointed by Milligan's work, though it hasn't captured me the same way many other writers have. I'm working to remedy that, and I thought I'd start with his Detective Comics run. As part of the "British Invasion" of the late 80s, he brings a very different narrative aesthetic to the Dark Knight. As with Gaiman, Moore, Morrison, Ennis, Ellis, Jenkins, all those guys, I'm fascinated by the reworking of the intrinsically-American myth by a literary mythic tradition that is vastly older. Today's story, "The Hungry Grass!" could easily have been a Hellboy story, interweaving Irish folk tales into the gritty urban fabric of Gotham City. He does five more issues in this run, and then bounces around the Bat-titles for a bit. I'm going to do my best to find his early stuff, and then start exploring later works and, perhaps, some of his early British output. Always exciting to start researching a new writer.

More to come...