Do note the entry change - not even going to pretend to be weekly at the moment!
I've been on a bit of a Starlin kick of late. I'm getting more and more curious about the strange cosmic stories that were told in the later 70s by contemporaries of Steve Gerber, and Jim Starlin is one. The stuff he's doing in Epic Illustrated that I'm reading at the moment is really neat, but I'd like to see it in a more superhero-focussed universe. His Warlock is apparently the way to go.
This Batman story is not one of his more cosmic ones. Or at all cosmic, really. In fact, this story is so cemented in the real world that Ronald Reagan himself makes a cameo. And not one of those cheesy, seen-from-the-shadows cameos, but a full on interaction with Batman. Which is really pretty great and pretty silly all at the same time. Which, really, is a great description of superheroes, Batman included, in general.
Much is made in the introduction of this perhaps being the very first "story arc" in comics. I'm not sure I buy the rationale - mainly it revolves around editor Denny O'Neill's decision to change the front cover logo for the four months that this story ran. Though on second thought, perhaps I'm underestimating the role that cover dress plays in the marketing, and in the selecting, of comics. It's one of the sad truths of the hobby that we often will judge a book literally by its cover.
Regardless, the story inside is pretty good. It's Batman and Robin at a time when they were poised very dangerously between the blue and grey clad detective of the 70s and the trauma-oozing avenger of the late 80s. It looks beautiful! I'm beginning to see why people say Jim Aparo is one of the great Bat-artists. He makes their movements look believable and superheroic all at the same time. That's a pretty awesome feat. It's a bit politically conservative for my tastes, but I'm coming to realize that Batman in the 70s and 80s really was a conservative hero. I wonder if that's why I've never really taken to him, until he was given over to the control of a mad Scotsman?
One thing that did strike me about this story is the end. So, SPOILER ALERT!!!
Batman leaves the KGBeast sealed in an abandoned tunnel deep beneath the subways and sewers of Gotham. And then tells the law that they won't have to worry about him anymore. He basically leaves the Beast to die of starvation. Which is pretty grim, even for Batman. I looked into it, and he's said to have actually told the police where to find the guy before he died, but just reading this collection, Batman's very, very dark at the end. Reminds me of the protrayal of Oliver Queen in the Arrow TV show. In which the Beast, in his civilian iteration, is a friend of the main character.
Onward!
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