It sucks to be Bruce

Okay, I had an opportunity to recharge after finishing up the twelve-issue see-saw of quality that was DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths. I had some fun with a one-and-done read, but now I need to return to my primary objective with this blog: deep dives into DC's often puzzling approach to continuity. When I first embarked upon this project, I threw myself into the deep end, but I'm making a bit more of a measured move with the next project. After all, huge company-wide crossovers don't always represent how continuity works quite the way that the individual long-running flagship titles do. Additionally, we must ask ourselves, what is the nature of the beast born from adapting one of their flagship character's original stories? Yes, friends, it is time for us to look at the exploits of Batman as he gets beaten over the head with his own complex continuity. Join me as I explore Batman: Under the Red Hood.

Batman #535 is written by Judd Winick, pencils by Doug Mahnke, inks by Tom Nguyen, and colors by Alex Sinclair. Additionally, cover art was provided by Matt Wagner.

Admittedly, I have a bias going into this because it was written by Judd Winick. Best known as an old school alumnus of The Real World, his experiences there opened his journey into comics when he penned an autobiographical graphic novel Pedro and Me, about friendship with his late housemate on the show, AIDS educator Pedro Zemora. It was widely acclaimed and garnered him several awards, including the Eisner and a GLAAD Media Award for best Comic Book. However, it is admittedly not why I'm going to have trouble staying objective (even though I think it's important). No, that honor goes to Marvel's Exiles. It was effectively X-Men meets Sliders, but that doesn't do it justice. The feel and tone of the book was more akin to a late teens/early 20's roadtrip, which tends to be one of my favorite story frameworks in comics. He also tends to fall into the Joss Whedon school of storytelling, in that he is more concerned with writing an emotionally satisfying narrative than anything else. So going into this, I know that Winick can hit all the right emotional buttons. I'm going to try to remain objective, but I want own up to that before we begin.

Issue number 635 starts us off and I have to say Mark Wagner's cover art is beautiful. It hearkens back to the art deco style of Batman TAS, which by 2005 had no doubt had brought in a whole generation of lifetime readers. It's actually basic in concept: Batman fighting a foe. Simple. Effective. It's interesting to note that he is facing down the Red Hood, but not the Red Hood we will be dealing with in this story. Like I said, this story is an interesting exploration of Batman's own history and I'm sure this little tidbit will pay off in the long run.

In typical noir superhero fashion, we start out with an introduction not of our characters, but of our harsh world. Ah, Gotham... it's basically the lovechild of Al Capone-era Chicago and 70's/80's New York City. How the fuck does its department of tourism earn its keep? We zoom in on one of its most downtrodden citizens just to personalize what a horrible place this is... because eco terrorists, clay monsters, and psychotic killer clowns who regularly poison the water supply wasn't sufficient evidence. David "Tipper" Coates is a runaway who has been living on the streets after leaving an abandoned homelife and things have only gotten worse for him since then, He is either the witness of, victim of, or perpetrator of beatings, drugs, and various forms of prostitution. The coup de grace in this boy's personal sack of shit is that the pulpy narration thinks he'd be even worse off if he had a better vantage point of the city.

At the risk of shooting their wad early, they gave us exactly
what they promised in this story straight away.

On that note, we cut to a huge two-page splash of our titular hero in close combat with our eponymous foe. Batman vs the Red Hood. Remember how I said that we wouldn't be dealing with the same Red Hood that appeared on the cover? Well, at least sartorially speaking, the one we end up with in the actual story is a downgrade. On the cover, we are promised the original one. DC's continuity is kind of wonky, so we will definitely talk about who that is at a later date, but suffice to say the original cut a figure. Okay, his helmet is kind of ridiculous, but look at that tux. Look at that dazzling cape! The Red Hood we'll come to know sports more of a casual biker ensemble. But at least his helmet is less... phallic.

It was that or the Adidas.

And we get this fantastic blow by blow fight scene between the two of them, I don't know if "impressed" is something Batman is capable of, but at the very least, he acknowledges that Red has skills. Using his twisted dagger, he slices through Batman's suit. Most first time hoods are a little sketchy on whether Batman is an urban legend or not, but this guy just happens to be armed with a blade capable of cutting through Batman's beyond state of the art battle suit. That shouldn't be possible.

Quick side note: for a guy supposedly straddling the line between man and myth, Batman is probably not helping to maintain his mystique by wearing boots with bat symbols in the treads.

Red Hood even manages to unmask the Caped Crusader. Just for a sense of significance, the only other for that I know of who has managed to see him unmasked broke his freaking back, so that's a huge deal. 

Of course, our adversary is not without a sense of fair play, so he too unmasks, though we don't see the reveal. Batman however is shocked and does the patented "no... It can't be" reaction. Being a lifelong X-fan, I'm just going to assume it's Erik the Red.

And then we smashcut to five weeks ago.

Yes, I know you were expecting to find out who is under the red hood, but then again where would the mystery be?

The POV shifts to Alfred, who is left with the task of tidying up some of the recent events for readers just hopping on with this story.

Alfred is generally one of my favorite members of the Batman ensemble. He's one of the best surrogate father figures in Western Pop Culture and at least in my book is on par with Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I always find it funny that my read of him shifts from that of a doting if sardonic uncle who is proud of Bruce's commitment to bettering the world, to that of a man who has to snark constantly in order to cope with the fact his best friends' son is so messed up that now he gallivants around the city dressed like a bat.

And in an ideal version I think he's kind of both.

