Review: Batman - Jekyll & Hyde

Batman: Jekyll & Hyde
Written by Paul Jenkins
Art (Ch. 1-3) Jae Lee and (Ch. 4-6) Sean Phillips
Published by DC Comics. $14.99 USD

Paul Jenkins has been a writer I tend to overlook these days, as I've found his past work so uneven. I think he's often been too willing to go with a bad idea, especially on monthly series, but at his best he finds psychological depth in his characters. My main reason for picking up this book was Sean Phillips' art, but I was hoping Jenkins could do a decent job with the duality of both Two-Face and Batman, which one would have to expect he would explore when he titles the book "Jekyll & Hyde."

And he does do an okay but flawed job. The gritty Lee artwork distracts the reader somewhat from questioning some easy choices. Batman investigates the latest in a series of bizarre murders by seemingly ordinary people. It's not great detective work that Batman finds a prescription bottle on the scene, it's just convenient. As Bruce Wayne, he visits the doctor, Rousse, who springs a quote from Stevenson's novel on him that Wayne is literate enough to finish, and then he has to go back to being the flighty bored billionaire again. And, while we know that Rousse is behind the killings and probably working with Two-Face, the plot thread of Alfred analyzing the prescription drug gets forgotten. That is, it becomes less important, because Jenkins has Batman go out and get beaten up and captured by Two-Face, which is an easier, if more painful, way of finding answers and advancing the plot. Still, it doesn't advance all that fast, as Two-Face's limp plan to turn Gotham's citizens crazy through free, tainted ice cream cones is really just the framework for Jenkins to offer lots of flashbacks that put forward a different reason for Harvey Dent's split personality--childhood guilt when he was playing with matches and burned the house down with his brother in it, his brother now the dark, Two-Face side of Harvey. It's as good a reason as any, I guess, but the flashbacks aren't all that interesting, however artfully composed by Phillips, who takes over in the second half of the miniseries, where things get a little more action-oriented.

If this was just three or four issues, it might have pushed Jenkins to tighten things, condense his flashbacks and the jawing with Jim Gordon, who is at his least effectual here and present mainly out of habit and for exposition. I think what gets me about Jenkins is that he seems lost or desperate half the time, like he's got to come up with quirky stuff to fill the space, so we have an uncharacteristically sardonic Batman putting down the Mayor, an uncharacteristically wisecracking Gordon, a Two-Face applying lipstick to the bad half of his lips, for no apparent reason, and an Alfred laboring to be the most tediously backsassing butler ever, along with lots of little unconvincing character droppings like the revelation that young Bruce Wayne was always a Three Stooges fan. and a Two-Face who changes from good to bad every few seconds, sometimes within the span of a laugh.

I'll end it with some good points. Lee designed a good Two-Face, and Phillips' is pretty good as well, and while Phillips has never been great at action sequences, he draws a nice Batman and gets some emotion out of the ending. Credit to Jenkins for that as well; it's a bit melodramatic with injured Harvey in Batman's arms, begging him not to let Two-Face/Murray win, but the very end, with Bruce trying to break out of his own dark nature by suggesting a walk, was simple and well done. I also got a chuckle out of Two-Face shooting Batman in the leg, prompting an "Aaouw! Damn..!" because it was one of the few real moments in the book, something even a tough guy like Batman would probably do if he got shot rather than stoically suffer and grit his teeth through the pain.