After a wonderfully gothic beginning to the Batman (vol 1) run of Doug Moench and Kelley Jones, the title broadly carried on the same magic and sense of mystically dark storytelling. The run remained unique in every way possible, but it’s during the middle issues of the run where Jones’s love for DC’s more horror-based characters became clearer. Although every Batman run is expected to have stories featuring Two-Face, the Penguin, and the Joker, very few of them star the likes of Swamp Thing, and the Spectre in them. This is where Kelley Jones shines, and during his run with Moench, Batman is reunited with a character who he had met several years before. Created by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino in 1967, Deadman - otherwise known as Boston Brand – was a trapeze artist who was assassinated by the mysterious Hook. As a ghostly figure who could possess the bodies of those around him, Deadman wanted to avenge his death. His journey was a long one, but even after success he remained a spirit. He had met Batman a few times in the Brave and the Bold title during the early years of the Bronze Age, but in the late-1980s and early-1990s, Kelley Jones revitalised the character with a gruesome skeletal new look as he starred in the back-up pages of Action Comics and then two of his own miniseries. Moench and Jones were to bring Deadman back into Batman’s world, and he was to be the first of many mystical horror characters the Dark Knight would meet in this post-Knightfall world.
This review will be looking at Batman 525, 527-528, 530-532, and 535, all written by Doug Moench with art by Kelley Jones and John Beatty. Published between December 1995 and October 1996, I’ve missed out a few issues. Batman 526 – drawn by J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray – is a standard one-off similar to Batman 520. Aside from Batman’s brief return to overwork, cured by Tim Drake’s Robin helping out his master, there is little else to be said. Meanwhile, Batman 529 is produced by the regular team, but it is the sixth part of the Batman: Contagion storyline. The same applies for Batman 533-534, which are a section of the Batman: Legacy saga, but those issues are actually pencilled by the brilliant Jim Aparo and ruined by the inks of Bill Sienkiewicz.
Batman 525 --- Frozen Assets
Underworld Unleashed was a widespread DC event that took place during 1995 featuring a demon named Neron. He granted the wishes of DC’s supervillains in exchange for their souls. While the Joker went – with classic characteristically comic attitude – with a packet of Cuban cigars, Mr Freeze was granted the power of cyrokinesis, the power to control ice. Officially, Batman 525 is a tie-in to this event, but it can be read on its own easily enough.
Mr Freeze, let out of Arkham for good behaviour, makes an offer to the richest elderly of Gotham – he will cryogenically freeze them and extend their lifespan in exchange for money. In keeping with his name, this is no warm-hearted plan. Instead, Mr Freeze plans to freeze the richest and steal their financial assets. Moench plots out an interesting façade for Mr Freeze and it would have been intriguing to read a story where the villain is shown to be publicly using his powers for good, only for the Dark Knight to investigate and discover that Mr Freeze is no different with his new powers. Instead, the elderly refuse Mr Freeze’s offer and he simply decides to kill them for this. It certainly makes Mr Freeze into a frightening foe. His visual appearance – revitalised after both Underworld Unleashed and Batman: The Animated Series – is sharper and bulkier, aided by the coldly zombie-like art by Kelley Jones. However, with his plan out of the door, Mr Freeze goes on a simple killing spree, making it easy and predictable for Batman to catch him. It’s good that this story is a one-off, because although it is highly effective and makes Mr Freeze into a great villain, it is pretty typical and simple. Plus, tagging along with Mr Freeze are two rather annoying goons who do nothing of value here. Moench does push the Mayoralty race storyline a bit further here, with James Gordon pulling out of the race, but sadly much of that storyline occurs in the other Bat-titles. Despite its flaws and lack of creativity, Batman 525 perfectly transforms Mr Freeze into one of the darkest and most threatening villains to face the Dark Knight.
Batman 527-528 --- The Face Schism/Schismed Faces
With Kelley Jones’s chilling style of art, it was only natural for Two Face to appear sooner or later. After escaping from Arkham Asylum (by simply walking through the front gates), Two Face heads back to Harvey Dent’s old apartment to reclaim some old documents. The relationship between Batman and Harvey Dent has always been a source of interest for both creators and readers, and here Moench writes a former District Attorney who wasn’t all-too kind before he was half-scarred by acid. Meeting Batman in his early years, Harvey Dent as DA wanted the Dark Knight to by-pass the police and use him as his personal vigilante to deal with criminals which the police didn’t have enough evidence to arrest. Batman refused, believing that the law must be followed. The old documents which Two-Face claimed in the present are that list of criminals he wanted Batman – many years in the past – to go after. This altering of the past is effectively done, especially because it feels like too cliched for Harvey Dent to be Mr Nice-Guy before Boss Maroni threw acid in his face. Moench shows that the inner-darkness within Harvey Dent has always been there, and Two-Face brought it out of him. Batman 527 focuses on Two-Face’s war against Jeminston Lockhart, a circus-owner who killed his uncle to inherit the business. With little evidence at the time, Lockhart escaped justice, but now Two-Face is after him by invading his circus.
