Page 4 of my sorely dog-eared 3rd printing of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (TDKR): the bottom panel features a grayed Bruce Wayne walking down a bustling Gotham street, passing a street heckler bearing a sign that reads, 'We are damned.'
The two-page spread near the end of Denny O'Neil's vastly under-appreciated Birth of the Demon: a defeated Detective with the business end of a shovel bleeding into his naked chest.
And that cover. . .you know the one. . .a beaten Batman being dragged by the pecs-impressive, venom-charged Bane. I keep that one 'artist-signed' and under glass.
Depressing? Perhaps.
Memorable? Unquestionable.
As an avid Bat-reader, I'm berated weekly with striking images of Batman vanquishing some foe or triumphing over the some other cowardly, superstitious lot. My images of choice, listed above, stay with me because my psyche rebels against that weekly routine; I seek a reminder that, above all other things, Bats is mortal, human, defeatable. . .an element of the Batman mythos occasionally lost between the detective work and the slugfests. My preferred images showcase his struggle. These images display the consequences of the quest for the Holy Grail. Batman can be tried, tested, tempted, and defeated. . .hopefully all in the same read. He'll still emerge triumphant next week.
But. . .that brings me to why I'm here.
Far be it from me to debate the cultural significance of Frank Miller's TDKR, but not to much further down the road and told within the established continuity there came a Bat-tale that continues, to this day, drilling its way deeper and deeper into my subconscious. If you haven't read it recently or at all, I recommend that you take whatever steps legally necessary to get your hands on it, and don't put it down until you're done. If Miller's TDKR is the Batman's darkest hour, Sam Hamm's Blind Justice (BJ) is Bruce Wayne's.
Released to coincide with Batman's 50th anniversary celebration, Blind Justice tells the story of Bruce Wayne, arguably the more fascinating of the Batman/Bruce personalities and perhaps the true masked identity. A phantom killer is using sound waves to pulverize his victims into human jelly, and, much to surprise of Bruce Wayne, the murders are eventually linked to Wayne Technologies. Therein lies just the first of several unique paradoxes of the story: the man secretly fighting crime has, under his employ at Wayne Enterprises, men actively engaging in it. Symbolically, Bruce finds himself at odds with himself. Laced with greed, deceit, and other serious motivations, BJ twists and turns like any good character study should as identities and secret agendas are gradually uncovered.
BJ also introduces Bruce Wayne to perhaps one of his greatest chances for redemption from the crime-fighting life; Jeannie Bowen is a small town girl who comes to the big city in search of her brother. Eventually, Jeannie finds not only her missing sibling, but also she finds love in Bruce. . .a love that Bruce shuns in favor of serving justice, an act that ultimately destroys Jeannie.
On the downside, BJ also suffers from the affliction plaguing the Bat-films, namely the 'I want you to know that I'm the Batman' Syndrome. Two newcomers are now privy to the what had been regarded as the world's best kept secret (granted, one dies and the other one doesn't really want to live by the end of the story). Also, a series regular character now more than ever suspects Bruce Wayne's secret identity.
Sadly, it's a story that would never be filmed. I can't imagine any studio executive backing a Batman flick where someone else dons the mantle of the bat throughout the tale's crucial action. Bruce Wayne's self-imposed morality even comes into serious question, as BJ makes great strides at showing just how far he will go with his obsession to thwart crime, and I shockingly learned that he would risk innocent lives in the process. Calculated, BJ depicts the depths of Bruce Wayne's commitment. It displays the good, the bad, and the ugly results. It even underscores the question, "Is justice worth all of this?" Could any motion picture studio put money behind a Bat-film wherein the Batman appears less than glamorous? I wouldn't think so.
BJ contains one of the darkest images burned into my memory. . .page 58. . .bottom panel. . .a recovering Bruce Wayne standing atop the staircase that leads to the Batcave. . .standing with the aid of a metal walker. A stark image: a near-crippled Bruce Wayne in a walker looking at the Batcave. I don't believe in all of the comics I've read have a seen a finer depiction of the superhero duality cause-and-effect. . .Bruce Wayne caused the Batcave, and the Batcave crippled Bruce Wayne.
Lastly, I wonder if BJ wasn't an inspiration to Denny O'Neil and company to fashion the epic Knightfall saga. The two works contain many similar elements (love, defeat, a Bane-lookalike, a wheelchair-bound Bruce, and a replacement Batman who suffers from a kind of brainwashing). BJ gives a poetic nod to TDKR by granting Bruce Wayne the chance to experience death as the Batman.
Inevitably, a great read transcends good writing; a great read touches the reader's soul, shakes it and stirs it. I'm certainly no expect on matters other than identifying prose that stirs my own soul, and Blind Justice fits that bill. As a matter of fact, if Blind Justice contains any singular weakness, it might be from the simple fact that the piece contains prose sections which could be removed from the story and stand alone just as effectively without the adjoining artwork. A comic book has been and shall always be intended for a merger of picture and text, but Blind Justice opens with a passage that transcends the images:
"For a man who barely sleeps, dreams are not much of a problem. With sufficient practice, the body can be trained - the muscles relaxed, the heartbeat slowed - so that one hour's sleep does the work of eight. Bruce Wayne is the master of his body. But sometimes, in the last fitful seconds before consciousness returns, his mind revolts. . .and horrors come to light. Old demons reemerge. And Bruce Wayne must once again confront the smiling fiend who has destroyed his life -the fiend he has become. For a moment he is glad to be awake. Then the pain resumes. Three nights ago, in pursuit of a safecracker, he plunged through a glass skylight. The ragged gash on his shoulder still burns. He ignores it. Last week he stopped a getaway car. The fender struck him a glancing blow, and his right hip still throbs from the impact. He ignores it. For almost a month, his nights have been plagued by the same inexplicable dream. He ignores it. Sleep is at best a necessary evil. Bruce Wayne sleeps, and one less crime is thwarted. One less innocent life is saved. In this context, the dream is a meaningless irritation. He does not take long to ponder its significance. His dedication is unstinting. His motives - though some might argue otherwise - are noble. And real life brings nightmares enough."