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Review - Batman: Detective TPB
Batman: Detective TPB
Written by Paul Dini and Royal McGraw
Art by Don Kramer & Wayne Faucher, J.H. Williams III, Joe Benitez & Victor Llamas, and Marcos Marz & Luciana Del Negro
Published by DC Comics. $14.99 USD
I was remarking recently on someone's blog that I could easily do without any more Batman stories, as there are plenty of good ones to last me the rest of my lifetime, along with all the other things I read. And that's true, but I do like a good Batman story, and I find myself keeping track of the Caped Crusader's adventures a little more than most long-lived superheroes, especially since he's a character who attracts lots of top tier talent.
Such a talent is Paul Dini, a writer of wit and versatility, who is not necessarily going to break your heart or blow you away with brilliance, but nonetheless can usually be relied upon for intelligence, good characterization and solid craft. These qualities can be found in this, the first collection of his Detective Comics stories from a year ago or so. Five of the six tales are written by Dini, plus one story by McGraw bringing back '70s villain Doctor Phosphorus. Coincidentally, Phosphorus debuted during a celebrated run drawn by the late Marshall Rogers, but was drawn by the less-talented Bob Brown. Perhaps Phosphorus is destined to feature in stories by lesser talents, because McGraw's story, while competent, is little more than a lot of dry narrative exposition of who Phosphorus is, some gruesome burns, and some action. No real detective work is done here, not that Dini's stories always feature this element, either. The art as well is somewhat lacking--Marz and Del Negro give every character a sooty countenance as if they're all victims of Phosphorus, or at least Ash Wednesday penitents. An unfortunate moment for Commissioner Gordon--investigating an explosion, he reaches for a ball of glowing ash as if unaware of the distinct possibility it could burn him.
Dini begins his run with the only pedigree artist in the book, J.H. Williams III, who in concert with colorist Jared Fletcher and letterer John Kalisz essays sophisticated page layouts, odd angles, fun blue-line effects, and monochromatic flashbacks, as well as a showstopping, lurid red and white lair for new villain Facade, who wears a reflective mask that gives Williams the opportunity to show off his mastery of perspective. If you wanted one example of the state-of-the-art Batman story for 2K7, this would be it. It doesn't hold up much as a mystery, and Dini surprisingly given his background in the Batman Animated series, gives Batman a sadistic characterization ("I hear the soft gurgle of pleasure in the mugger's throat. I'll turn it into a scream."), but it's good work.
"E. Nigma, Consulting Detective" is the first to feature the Kramer/Faucher art team, who feature on half the stories in this volume, and their work suffers in comparison to Williams, as one would expect. The story should be a fun change of pace--Batman has newly reformed, would-be detective Riddler forced upon him to solve a murder--and it is, just not as finely tuned as it could be. Riddler is a doofus and oddly, Dini avoids or fails to exploit the comedic possibilities here in favor of the seamy, sadomasochistic details of the case. Take away the costumes and throw (or however you'd prefer to do it) some semen around and you'd have an episode of Law & Order or C.S.I.
Dini appears intent on exploring the darkness and creepiness of the Batman universe rather than the Deco-and-Expressionist-flavored but still all-ages stories in his cartoon work, and so we have a sexy but very deadly Poison Ivy in fear playing mind games with Robin even as she's in fear for her life from an horrific plant creature named Harvest. Artist Benitez draws a wicked, curvy Ivy, but his exaggerated, beak-nosed Batman, fanged Harvest and fetishistic attention to filigree and tiny wrinkles in otherwise impossibly tight clothing show he still hasn't shaken the influence of Todd McFarlane. One nice facet of his work, though, is that he really puts Batman center stage, drawing him much larger on the pages than the other artists in this volume.
"Night of the Penguin" shows Dini apparently uninterested in the character or unable to make him menacing or interesting, and so to prop up the story there's a cameo from Zatanna, a villainous but undeveloped magician, Lois Lane, Bruce's drunk socialite date, and a narcoleptic but deadly Mob enforcer named Mr. Zzz. It doesn't really go anywhere but it moves quickly enough from each half-baked element to the next that you may not notice.
The final story is a highlight, a solo Robin story which finds him tied up in a Joker-driven SUV as the maniac taunts him and runs over one Christmas-shopping pedestrian after another until Robin can figure out how to escape and stop him. It's the only suspenseful story in the collection, and Kramer does a good job drawing Joker along the lines of one of the preferred takes, that of Brian Bolland in The Killing Joke. That the climax revolves around an argument over a Marx Bros routine is a clever touch.
So, an uneven collection but only average at its worst, and two of the stories of high quality, if rather grim for those expecting all-ages fare.
Written by Paul Dini and Royal McGraw
Art by Don Kramer & Wayne Faucher, J.H. Williams III, Joe Benitez & Victor Llamas, and Marcos Marz & Luciana Del Negro
Published by DC Comics. $14.99 USD
I was remarking recently on someone's blog that I could easily do without any more Batman stories, as there are plenty of good ones to last me the rest of my lifetime, along with all the other things I read. And that's true, but I do like a good Batman story, and I find myself keeping track of the Caped Crusader's adventures a little more than most long-lived superheroes, especially since he's a character who attracts lots of top tier talent.
