Crossing Over To Gotham

Acts of God are quickly becoming hot topics in the mainstream. With Hard Rain making a Deep Impact (snicker), one may wonder where can we go from here? Can there be a loftier level than this? We've seen asteroids, floods, fires, volcanoes, twisters, and the main focus here, the cataclysmic earthquake of Gotham. After this surge of catastrophic events come to pass, will the entertainment industry as a whole have to step back? Find something new? Or simply milk this thing into the new millennium? Wrap me up with a wet noodle and call me crazy, but for those "been there/done that" reasons, I enter this event with mixed emotions.

MASSIVE QUAKE ROCKS GOTHAM

No "Massive Quake" is not a heavy metal band. This was the headline of the Gotham Gazette Extra Edition; a small mock news paper that was distributed to comic shops for its patrons, free of charge, to promote the now current cross-over of the Bat-books.

FROM THE DEN

When Dennis talks, people listen. As Group Editor of the Bat-titles Dennis O’Neil wrote a piece in the back of the recent issues. The following is an excerpt from it...

"About 20 months ago I decreed a moratorium on crossovers in the Batman titles. For at least a year every story would end in the title it began in, none would run more than three issues, and every month we'd give you at least one complete-in-this-issue adventure-those were my promises.
But I added the following paragraph:

So does all this mean that crossovers are forever gone from the Batman line? In a word, no. In fact, I'll be surprised if we never do another one...They’re frustrating, frightening and exhausting, but when they are done, we are always glad we made the effort."

...And so am I. Although this earthquake storyline doesn’t do much for me, (so far) I'm glad that this operation is spearheaded by Mr. O’Neil. As far as I'm concerned, no one can do it better. I love the way he handles these crossovers and like the fact that only special events are crossed-over as opposed to every storyline.

LOOKING BACK

In my opinion the Knightfall/Knightquest/Knightsend trilogy was the mother of all Bat crossovers; the storyline that all the rest will be sized against. In a nutshell, I'd say it was one of the best Bat-stories that I ever had the pleasure to read. This story raised a lot of controversy and divided the Bat-fan community into two groups, those who loved it, and those who hated it. There seemed to be no gray areas in between. The only thing a cynic like me can think of that was missing from the story was Bruce's love-handles. I think being crippled for the length of time he was, unless he changed his diet without us knowing, would have slowed his metabolism down some; leaving a small gain of weight to the mid-section. Wouldn't that have been a hoot? Anyway, this major cross-over gave birth to a novelized version of the story written by none other than master Bat-scribe himself Dennis O’Neil. This book was written so well that, people who don't even read comics or action stories could enjoy. Now this wasn't the first cross-over, simply the best. Other good cross-over storylines that branch out from here include: Prodigal, which has Dick Grayson as Batman. Troika, which brings Bats to even a darker persona. Contagion and Legacy which finally closed up all the loose ends brought about by Knightfall.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Upside: Cataclysm, like Knightfall, promises to leave its effects to be felt for some time to come.

The Downside: Also like Knightfall, where the Bat-crew had to clean up Gotham's escaped Arkham inmates, they now have to clean up Blackgate Prison's. (Same church, different pew!)

CONTEST RESULTS

I'd like to thank everyone who participated in last month's contest, even the few who managed to get the question right. The correct answer to the question, "On what day was Batman: The Mask of Phantasm released to theaters?" is Christmas and/or December 25th. Out of the few with the right answer, the randomly picked winners are as follows...

Grand Prize of Total Armor Batman action figure from the Mask of Phantasm movie goes to Terry Hanks of Texas.

Three Runners-Up who will receive a promo from Batman: The Animated Series, Series Two cards are as follows:

1) James Harvey of Canada
2) Jeff Metzner of Pennsylvania
3) James Houston of New Jersey

Look for the goodies to be arriving soon to your door.

ENDING NOTE

It doesn’t seem that many people are interested in downloading a .WAV file from the Mask of Phantasm Soundtrack so unless something changes I don't think I'll be putting anything else up.

Last chance Link: http://home.earthlink.net/~vwkess/

-Wallace "Wally" Frost

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