Batman 528 takes place entirely in the tents of Lockhart’s Circus. While Moench creates a good and interesting plot with Two-Face attempting to settle old scores, the second part seems to lose all focus of that. We’re presented with a cast of circus characters who really fail to be memorable or really impactful during the story. Perhaps the only characters of interest are Cal and Mal Skinner, two conjoined twins. They – like others in the circus – have been abused by Lockhart, but of course they face a dilemma because they depend on him for work. The story doesn’t really go into this side of affairs much at all, and it feels like the Dark Knight is trapped on a roundabout of meeting characters who do little in the story but only delay the final confrontation with Two-Face. Alongside this padding, it also feels like the relationship between Batman and Two-Face is much more distant in this second part. I admired how Moench added to the lore of Harvey Dent’s past with the Dark Knight, but during Batman 528, Two-Face is treated too much like an average Batman villain. Although Batman 527 kicks off the story with a brilliantly written first part, Batman 528 fails to live up to its promise and leaves this reader with a feeling of averageness.
Batman 530-532 --- The Deadman Connection
Deadman is an ideal character to star in this new dark Gotham City created so magically by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones. However, the Deadman Connection is not a story limited to Gotham. Reminding us of some of the Ra’s Al Ghul Dennis O’Neil tales from two decades prior, Batman 530-532 is a story which takes Batman to Peru on a quest of sorts.
Batman 530 starts in the familiar Gotham scene, but with a bizarre robbery. Incan artifacts are stolen from a pawn shop. Batman comes to the rescue (one of the criminals still believe Batman to be an urban legend. That might work in 1940, not in 1996), but not after one of the criminals commits suicide are shouting “death to the defilers of Amaru.” Meanwhile outside, more robbers appear. One of them is possessed by Deadman, but then quickly killed in panic. Infusing Deadman with more irremovable guilt, the spirit decides to posses the man’s body and walk him to hospital, but it is too late. The man is dead. The paths of Batman and Deadman don’t cross until later in the Batcave, when the Dark Knight investigates the Incan connection and Deadman arrives possessed in the body of the dead thief. This is where some of the humour of this run clearly emerges. Although the overriding theme of this era of the Dark Knight is one of horror and detective cases, Moench laces scenes with subtle but enjoyable comedy. Throughout Batman 530-532, Deadman possesses this body and over time it begins to rot and stench. Often, surrounding characters will comment on this, and a line of entertaining dialogue will follow. Aside from comedy however, this body does have a purpose. Tattooed on the decaying body is a map, pointing to a location in Peru. With Batman and Deadman after the same people, they decide to team-up Brave and the Bold style to investigate. Batman 530 makes for a good introductory part, and it doesn’t get too bogged down in plot or exposition. Moench only gives away snippets of a much larger story.
The Deadman Connection focuses not solely on the Incans and their history, but the abuse of it. Jackson Killeen is the villain of the story, and he is a simple gangster interested only in fame and wealth. He treats the Incans of today in Peru like slaves, not caring for their traditions but using them to deliver him the artifacts for their value and gold. Batman and Deadman arrive in Peru with Batman 531 and their meet Chimu, an old priest who becomes something of their guide.
A native of Peru, he questions Batman’s use of the bat as a symbol of fear. We’re treated to a ‘wall of text’, but that perhaps makes it sound blander than it is. Chimu often speaks in riddles, but his dialogue with Batman is highly interesting. It can range from philosophical discussion of fear and evil to downright comedy. As a gift to Batman, Chimu gives him a flute which can only be heard by bats. In return, the Dark Knight gives him a batarang. “Just what I need,” Chimu responds with sarcasm. Although Batman 531 may be considered padding by some, it’s filled with enough good characterisation and dialogue to make it a good penultimate part to the finale.
Batman 532 leads Batman to the lost city of the Incas, and also Killeen too. Batman, Deadman, and Chimu, help free the Incan slaves to build an army to fight against Killeen. The next thing that happens comes slightly out of the blue – in order to complete this army, Deadman decides that the dead spirits of the Incans must be summoned to repossess their old, mummified bodies. This does come as a surprise, and it’s probably the only aspect of the story I’m not so certain about. It surely makes sense for this story, especially since Deadman is present, but it feels almost like a step too far. Either way, with the spirits and the Incan tribe, Batman and Deadman defeat Killeen and his mercenaries, helped by Chimu and his flute which summons a swarm of bats. It’s a shame there is no burial for Deadman’s host body, especially since his body literally led the way with its tattooed map. That said, Batman 532 makes for a good ending. Moench writes a simple enough premise for The Deadman Connection, but throughout there are wonderful characters and moments which stick out. Moench writes the frosty but trusting relationship between Batman and Deadman just as well as Dennis O’Neil did back in the 1970s, and with memorable faces like Chimu present, there is a great supporting cast. Some may argue that Killeen is a generic villain, but I think that works in his favour. Surrounded by the complexities of tradition, a greedy villain simply interested in money and money only is good. It creates a tension between the villain and those he is trampling on.
