The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 352: Batman - Legends of the Dark Knight #5, March 1990

Oh. That was a good story. A beautiful mesh of the detective and the mystic, a classic Bat-baddie, and Bruce Wayne shooting down a guy about to tell a nasty joke about Native Americans.

My hands have been very sore all night for some reason, so I can't really type much right now. "Shaman" was completely worth the read. Highly recommended.

Onward! (Ouch!)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 351: Batman - Legends of the Dark Knight #4, February 1990

If the Christopher Nolan films suffered one major absence from the Bat-Mythos, it was the lack of spiritual significance of Bruce Wayne's roll as Batman. Though not always evident in the comics, there have been writers who have toyed with the idea that it wasn't just the death of Thomas and Martha that spurred Bruce to become what he does, but a more mystical, destiny-inflected movement of the universe. Morrison (of course) plays this up fundamentally in his run on the Bat-titles, and we see him beginning to play with this notion in the story that follows "Shaman" in Legends of the Dark Knight. And while he's probably the most blatant about this aspect of Batman, he's not the only writer to deal with it. O'Neil addresses this facet quite nicely in this issue of LOTDK, linking Bruce's eventual taking on of the Bat mantle to a healing story he is told, and required to tell, in this story. At a key moment in the tale, he puts on his cowl and relates as story that he was told when suffering from hypothermia and close to death, and though his telling is not as expert as the shaman who told it to him, it does, in the end, save the life of an old man. While Bruce, ever rational-minded, cannot explain this, the man's granddaughter counsels him to simply accept it, that there are mysteries in the universe that even his detective's mind cannot unravel.

Of course, there's some superheroic fisticuffs peppered throughout, and the big climactic fight scene is about to happen. Be here tomorrow for the conclusion!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 350: Batman - Legends of the Dark Knight #3, January 1990

Bruce Wayne's very early story continues, and his return to the Alaskan village that began the story offers a fairly savage critique of the work of anthropology - always a colonial project, in this story, it is the downfall of a ritual practice, one unwittingly funded by the aforementioned Mr. Wayne.

The Bat deploys one of my favourite aspects of his crime-fighting in this issue: his propensity for disguise. And I'm not talking about the cape and cowl, but honest to goodness disguises that look like human beings. Matches Malone is perhaps his best known alias, but the shoeshine man that gets information from Captain Gordon in this issue is just a good. We're very often reminded of Batman's ability to pose as Bruce Wayne, and forget that if he can do that and be Batman, he can be whomever he needs to, really.

I will say, at least for this story, that it's moving very slowly. There's a real crime noir feel to it, and it's progressing at the same sort of sludgy, steamy pace that those old movies do. I mean, there's definitely the action-y bits with the Batman, but those take a back seat to the investigative stuff that Bruce undertakes as Bruce. It's a bit different from the usual Batman story, but, as I mentioned before, O'Neil has a handle on this character like few before or since, so I'm trusting to his instincts. I think they'll pay off.

See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 349: Batman - Legends of the Dark Knight #2, December 1989

I'm going to admit something now that it an unpopular stance to take with regard to superheroes: I'm not really a big fan of Batman. I recognize his importance to the genre, and I recognize the importance of his various titles to the industry. I even recognize the importance of his varied transmedial appearances. But, when it comes down to it, I've just never been a big fan. Much like Marvel's Wolverine, I've always considered him to be an alright hero who gets more play than he needs.

Which is why this series has, so far, been such a lovely surprise. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I don't know Dennis O'Neil's work that well, but I'm absolutely sure of one thing: he knows Batman. The story is a great mystery, it's poking about at the more spiritual aspects of Bruce's transformation into Batman, and it's got Alfred delivering some of the sassiest Alfred lines I've heard. It's all just so good. Edward Hannigan's art is spare and restrained, certainly well in keeping with the aesthetic of DC at the end of the 1980s. It offers a vision of a world that I could absolutely see Gaiman's Sandman and Ostrander and Mandrake's Spectre inhabiting, along with their costumed brethren.

There is the troubling appellation of Native American people as "Indians" here, though it seems to fit the era that the series is chronicling. I'm excited to see where the story goes, and to have found a Batman that I actually quite enjoy.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 348: Batman - Legends of the Dark Knight #1, November 1989

Will update this tomorrow, as well as yesterday's blog. Been a very busy weekend.

Of all the Batman titles in my collection, Morrison's run on the title aside, Legends of the Dark Knight is the series of which I have the most consistent run. I'm not sure how that happened. It's an interesting title, in that it charts some of Batman's earliest adventures, before the weight of continuity and supporting case began to bog him down. He's more foot soldier than general in these stories. Anyway, I've had this first story arc kicking about for a long while now, and, thus far, the project has been quite light on the major players in the DCU. I thought it was time for a change.

I don't know much of Dennis O'Neil's work on the Batman titles, but I do know that he is linked to their incarnations through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. This tale, set at the very beginning of Bruce Wayne's crime-fighting career, captures a strangely optimistic Batman, one who hasn't been exposed to the horror's that Gotham city has in store for his future. This is young Bruce Wayne, still not quite divorcing the billionaire playboy image from the dark crusader. For the series to be called Legends of the Dark Knight links it explicitly to Miller's Dark Knight that would have preceded it by a few years, but the character we're given in this story is far from the elderly architect of Miller's seminal series.

This is Batman before he has all the answers, before he can beat all of the bad guys. This is Batman learning, and it's a fascinating story. I'll be continuing on with this story for the next five days, just to bring my bat-quotient up.

See you tomorrow.