The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 518: Batman, Inc. #5, May 2011

A few weeks back I reviewed MangaMan as part of my weekly graphic novels. There's a fairly vibrant conversation to be had about the cross-pollination of North American comics and manga. But every now and again a writer comes along who tries to perform a similar feat with comics of a different cultural background. Because they're written in English, and, quite often, by the same group of people, British comics can often seem very similar to their North American counterparts. But they're not. I haven't quite been able to put my finger on the exact differences, but they're there. Morrison has done this previously in the first volume of The Invisibles, and the Edginton/Adlard written The Establishment does something similar. With the introduction of The Hood, a British super secret agent, Batman, Inc. takes on something of a (not-so) United Kingdom cast.

There's a couple of really great moments in this comic. First, Morrison and company poke at the still-festering wound of the Falkland Islands war in the early 80s. There was certainly something very "last gasp-y" about this "war," the final throes of a prime minister who wanted to return to the British Empire. The more I think about it, the more Trump-y Thatcher's Britain seems. The other good bit is when Batwoman meets Bruce for the first time, having only had the pleasure of meeting Dick and Damian earlier. She treats him like a revered general, calls him "Sir." It's a nice touch. Kate Kane's cleaving to the military side of life is a fantastic part of her character. That she can believe in it so whole-heartedly and disagree with it fundamentally all at the same time speaks to the facility of the creators involved in her stories. I really ought to pick those up again...

Batwoman does offer us a great focal moment in this comic as well when she ponders aloud "How many twists and turns can one case take?" - Morrison is plying something common in his writing here by not giving us every single piece of story and evidence - we have to trust that there are detectives who are far more intelligent than we, or at least far better at what they do, and we're simply along for the exciting bits of the ride.

And what a ride. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 517: Batman, Inc. #4, April 2011

I had forgotten what a large role Batwoman plays in the Batman, Inc. story. And when I refer to it that way, it's because I've come to realize that all of Batman, Inc., both volumes, are one large story, far more explicitly than the previous tales in Morrison's Bat-narrative. That said, this globe-spanning tale is weaving in aspects of every single facet of Morrison's run, which should surprise no one that's familiar with his writing.

We get a bit more Chris Burnham in this issue, an artist whose style is just enough Quitely and just enough himself to make him fantastic. There's something cleanly and brashly rugged about his depictions of these characters, and his attention to making Batwoman look like the J.H. Williams III version is quite lovely.

So we have a strange man on an island in the South Atlantic (probably a Falkland), who may be an unrepentant Nazi war criminal, may be the first Batwoman's dad, and who seems to be in the process of springing a death trap that encircles the globe. Here's the thing about Batman, Inc.: you have to pay attention. Much like the spiral that Bruce and company are plummeting into (a reference that'll make sense in about a week!), there's a simultaneous expansion and contraction of the story that makes things occasionally challenging to follow. Which is a good thing; being challenged by our entertainment media is not something that happens very often. We should cherish it when it does.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 516: Batman, Inc. #3, March 2011

Read this today.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 516: Batman, Inc. #2, February 2011

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.