He sees Bruce Wayne in a way that I don't think Bruce even does (partially because I think Bruce is arguably the mask, but that's a ramble for another time). Other heroes, villains, and even the other members of the Bat family see Batman as this larger than life figure, a methodical general among men who is not to be trifled with. The world at large sees Bruce Wayne as a care free, over-indulgent multi-billionaire trust fund baby. But Alfred still sees the little boy who has been robbed of the two people who mean the most to him in the world, a boy in pain and in need of an outlet and support. Of course, when Thomas and Martha Wayne were laid to rest, I highly suspect that supporting Bruce would eventually lead to suturing Bruce's wounds on the regular.

A huge Bat-family crossover called "War Games" just wrapped up, and it dealt quite a blow to the Bat books, so the book does its best to use the tragedies of "War Games" as a springboard for this story. What you need to know: someone died and Batman's ties to his typical partners in Gotham have been severed. Later we will find out that he actually issued a fiat to all the other crime fighters in Gotham, ordering them out of his city, with the exceptions of Catwoman, who he only has a marginal ability to influence on the regular and another character we'll be meeting in the near future. Considering Batman is a character whose coping skills, at least in terms of loss and grief, crystalized when he was 10, shutting out his nearest and dearest actually sounds pretty consistent with his character. I bet he also has a plush toy he cuddles with and to whom he confides all his secrets.

So, everything sucks to be Batman these days. What about Bruce Wayne? On cue, Lucius Fox shows up and despite Alfred assuring that Bruce is unavailable, he isn't going anywhere until he's had some facetime. Batman has to take some time away from his intensified brooding schedule to put on the Bruce Wayne mask and heads topside. Lucius informs him that Wayne Industries entire R&D department has been bought out from under their noses. For Bruce Wayne, it's a financial pebble in his shoe. For Batman however, it's a critical loss. It means that at best, the equipment he already has will end up getting outstripped eventually. At worst, it means that the same calibre of cutting edge combat equipment he has been embezzling for years are now going to be available to crazies thanks to that damn free market capitalism I keep hearing about. Of course, it's different if you're the type of crazy that involves dressing up like a bat. That's the kind of crazy we encourage to have armored cars, stealth planes, and shark repellent.

Where is he going to get all those wonderful toys now?

Of course, my beloved, stalwart Alfred has the best response to Bruce's true, if a bit self-important appraisal.

Truth.

Now, riddle me this: can you think of a time where both Batman and Bruce Wayne both got the short end of the stick? Yes, Batman has been through the wringer before but has Bruce ever been dealt a hand that caused such a setback both for himself and his alter ego? Hell, Bruce isn't even having any success at feigning his usual persona. He was caught with his pants down when his latest beard was reported actually dating someone else out of town. He is failing so hard on all fronts and the weird thing is the art doesn't reflect a man out of sorts. He looks like he almost expects this sort of shit in his life. No wonder he can emotionally cope with evicting the other capes from the city-- even the ones he has legally adopted. He has been prepared to be a failure as a person for ages it seems.

Elsewhere, we find ourselves across town in a warehouse after hours where we have a meeting of the minds among the heads of several drug cartels, none of whom know who sent out the invite. These gangs all are under the thumb of Black Mask, Gotham's current mafia kingpin. As it turns out, they meet their host when Red Hood calls the meeting to order. He makes them an offer to earn their loyalty which is better than what they presently have under Black Mask and would offer protection from both Batman and Black Mask. His only stipulation would be that selling on schools or to minors in general is strictly verboten.

When questioned why they should do business with him, Red Hood throws down a duffel bag and everyone is aghast at its contents. The severed heads of all their capos are inside. Red tells them that he tracked down and collected their heads in the span of two hours and that he could do a whole lot worse over the course of a whole night. He makes it clear that his business offer was not a request as he pulls out a semi and goes to town on the duffel of severed heads. Everyone is on board. Yeah. A+ for intimidation.

Here and I thought Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag would be funny...

Sometime later, Black Mask, whose head is a blackened skull for reasons that I'm sure will make not the slightest difference to the narrative, should I ever find out, is being told about this development by his own number two guy. Black Mask is very affable, more of a mogul than your typical Bat baddie. He doesn't rage over it. He doesn't even kill random henchmen as a coping mechanism. This is not the type of Bat-foe I'm accustomed to. Or at least not the gimmicky Bat foe, anyway. He's closer to Carmine Falcone or Rupert Thorne. Except with a skull for a face because by the mid '00s, even the crime bosses had to be as weird as the actual Arkhamites. Observe the results of escalation, folks.

Mr Freeze cannot pull off they Jersey Shore
look. No cheeto tan.

His solution is quite simple. Hire a crazy person who uses freeze guns. Yup. We have a final page reveal of Mr, Freeze, who seems to be down on his luck, looking worse for wear. He's been reduced to living in a walk-in freezer and wearing a torn up tank top. And he's looking forward to the opportunity to having more cash flow and the opportunity to amass a body count.

As far as the first issue of a new arc goes, this one is actually pretty good. I mean yeah, the timejump start kind of bugs me, especially how tired that particular narrative device is in 2016. However, it does have the virtue of being pretty a well executed fight scene. That aside, once we start dealing with characters we get excellent character work. Batman is challenged in a way he typically doesn't, as is Bruce Wayne which I find interesting. Meanwhile, our villain is clearly setting a lot of wheels in motion without ever entangling directly either characters who he sets up as his chosen adversaries. Red Hood is so obviously a chaos gamer. He's setting up dominoes and waiting for others with more clout to knock them down for him. Well played.

I want to ping pong between the Big Two and hopefully a third option a bit more regularly, so next week we're going to take a look at Marvel's latest spin on the "A Boy And His X" Narrative. It's a story 65 million years in the making, folks.