POBB June 26, 2019

Pick of the Brown Bag

June 26, 2019

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag.  A weekly comic book review blog where today I'll be discussing much to my horror Batman: Damned.  To my pleasure, Detective Comics, Eve Stranger and Fantastic Four.  As always should this short posting still be too much for your time schedule, pop on over to Twitter: #PickoftheBrownBag.

Issue three of Batman: Damned, the christening of the Black Label Titanic, is a wretched unconnected work that basically spotlights Brian Azzarello's vision for Constantine, Swamp Thing and Zatanna’s ass.

I also like Zatanna’s ass, but I’d like to see it in an actual story not some drug-induced fragmented crap-fest.  Oh, and I don’t need a thong up her crack.  Just some fishnet cheeks peeking out of some shorts will do me fine.  Or not.  I’m easy.

Damned opens with Batman trapped in a coffin and John Constantine narrating pretentious twaddle about control.

“No in reality we are surrounded by CHAOS, an eternal hurricane blowing in every INCONCEIVABLE direction that, without warning, can sweep up into our life and PULP us against anything harder than us.”

There’s no such thing as an inconceivable direction.  There’s east, west, south, north and every combination in between.  Hurricanes don’t blow in inconceivable directions.  They blow in every conceivable direction.  This is just some shitty wordplay to somehow absolve the hack from explaining just how Batman got in the coffin in the first place and who put him there.

Last issue left off with Batman strangling or fucking or strangle-fucking Harley Quinn on the very last page.  

You thought I was joking, didn’t you? Yes, this is a rotting corpse of a book that hates us.  

So from strangle-fucking we go straight to coffin.  I’m reminded of Kevin Smith, Master of Poop.  

The Evil That Men Do ends a cliffhanger issue on Black Cat about to be raped.  Centuries later, Marvel publishes the next issue.  It opens up on Black Cat in jail for murder.  Translation.  Somebody in editorial sobered up and realized what utter garbage had been published.  That person put a stop to it and demanded a rewrite for the next issue.  

So, after strangle-fucking Harley Quinn on a rooftop in Gotham City, Batman wakes up buried alive.  Not to worry Swamp Thing is here to save him.

What’s shocking is that this is an actual uplifting moment in a book that’s pitch black, figuratively speaking, of course.  Actually…

…Zatanna’s a beautiful woman made to look seedy through color manipulation.  So I manipulated the colors right back.

Zatanna is the least horrific magic user in DC comics.  She dresses up as a stage magician like her father and likes to show off her dynamite legs.  Trouble is how can we make her fit into an ostensibly deep, dark, super-mature Black Label horror story?  Apart from highlighting her ass in a thong.  We fuck up her colors and lighting.  While we’re at it let’s fuck up Zatanna’s spell speak.

Being a lifetime comic book fan, you read that dialogue and you say to yourself.  Wait, that’s not right.  Sure enough.

Justice League of America #51

Why muck around with Zatanna's backward spell casting?  It's pretentious.  It's annoying.  It adds nothing to the story, such as it is.  However, it's par for the course.  Batman Damned's entirety is self-important and grating.

Swamp Thing saves Batman from being buried alive in a coffin.  We still don’t know how he got there, but whatever. Apparently, that's not important to this masterpiece.  Neither is coherency.  Swamp Thing and Batman appear to know each other.  

So, Batman can only know certain members of Justice League Dark.  Okay.  Fine.  If them’s the rules.  Swampy warns Batman about Constantine.  Cause Batman really doesn’t know him, even though previously encountering him at least twice before and dreaming of him in Tom King's Batman. Okay.  Forget all that.  Beware of Constantine.

While Batman, Swamp Thing and Constantine discuss matters.  Doctor Who casts its shadow.

Funny.  Brian Azzarello is American not British, yet the angel's not the only suspicious Doctor Who reference.  

The weird little heavy metal Dryad that's been following Batman around has a personality and spouts dialogue similar to that of Control from the Sylvester McCoy story Ghost Light.  Wasn't Constantine just talking about Control? Must be a coincidence.  Still.  She seems familiar. 

Oh, spank me.  I get it.  I get the meaning of the Dryad.  She’s supposed be a skanked up Dr. Mid-Nite after a sex-change operation.  The crescent moon on the tunic is a dead giveaway.

I’m kidding.  I don’t know what the hell the Dryad represents.  Death? Nightmare? Wood? Your guess is as good as mine.  If you believe Azzarello, she was there from the very beginning.

Does this help? No.  Nothing she says or does makes any sense.  I have no idea why she's in the book.  The Dryad doesn’t really pertain to anything.  Which isn’t surprising because neither do the Waynes’ Azzarello-tainted lives.

So all this build up of strife between Thomas and Martha Wayne in the past two issues leads to zero.  A bit of snippiness.  That’s it?  Oh, and by the way Martha, Bruce is re-enacting the movie you just saw.  It’s not imagination.  It’s The Mark of Zorro.  Stupid writer, can’t come up with a scene.  Should have said nothing.

Azzarello ran into the same problem the Star Wars prequel writers slammed against.  Obi Wan Kenobi doesn't like space travel.  His Jedi partner Anakin is the pilot.  When it comes time to go into space though, Obi Wan heads out. Not as a passenger mind you.  He's steering the ship.  The ace can't go into space because he's got bed Padme.

