POBB November 11, 2024

Pick of the Brown Bag

November 11, 2024

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag a comic book review blog by yours truly Ray Tate.  Writer Tom Taylor begins his run writing Batman in the latest issue of Detective Comics.  

Taylor’s been Batman’s director before.  

Batman: The Detective

ISBN-13: 9781779519870
ISBN-10: 1779519877

I heartily recommend that collection.  Click on the link for my in depth review.  The book may look like DC’s version of What If.   Instead, Batman in modern day London investigates an attack on two of his colleagues: The Knight and The Squire.  The art by Andy Kubert adds to the worth.

Taylor also refined his take on Batman when the detective frequently guest-starred in Nightwing.

Awwww…Dude…

In Detective Comics, Tom Taylor offers readers a fresh start.  Taylor demonstrates who the Batman is.

Batman is a haunted individual forever wondering if he could have changed things back in the day.  In a way, his behavior reflects the greatest of all detectives Sherlock Holmes.  

Holmes left to his own devices sought the needle.  He detested being bored.  Solving crime gave Holmes succor.  When Batman doesn’t have a crime to solve, he turns to his tragic past.

Thankfully, yet unfortunately, a crime distracts Batman.  Only, it’s not what one expects.

With this scene, Taylor draws on Batman’s hatred of guns.  The cowardly Joe Chill used a gun to murder his parents.  Ever since Batman reserves extra anger for those who commit crimes with guns.  He also doesn’t like to work with people who use them.  

Batman controls himself.  He slaps the baby criminal with his open hand.  That’s however not enough restraint in his opinion.  In fact Batman would have been better off slapping Sam harder.  Knocking him out.  Preventing him from running.  A forgivable error from the man who is ten steps ahead.  

Batman gives chase.

This scenario combines Batman’s role as protector and his unmatched knowledge of Gotham City.  It’s subtle.  Taylor makes every word count, informs yet makes it all sound natural.

Sam is quite dead.  With Sam’s death Taylor begins the main detective story.  Batman seeks out the White Musk Killer.  

Batman is rueful over his actions.  As well, he begins feeling the realities of age hampering his want to save innocent lives.

Batman’s age is always a touchy subject.  Historically, Batman’s eighty-five.  He’s perpetually thirty to forty in the comics.  I usually pin-point him at thirty-five in context.  Giving Batgirl a twenty-five on the index and Nightwing twenty-three.

Taylor has enough wiggle room in the subject of Batman’s age to generate a new theme in his story.  He does this by first introducing a new character into the mythology.

I sometimes simplify comic book narratives.  In this way, I can better review a book and immediately argue its worth to the reader.  Or the opposite.  Taylor’s narrative jumps around time.  Comic books being a visual medium are really good for writers using this technique.  You always know where you are in the story.  You can see it.  

When Batman as Bruce Wayne speaks Scarlett’s full name, he’s referring to the flashback Taylor and artist Mikel Janin unveiled earlier in the story.  The idea of a character speaking another character’s full name is usually, usually, a lazy device countering realism.  In this case, Batman likes to say Scarlett’s full name because she honors his mother.

 

Taylor portrays the Waynes as wonderful people.  

This fits the longstanding history that when Joe Chill ruthlessly slays them, Gotham City starts to rot.  The area where Chill kills the Waynes known historically as Park Place is renamed Crime Alley.  

Taylor creates comic book writing I like.  On the surface Taylor’s creation is as open and clean as the artwork by Mikel Janin.  So easy to read.  So simple to comprehend.  Within the apparent economy of storytelling lies recursive complexity.  

Some bit of characterization is important to the plot.  Some bit of plot is important to the characterization.  Continuity feels like history.

Scarlett apparently grew up to become a genius.  She now offers that genius to Bruce Wayne.

Alas…There’s a chance Scarlett’s the mysterious villain Batman faces in the book’s time out of joint opening.  

Back in the Bronze Age of Comics, Batman would on occasion lose an ear to an opponent.  He later turned them into welding torches for escapologist purposes.

Though I can’t help thinking that’s where my mind is supposed to travel.  The book is titled Detective Comics.  Taylor I expect is leading me to the dead end of a maze.