BATMAN #19 REVIEW: NOWHERE MAN

Last issue was a mixed bag in terms of quality. I think that if I could separate past Batman stories from Batman #18, then I would have loved it for it was a well told tale, but it thematically echoed “A Lonely Place of Dying” so clearly that I could not shake the feeling that it was a work standing on previous creative team’s shoulders. Other people had an even more negative view of the comic because of a strong dislike of Harper Row. Personally, I rather enjoy the character for her ability to cut through Bruce’s bullcrap, but many seem to feel she is annoying, unneeded, redundant, useless, and insulting to the memory of Damian. However, I enjoy her, and I look forward to seeing how Harper evolves as a character.

Does this issue of Batman deliver a stellar story which everyone can agree is excellent, or will this be yet another issue which divides readers into lovers and haters?

In this issue, Bruce Wayne goes on a crime spree while Batman continues to mourn the loss of Damian.

Tension and Resolution

A huge aspect of telling stories is the balance between tension and resolution. The writer has to build up conflicts, suspense, drama, and then resolve it in a way that keeps readers on their toes. In comics, it is perhaps even more important to have this down because based on the short amount of space given to tell the story, narratives are distilled into their most basic forms. In other words, you have to deal with the tension and release very quickly.

The introduction of this issue did a fantastic job building up tension for the reader. Despite the cover, I was still surprised to turn the page to see it was Bruce Wayne creating such carnage and mayhem. The rest of this scene definitely sells the idea that there is a new player in town either with mind controlling, cellular level shape shifting, or cloning power, and the actions of Bruce in these pages paint the picture of someone cavalier in his actions, yet with a definite f unclear motivation. In brief, this issue nailed the tension.

The release was not so satisfying though. After Snyder builds up this truly puzzling mystery, Batman solves it after about one minute of investigation. Granted, Batman chases down some other leads before he finds the core mystery, but once he stumbles upon it, the mystery is solved in no time, and that really disappointed me. I would have much preferred to have been left guessing for a month or have it revealed at the conclusion of this issue, but the revelation comes about three-quarters through, and the ending in comparison is just a logical and mostly predictable result of Batman’s earlier discovery.

To give Snyder his justly deserved props, a scene towards the end of the issue did surprise me as an attack came from an unexpected source. Snyder did the classic move of doing a flourish with his left hand while doing the actual magic trick with the right, but it fooled me, and it once again sold the idea that this villain makes it impossible to know who you can trust, but I still wish the mystery had lingered for longer.

Action Scenes Galore

Another area in which Snyder just knows his business is in balancing action with plot. In the main story, we get four action scenes in twenty pages, yet there is still plenty of time for narrative, and the action makes sense in the context of the story and plays an important role. However, I do have some nitpicks with them.

Most of the complaints come in the fight between Bruce Wayne and the cops. First up, Gordon has Bruce Wayne dead to rights with a gun pointed at him, yet he gives Bruce enough time to pull a shotgun and blast him with it. We know Gordon will drop a suspect if forced, so why didn’t he do it in this case? He should have had time, so it doesn’t track that he would fail to pull the trigger. Also, Commissioner Gordon is pretty well brutalized by Bruce and should be in critical condition if not actually dead, but I suspect he will be back up and running by the next issue, or at worst, he will be doing okay in a hospital bed.

Commissioner Gordon takes a shotgun blast to the chest. Now, I realize he is wearing bullet proof vest, but that does not stop you, necessarily, from serious injury. I know more about guns that the average bear, so let me give you some insight into this. First up, you can load a shotgun will all sorts of different shells from things as large as slugs which are basically like shooting someone with a min-cannonball or something as small as rock salt shot which will not actually kill anyone but will embed itself into the skin and burn like the dickens. We know based on the the bullet pattern at impact when Commissioner Gordon was shot that Bruce fired something that had a spread to it, so Gordon was not shot with a slug, but it is highly unlikely that this murderer was limiting himself to salt rock, so it would make sense that he was shooting something on the level of buck shot which will take several medium sized pieces of metal and slam them into the target.

Now Gordon is wearing a vest, but a vest does not stop the impact of a bullet. Rather, it displaces the force of a bullet. Instead of having the impact all focused on one little point of your chest and going through your body slicing everything to pieces, the metal catches it, but the force behind that bullet still impacts with the body armor which impacts with the chest, so instead of having that force all in one place at the point of impact, it spreads the impact out across your entire torso. Multiply this by a dozen different pieces of metal from the shotgun shell, and you basically have somebody hitting your body armor with a sledge hammer a dozen times. Are the bullet going to go through you? No, but your ribs are probably cracked and pushed back into your chest, and there is a real chance some of your internal organs have popped. Survivable? Most definitely. Something you shrug off after a few minutes? No.