Azzarello all but explicitly states that Thomas Wayne is a philanderer.  He's the cause of Martha Wayne's strife.  She hired a private investigator.  She's in tears.  I'm sure in Azzarallo's mind they were on their way to divorce court, but damn it, they just have to be a couple and get shot at the loci that will be renamed Crime Alley.

Try as he may, he just cannot change that.  It's a fixed point in time.  Just for good measure, Azzarello spits in the reader’s face by suggesting Bruce went down the alley and led his parents to their deaths.  Fuck you, man.  Just.  Fuck you.  In fact strangle-fuck you.

When gangsters murder Detective Jim Corrigan, he returns to the mortal plane as a vengeful alter-ego known as the Spectre.  

Though a frequent guest in Gotham City, the Spectre’s original ties lead to Metropolis.  Co-creator of Superman Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily originated the Spectre for More Fun Comics.  

The Spectre’s adventures were unusual even for a period where heroes routinely killed their foes.  Whereas Batman, Hawkman and Superman slew their enemies in battle.  A higher power sent Jim Corrigan back to earth with the mission to poetically execute murderers.

Detective Comics is an excellent introduction to the Spectre.  Peter Tomasi with the evocative art of Kyle Hotz and David Baron checks all the boxes.  

He veers from tradition when detailing Batman’s relationship with the Spectre.  

Batman of the New 52 does not like the Spectre, nor does he believe in the Spectre’s calling.  That makes sense given the modern Batman’s lack of tarnish and weight of history.  His disdain also bolsters his status as a detective.  

In the past I’ve argued that Batman is an atheist.  Any faith he may have harbored as a child died when he witnessed the murder of his parents.  

The supernatural Batman encounters he acknowledges as a science he does not yet understand.  The gods he meets, old an new, he dismisses as aliens.  Batman thinks the very idea of the Spectre being the Hand of God is rubbish.

As to the mystery itself, it piques the interest.  A cult dressed like the Spectre kills Jim Corrigan’s partner and abducts Corrigan, leaving the Spectre without a host.  

Depending on the era, Jim Corrigan is the Spectre or the vessel of the Spectre.  The wheel turns again.  It also gives Batman more fodder when you think about it.  Why does the Spectre need a human host in the first place? It makes more sense that Jim Corrigan is the Spectre.  

Eve Stranger a cheery combination of Dollhouse, ALIAS and Scanners takes our title protagonist to Pamplona and the running of the bulls.

Whereas the debut issue was more straight-up action-oriented, this issue with its introduction of Madden a frequent Eve employer is more humorous.  Indeed, writer David Barnett takes a page from old-time screwball comedies and cartoons to momentarily drop Eve’s point of view and generate some good jokes from the crowd watching the spectacle.

His introduction of Madden opens the door to describe the rules of Eve use, which unlike Dollhouse, involves only a chaste relationship.  Or else.

Minus the gentlemen above, contestants bid on Eve, and the person with the most money in the room wins the day.  The others get a memory wipe.  That neatly eliminates the need for any needless killing.  The corporation is at once benign and above board in their handling of Eve and evil because after all we’re talking about enslavement.

Or are we? Eve's history suggests only the best intentions.  Given the corporation's want to protect Eve from molestation, perhaps the corporation itself is setup for Eve's benefit.  Perhaps keeping her alive costs a small fortune.

You must applaud Barnett and artists Philip Bond and Eva de la Cruz for recreating the very thing that makes Eve unique without repeating themselves.  When Eve wakes up the next morning, she has no memory of any events prior.  Just a new mission with some curiously familiar encounters on the way.

Barnett and company then plunge her into adventures that amount to short, sweet and to the point sci-fi/spy stuff.  The remainder of the book, Barnett devotes to a more realistic, yet cartoonishly illustrated Eve.  Courtesy of Liz Prince.

By doing this vignette, Barnett takes the mickey out of his own writing and the conventions of the various action genres.  Who walks around with a jet pack? Perfectly plausible in fiction not so much in truth.  How does a total memory wipe work in real life? It doesn’t unless it’s the dream of a local reporter with the odd name of Eve Stranger.  Barnett becomes more hilariously critical from there.

The Fantastic Four encounters numerous problems around the city.  That may or may not have a simple answer.

This however must wait because the government has come a calling for Franklin and Valeria.

Okay.  I know a DEMV sounds dumb, but Dan Slott works his butt off to turn a dumb idea into comic genius.  It’s also not just for comedy.  The unfortunate circumstances allow Slott to rather than traditionally contrast Ben and Johnny demonstrate their similarities.  As teachers.  As mechanics.  As pilots.  Similar to what the original Fantastic Four films did.

Slott furthers his plot by blowing up the rivalry between Franklin and Valeria.  Here he suggests that Valeria does not believe there is a rivalry.  There in fact is an unspoken one deep down.  Both children participating.

Things come to a head when during the driving test, which features a number of amusing cameos, the FF must enter another dimension to address the multitude of problems they faced earlier.

The experience will affect Driver’s Ed in most unexpected ways.  Done in one and never overstaying the welcome.