Batman: The Dark Knight #8

Another Batman issue from the backlog.

Title: Batman: The Dark Knight
Issue: 8
Publisher: DC Comics 
Date: June 2012
Writer: Joe Harris
Penciler: Ed Benes
Inker: Rob Hunter, Jack Purcell
Colorist: Jeromy Cox
Letterer: Steve Wands
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend, Jeromy Cox
Editor:  Rickey Purdin, Mike Marts

A subway train full of bodies. They weren't killed by some supervillain. They killed each other. Is it something about Gotham that just drives people mad?

Mad... As a... Hatter?

This is not a spoiler. The Mad Hatter is on the cover. So are Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. Well, so is White Rabbit, and she's not actually in this issue, so apologies if the Mad Hatter thing was a spoiler.

Very little in this issue makes any sense, except for Jim Gordon's advice to his shrink: Don't ride the subways. Actually, Gordon has a nice little subplot going on here with overzealous I.A. detective Forbes.

But other than that, the story here was routine if you avoid thinking too much about Hatter's plan and methods. Otherwise, the story just becomes, well, maddening.

Rating: 5/10

Batman: The Dark Knight #5

Title: Batman: The Dark Knight
Issue: 5
Date: March 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Paul Jenkins, David Finch
Penciler: David Finch
Inker: Richard Friend
Colorist: Jeromy Cox
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Editor: Mike Marts, Rickey Purdin
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend, Alex Sinclair

A scarecrow fear gas story! How... unexpected. Not.

Scarecrow enlightens the Batman on his darkest fears and the Batman resists, and it's nothing we haven't seen before. When good old reliable fear gas doesn't work, it's on to the new stuff, which seems to be the New 52 version of venom. Batman becomes fearless and extremely angry. No, I mean more so than he usually is.

He even punches Superman around. And calls him a fascist.

This title has apparently been designated as the place where the Justice League guest appearances are going to happen, and the Superman appearance is pretty well handled here. The confrontation between the Batman and the Scarecrow is the part that needed work.

Rating: 6.5/10

Batman: The Dark Knight #4

Title: Batman: The Dark Knight
Issue: 4
Date: February 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Paul Jenkins, David Finch
Penciler: David Finch
Inker: Richard Friend
Colorist: Jeromy Cox
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Editor: Mike Marts, Rickey Purdin
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend, Alex Sinclair

Caption-based narration by the (until the last panel) essentially takes the entire issue to tell us what the Eagles once did in two lines: "Somebody's gonna hurt someone, before the night is through/Somebody's gonna come undone, there's nothing you can do." Um, without the rhymes, though.

The plot is basically a series of random encounters. First an Aubrey II that Poison Ivy left to guard her lair. Then an encounter with a venomed-up Deathstroke. Much to my amusement, Deathstroke jobs clean and quick to the Batman.

By the way, I'm using the term "venom" here because we really do seem to be heading for a reboot of the "venom" concept. And no, I do not mean the alien symbiote guy over at the other company. I am expecting that the major villain revealed at the end of this issue is not, in fact, the mastermind behind all of the mayhem that's been happening in this series. There's one more enemy waiting in the wings, and they are timing his arrival for maximum movie-crossover potential. And if that's the case, than the drug that is turning all of these villains into bad 1990s Image Comics art is indeed the New 52 version of venom.

Until then, the Batman is getting no further direct help from the Justice League as they are busy rounding up more escaped Arkham inmates (Spellbinder and Electrocutioner get mentions but not actual appearances; Wonder Woman does actually appear in two panels). Bruce is left to content with Deathstroke, White Rabbit, and this issue's new (not all that surprising) surprise villain. Poison Ivy, meanwhile, is apparently an unwilling participant in all of this.

Random digression:

Something that I noticed: Batman has some of the most vicious and psychotic villains in comics... Except for the female ones. Ever notice how many Batman villainesses turn out to have some amount of goodness deep in their hearts, or at least manage to take on "anti-hero" roles on the side of good? Catwoman (own series), Harley Quinn (Suicide Squad), Talia (plenty of mixed motives/emotions in various past stories), Poison Ivy (Birds of Prey). White Rabbit gets played for sympathy in this series, and even Lady Shiva gets some sympathetic portrayals. Compare this to, say, Cheetah, who is typically portrayed (in modern versions) as an absolutely bloodthirsty monster in her appearances. Not sure what to make of this. Just an interesting observation.

Back to the story at hand. Interestingly, even though they weren't really meaningful scenes in terms of plot, I actually found the action sequences in this issue to be better than the more character development-related scenes. I blame the dialogue. A scene with Jim Gordon drags on without really getting anywhere, while Alfred's dialogue is hokey enough to be something out of 1966 TV. And Alfred is a character that can usually be counted on for good dialogue.

The action scenes are effective, but very little plot was actually accomplished here.