Overall, The Deadman Connection has a thrilling sense of adventure and a constant sense of excitement. It can be surprisingly entertaining yet hugely grim at different times. It supplies us with proof of just how well Moench can write characters like Deadman, and just how effectively Kelley Jones can translate them into brilliant visuals.
Batman 535 --- The Ogre and the Ape
For whatever reason, Batman 535 is nearly forty pages long. With so much more room and space for storytelling, Moench writes one of his more miserable and grim inserts in his Batman run. Many of the Dark Knight’s foes are, in some ways, victims. They could be victims to bullying, injuries, or distress which transforms into the insane. But none of these villains endure an origin story so tragic as the Ogre and the Ape.
All around Gotham, the Ogre – this brutish deformed man with great physical strength – and the Ape – his primate ally – kill scientists and doctors who seem to recognise their killers. Living in the shadows, the Ogre and the Ape were test subjects of scientists who wanted to recreate a missing link between evolving an ape and devolving a human being. These scientists thought little about the damage they were doing to the Ogre and the Ape, who come to see one another as brothers. Batman investigates this over the course of the story, and it leads to a brilliant climax where the Dark Knight is confronted by two evils – the Ogre and the Ape, and the last remaining scientist. Moench starts the story obviously displaying the Ogre and the Ape to be the main villains, but over the course of the story as more details are revealed and a fantastically sad relationship is written between the two test subjects, you come to realise quite quickly that the scientists are the real villains. Batman finds this out through Oracle, who is distraught over the treatment of the Ogre and the Ape. Although Batman prevents the Ogre and the Ape from killing the final scientist, tragedy strikes when the Ape throws himself in front of his friend the Ogre to protect him from certain death. After all we have learned this moment is hugely powerful and shocking, and Batman reinforces this feeling by proclaiming the last remaining scientist to be the true ogre here. With its powerful plotting and characters, Batman 535 probably does deserve to be forty pages long, but there are times of over-padding where little of note happens. There is quite a bit of repetition, making it similar to other Moench tales whereby the villain goes on a killing spree and Batman stops it by the third or fourth victim. Moench and Jones do split the story into sixteen bitesize chapters, which I suppose does well to break up the story, but even with more pages it feels somewhat unjustified.
Overall, Batman 535 is a tragic tale in which Moench flawlessly writes the Ogre and the Ape first as villains and then victims. This is the only ever issue they feature in, and that is how it should be. The tragedy of their tale is told here from start to finish, even though the Ogre may outlive the Ape, but this story is a good reminder that things are never black or white.
Kelley Jones’s art remains as stunning as before, but with a new roster of foes for Batman to face, he leaves a memorable and visually stunning impression of each of them. Jones’s redesigned Mr Freeze is an oddly fantastic mixture of the artwork of Bruce Timm and Bernie Wrightson. His impressive armouring and strength are accompanied by a thin zombified figure inside. Two Face is similar, whereby his scarred side appears to be almost rotting. It’s notable how the Ogre and the Ape seem to transform during Batman 535. Their evil and brutish appearance at the start becomes more of a look of suffering by the end. As for Deadman, Jones literally makes him into what he is. He is a skeletal spirit now. It seems that the further away life is from him, the closer to death he looks. Throughout, that gothic appearance is constant, and Batman continues to look like a creature of the night. I do feel that Jones is still in the process of refining his art, however. During Batman 527, when shown flashbacks to the early years of the Dark Knight’s career and his meetings with Harvey Dent, Jones’s impression of David Mazzucchelli leaves a lot to be desired. But that’s mainly because that more subtle style is not what Kelley Jones usually produces. Overall, helped again by John Beatty’s brilliant inks, Kelley Jones brings Moench’s writing darkly to life.
VERDICT
Overall, this is another strong set of stories from Doug Moench and Kelley Jones. Batman 525 must be the best Mr Freeze story in comic books for quite some years, while Two-Face’s two-parter begins well but loses its way during a scarred second half. Meanwhile, The Deadman Connection is quite a meaty story with much to enjoy, while Batman 535 is one of the darkest tales in the run we’ve seen yet. That effective partnership between writer and artist cannot be understated nor underestimated. With stories featuring Deadman, and then characters like the Ogre and the Ape, it continues to be one of the most creative runs in Batman’s long history.
Next Week: TBC
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