Such a talent is Paul Dini, a writer of wit and versatility, who is not necessarily going to break your heart or blow you away with brilliance, but nonetheless can usually be relied upon for intelligence, good characterization and solid craft. These qualities can be found in this, the first collection of his Detective Comics stories from a year ago or so. Five of the six tales are written by Dini, plus one story by McGraw bringing back '70s villain Doctor Phosphorus. Coincidentally, Phosphorus debuted during a celebrated run drawn by the late Marshall Rogers, but was drawn by the less-talented Bob Brown. Perhaps Phosphorus is destined to feature in stories by lesser talents, because McGraw's story, while competent, is little more than a lot of dry narrative exposition of who Phosphorus is, some gruesome burns, and some action. No real detective work is done here, not that Dini's stories always feature this element, either. The art as well is somewhat lacking--Marz and Del Negro give every character a sooty countenance as if they're all victims of Phosphorus, or at least Ash Wednesday penitents. An unfortunate moment for Commissioner Gordon--investigating an explosion, he reaches for a ball of glowing ash as if unaware of the distinct possibility it could burn him.
Dini begins his run with the only pedigree artist in the book, J.H. Williams III, who in concert with colorist Jared Fletcher and letterer John Kalisz essays sophisticated page layouts, odd angles, fun blue-line effects, and monochromatic flashbacks, as well as a showstopping, lurid red and white lair for new villain Facade, who wears a reflective mask that gives Williams the opportunity to show off his mastery of perspective. If you wanted one example of the state-of-the-art Batman story for 2K7, this would be it. It doesn't hold up much as a mystery, and Dini surprisingly given his background in the Batman Animated series, gives Batman a sadistic characterization ("I hear the soft gurgle of pleasure in the mugger's throat. I'll turn it into a scream."), but it's good work.
"E. Nigma, Consulting Detective" is the first to feature the Kramer/Faucher art team, who feature on half the stories in this volume, and their work suffers in comparison to Williams, as one would expect. The story should be a fun change of pace--Batman has newly reformed, would-be detective Riddler forced upon him to solve a murder--and it is, just not as finely tuned as it could be. Riddler is a doofus and oddly, Dini avoids or fails to exploit the comedic possibilities here in favor of the seamy, sadomasochistic details of the case. Take away the costumes and throw (or however you'd prefer to do it) some semen around and you'd have an episode of Law & Order or C.S.I.
Dini appears intent on exploring the darkness and creepiness of the Batman universe rather than the Deco-and-Expressionist-flavored but still all-ages stories in his cartoon work, and so we have a sexy but very deadly Poison Ivy in fear playing mind games with Robin even as she's in fear for her life from an horrific plant creature named Harvest. Artist Benitez draws a wicked, curvy Ivy, but his exaggerated, beak-nosed Batman, fanged Harvest and fetishistic attention to filigree and tiny wrinkles in otherwise impossibly tight clothing show he still hasn't shaken the influence of Todd McFarlane. One nice facet of his work, though, is that he really puts Batman center stage, drawing him much larger on the pages than the other artists in this volume.
"Night of the Penguin" shows Dini apparently uninterested in the character or unable to make him menacing or interesting, and so to prop up the story there's a cameo from Zatanna, a villainous but undeveloped magician, Lois Lane, Bruce's drunk socialite date, and a narcoleptic but deadly Mob enforcer named Mr. Zzz. It doesn't really go anywhere but it moves quickly enough from each half-baked element to the next that you may not notice.
The final story is a highlight, a solo Robin story which finds him tied up in a Joker-driven SUV as the maniac taunts him and runs over one Christmas-shopping pedestrian after another until Robin can figure out how to escape and stop him. It's the only suspenseful story in the collection, and Kramer does a good job drawing Joker along the lines of one of the preferred takes, that of Brian Bolland in The Killing Joke. That the climax revolves around an argument over a Marx Bros routine is a clever touch.
So, an uneven collection but only average at its worst, and two of the stories of high quality, if rather grim for those expecting all-ages fare.
Posted by ChristopherAllen at 6:35 PM [Link to this post]
2 Comments:
Sorry to undermine your point, but the first Dr. Phosphorous story (a two-parter in Detective #469/470) was drawn by Walt Simonson, who was considerably better than Bob Brown. Marshall Rogers didn't join Englehart until #471.
Thanks, Cole. Didn't mean to rewrite history there. You're right, although Simonson at that time was more like Brown than he is like the Simonson of the past 20 years or so, as far as I can tell. I think what I did was confuse a couple different artist-driven Batman collections, one which collected the Englehart/Rogers stories, but with the Simonson fill-in (inked by Milgrom maybe? Could be a big part of the problem) and a Neal Adams one that also had a fill-in artist or two. Anyway, duly noted.
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