Rating: 4.5/10

Batman: The Dark Knight #3

Title: Batman: The Dark Knight
Issue: 3
Date: December 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Paul Jenkins, David Finch
Penciler: David Finch
Inker: Richard Friend
Colorist: Jeromy Cox
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Editor: Mike Marts, Rickey Purdin
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend, Alex Sinclair

After the mess that was the third issue of Detective Comics (see my review here), it was nice to see this title heading in the right direction.

Nothing profound here, but a lot of fun, even if it required a bit of "stunt booking" to achieve it.

We get started with a hulked-up (drugged-up, really) Joker and the White Rabbit. But things are not exactly as they appear, and the Batman's quick bit of on-the-fly detective work in the midst of the ensuing fight is one of the little touches that makes this amusing.

We go immediately to a high-powered guest star from the Justice League, who lends a hand in classic 70s-style team-up fashion. It's a nice nostalgic bit that makes reasonable sense and reminds the reader that there is a whole DC Universe out there. The guest star gets written out in somewhat over-arbitrary fashion later, but I still enjoyed it.

I'm also starting to warm to White Rabbit as a villain now that we're seeing her in action a bit more. Still not thrilled with the Playboy Bunny costume, but at least her actions are starting to make a bit more sense.

Also starting to grow on me: new romantic interest Jaina Hudson. Might just be a matter of personal taste, but she's one of the few women in comics that gets a "Wow, she is really beautiful!" reaction from me. Her scene with Bruce Wayne was mostly just more flirting, but I did like the detail that a text from Alfred did NOT result in Bruce abruptly calling off the date. Nice little bit of cliche breaking.

Ends with a bit more thickening of the plot and a little bit of crossover with the events of Birds of Prey. Oh, and a preview of The Ray, which was just kinda there.

Rating: 7/10

Batman: The Dark Knight #2

Title: Batman: The Dark Knight
Issue: 2
Date: December 2011
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Paul Jenkins, David Finch
Penciler: David Finch
Inker: Richard Friend
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Editor: Mike Marts, Rickey Purdin
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend, Alex Sinclair

Harvey Dent's tagline at the end of the first issue actually makes no sense at all, but that doesn't stop the drugged-up and muscled-up Two Face from beating on the Batman in a pretty one-sided brawl that ends when the Batman is effectively saved by the bell.

It turns out that someone has been injecting the Batman villains with a drug that I at first assumed to be Venom, but is actually some variant on the scarecrow's fear-gas. Its effects include superhuman strength, fearlessness, and really badly-drawn anatomy.

In spite of the rather goofy nature of the premise, the creative team milks it for all its worth, including a montage of Bat-Family members getting trounced by an array of second and third rate villains on (for all intents and purposes) steroids.

Some minor gripes:

More dead GCPD officers. Is this really necessary? These guys must spend their off-duty time doing nothing but attending funerals for their fellow officers. I don't have a grip with violence when it serves a purpose, but to draw in a few dead bodies of cops just for the sake of getting a villain over is lazy storytelling, and it has been happening way too much in the DCnU (in the old DCU in recent years too). How about doing this a lot less often but making an effort to get the readers to care?

Also, Damian Wayne only appears on two pages (good!), but he is completely out of character in this scene. Some consistency would be nice (even if it involves making a character consistently intolerable).

I was also a bit puzzled with the kid-gloves approach that the Batman takes with the White Rabbit, who is pretty clearly one of the bad guys.

On the good side, the pacing was great. Art was solid aside from the Image Comics 1990s look for all the drugged-up villains. And the story was a lot more complex than in the first issue. All in all, despite some problems, an improvement.

Rating: 6

Batman: The Dark Knight #1

Back to the New 52. Still working my way through first issues.

Title: Batman: The Dark Knight
Issue: 1
Date: November 2011
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Paul Jenkins, David Finch
Penciler: David Finch
Inker: Richard Friend
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Editor: Mike Marts, Rickey Purdin
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend, Alex Sinclair

You know the line in Austin Powers where Dr. Evil gives up on making a creative plan for world domination and just says "The hell with it. Let's just do what we always do and hijack a nuclear weapon."?

This book felt a lot like that. No original ideas? No problem. Let's just do what we always do and have a mass breakout from Arkham Asylum. That always works.

In the lead-up, we get a little bit of narrated monologue on the nature of fear, followed by a scene of Bruce Wayne doing his playboy/philanthropist gig. Two long-term complications are introduced right off the bat (Bat! Get it! Never mind...). First there's a Gotham internal affairs detective who's got his sights set on Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon. Then we have Jaina Hudson, a possible new love interest, who's flirting more than a bit outrageously at first sight.

From there it's mayhem at Arkham, and as usual, it doesn't matter how many cops you've got. The only way to restore order is to have the Batman lead the charge fists-flying. Oh, and in the midst of it, there's some random villainess in what is basically a Playboy bunny outfit who manages to strike pretty much the most sexist pose possible while dodging bullets. But that's not who the Batman is going after. He's heading straight into the heart of darkness to find Two-Face before he gets... Oops too late. Harvey Dent has been redrawn by way of the Rob Liefeld School Of Excessive Muscles.

The two new supporting cast members seemed decent. Everything else here has been done before. Only a lot better.

Rating: 4/10