Add to this the fact that Bruce peels off his motorcycle on Gordon’s chest which would most likely push the vest aside, and there is a good chance a lot of Commissioner Gordon’s skin and possibly more is only partially attached to his body after this scene.

In the next action scene, Batman is driving an amazingly cool looking motorcycle, but it does not really make any sense. There appears to be nothing connecting the wheels (which are actually giant spheres) to the bike, so how does this work? I was thinking maybe some sort of electromagnetic field kept the spheres attacked to the bike, and I was willing to buy that for a comic book universe, but then I realized that the spheres had no treads, so most likely, they would just kind of spin over the ground without moving anywhere. Certainly, they would not move quickly.

Anyway, I would prefer it if the action stayed a bit more attached to reality.

The Mind Controlling, Shapeshifting, Cloning Psychopath (Spoilers for This Section)

As I said before, I found it rather disappointing that the identity of Clayface was revealed so soon, but I also have to say that Clayface as the bad guy felt a little off. Clayface has never, to my knowledge, been a criminal mastermind type. I mean, he has some schemes, but they are pretty basic, and he’s not super big on the forethought and planning, yet the first scene where Clayface is taking out the cops feels pretty thought out and planned, so what gives? Is this a new take on Clayface, or am I giving Karlo more credit than he deserves for his actions? Also, what’s his motivation here? Is he working as a hired gun? I’m not saying this is necessarily wrong, I’m just saying this aspect of the story needs some clarification.

Ghost Lights

In the backup feature, Superman comes to Gotham to try to talk to Batman about the death of Damian, but while there, the World’s Finest have to deal with a supernatural phenomenon.

Alex Maleev (former artist for Daredevil and current artist of Batman, Detective Comics, and Daredevil: End of Days) and Brad Anderson (former colorist for Dark Horse’s Star Wars: Legacy and current colorist for Batman and Detective Comics and cover artist for Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps) do the art on this story, and it is really well done. I don’t know if it will be everybody’s cup of tea, but it has a very dark, ink heavy, subdued color scheme going for it, and it really looked sharp. Somehow, even Superman’s color scheme manages to look intimidating in this story rather than laughably flamboyant. The art did a great job of setting the slightly horror/thriller tone of the story.

As for the story itself, it’s pretty interesting. I like it when writers incorporate other mythologies into the comic book universe, and here they draw upon the reported phenomenon of ghost lights or the willo the wisp who, according to different mythologies, can lead people to great peril or great prosperity. (usually great peril) Seeing this take on it was really cool, and it’s magical nature works nicely to nerf Superman’s powers which both keeps the upcoming battle from being a blowout and adds another layer of menace to the story.

The interaction between Bruce and Clark is good, but it’s nothing we have not seen in previous stories. Supes came to town to help Bruce work through his issues with Damian, and I hope the story will follow up on this in some meaningful way in the next chapter.

Bat Droppings

1. What’s up with the odd overlay over Commissioner Gordon at the bottom of page 1?

2. It’s a bit convenient that Batman has the exact anti-toxin needed in his bike. On the other hand, is there some sort of generic anti-toxin that applies to a bunch of poisons? What do I know? Something to look up in the future perhaps.

3. Seeing Bruce essentially turn through the pages of a his family photo album was touching, and I was pleasantly surprised that the death of Damian was not swept under the rug in this issue.

4. Didn’t Bruce send Alfred on “vacation” in Batman, Incorporated? Maybe the vacation has already passed.

5. I suppose I should not go through a review without giving props to Greg Capullo’s (former penciler for Image’s Spawn and current artist for Batman) excellent, as usual, work.

6. Though it looks cool, I do question the design of the Bat Plane that has a giant hole in the nose presumably to suck in air. I’m pretty sure that is not aerodynamic. Of course, I’m pretty sure most of the Bat Planes don’t actually hold up to aviation standards.

7. I do think Capullo went a little far in trying to make the villain look gross. It was not really needed.

8. (Spoilers) I think, perhaps, Supes and Bruce should have noticed the giant monster on the ceiling before the ghost girl pointed it out to them. So much for the World’s Greatest Detective and supervision. I assume, though, there was some sort of supernatural element that kept them from noticing it..

Conclusion 9/10