Batman:
Contagion 1996 (SC TPB) 267 pgs.
Batman:
Contagion 1996 (SC TPB) 267 pgs.
Written by Chuck Dixon and Dennis O'Neil, Alan Grant with
Doug Moench, Christopher Priest. Art by Vince Giarrano, Dick Giordano,
Barry Kitson, Mike Wieringo, Jim Balent, Tommy Lee Edwards, Kelley Jones,
Graham Nolan, Frank Fosco, Matt Haley. Inks by various.
Colours/letters: various. Editors: Dennis O'Neil, et al.
Reprinting: Azrael #15, 16, Batman #529, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #48, 49, Batman Chronicles #4, Catwoman #31, 32, Detective Comics #695, 696, Robin #27, 28 (1995)
Rating: * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
A deadly ebola-like virus achieves epidemic proportions
in Gotham, causing chaos and rioting. Batman and his veritable army of
associates (Robin, Azrael, Catwoman, Nightwing and the Huntress, not to
mention James Gordon & the police, Oracle -- the former Batgirl who
acts as Batman's information/cyber-cowgirl -- and more reluctant allies
like a mercenary named Tracker -- and Catwoman, for that matter -- and
the villainous Poison Ivy) try to control the chaos while also seeking
a cure by tracking down survivors of a previous outbreak in the hope their
blood will provide needed anti-bodies. One of the quests even taking the
characters to Canada.
Who would've thought I'd think a Batman collection was
bad
-- disappointing, sure, medicore, more tthan once, but bad? And this despite
the fact that it's a huge 12 issue storyline, collected at a relatively
modest price as far as TPBs go, and gives you a crash course in the constantly
expanding world of Bat-related spin-off comics.
But the story is thin with whole issues not amounting
to anything. The TPB reprints thumbnails of the comic covers, but it's
hard to guess to what issues they refer, the covers are so generic (though
subsequently I realized they're numbered). It could be argued that that's
a reflection of the blandness of many of the issues themselves.
With this kind of grim, apocalyptic premise, you might
imagine a thriller spiced with human drama, but it's mainly an action piece.
But pointless action. Knowing from the beginning that there are three previous
survivors of an epidemic means the reader knows the first two searches
will end in failure, muting the suspense, particularly when the quests
themselves are not particularly interesting, or cleverly portrayed.
For a twelve issue epic, there's little in the way of
sub-plots or character arcs that should make the thing a complex, rich
read. Gotham is under the control of a sleazy out-going mayor and an incompetent
police commissioner (Gerry Conway should be flattered: ever since his early
'80s run on Batman, where he used a plotline
involving a mayoral race and wrastling for the Police Commissioner's job,
it seems almost every time I've read Batman in the last two decades, there's
some sort of sub-plot involving those elements -- and it's getting old,
folks!) Anyway, the mayor and the commish, supposedly, bungle the crisis...but
we hardly see them at all, or learn in what way, or why, they mishandle
things. With the exception of the heroes, characters aren't developed beyond
the necessities of a given scene.
Even the heroes are sketchily portrayed. There are some
decent scenes between Batman and Gordon, and some between Alfred and Robin,
but other times...not. Gotham is falling to a plague...but does James Gordon
spare a moment to think about his loved ones? Robin contracts the disease,
but Batman barely blinks an eye. In fact Batman is portrayed as blank and
one-dimensional...and even non-existent. For a TPB called Batman: Contagion,
Bats spends a lot of time in the background. But you get little insight
into most of the heroes, anyway. Alfred, who spends much of the saga in
the background, adds some desperately needed humanity in the latter portion
of the storyline -- then plays a prank that's in such unbelievably bad
taste it's impossible to reconcile with the character and smacks of just
bad writing.
Orchestrating a crossover story involving more than one
writer (though Dixon does the lion's share) must be difficult. In the climax
the heroes discover (and this is not a spoiler, friend) discover
the plague was created by a crazed religious order called St. Dumas (a
recurring force in Azrael comics)...but the heroes knew that in the very
first issue!!! And when you learn just why the order unleashed this
plague on Gotham...well, you can be forgiven for throwing the TPB across
the room in disgust. And there's just a lack of plausibility throughout
-- like why only Batman's cronies are seearching for survivors instead of
anyone with real authority? As well, there are technical faux pas
that make you want to buy the staff at DC an atlas for Christmas: Greenland
is not part of Canada, a Torontonian is not an American, and Alaska and
the Yukon are not interchangeable names. Sometimes they seem to know that...sometimes
they don't.
Other qualms arise when you peer beneath the surface text.
A plague sweeps the city, innocents are dying, our heroes speak of saving
Gotham City ("If Gotham dies, they might as well bury me with her," remarks
Gordon)...but they don't seem to care as much about the people who
comprise the city. In Doug Moench's single contribution to the saga, he
has Batman comment: "We can't let death turn lives into (statistical) numbers."
It's a movingly profound comment from the Dark Knight -- too bad Dixon,
Grant and O'Neil hadn't taken it to heart.
A story about a plague could explore issues of paranoia
and prejudice (think of AIDS) but instead, Contagion exploits those
very unsavory attitudes. The plague victims too often are portrayed as
sub-human monsters, to be treated with disgust and horror, not compassion.
What emerges is disturbing. The civilian population is
a mindless mass of instability, falling victim to the plague, or rioting,
with only the superheroes and the police proving their moral fibre. Contrast
that with the closing chapter of the classic Batman:
The Dark Knight Returns, in which Frank Miller portrayed the worst,
yes, but also the best of the common people in a crisis (and it's not like
Miller hasn't had his ethics criticized from time to time). Even the plague
survivors the heroes search for are treated as little more than objects,
or worse, commodities. When one plague survivor is murdered, it takes two
more issues (and Doug Moench again!) to acknowledge that a man was
killed.
Superheroes began as a childish fantasy, then evolved
in the '60s and '70s as an adolescent release, exploiting themes of alienation
and power fantasies -- both subtexts leading pundits to dismiss comics
as juvenile. Yet these '90s comics display a far more disquieting undercurrent,
that of a kind of fascistic wet dream, with the ubermensch of superheroes
and police arrayed against the seething mass, not of super-villains, but
the civilian population. It's a theme that I've commented on in Batman:
The Cult and Legends among others. In
fact, the very cast of comics like Batman have shifted over the years,
dropping civilian supporting players in favour of more and more cops and
costumed heroes.
Other problems arise from the modern editorial attitude
in comics, which is that outsiders are to be discouraged. There's character
stuff that is confusing for the novice. Nowhere would you learn in 12 issues
that Oracle is the Commissioner's daughter. And in one scene, Batman has
inexplicable knowledge of the Penguin's (in a bit part) plan -- inexplicable
if you didn't recognize Batman's alter-ego, "Matches" Malone, in an earlier
Penguin scene. But nowhere is "Matches" identified as such, or as being
a disguised Batman. This contempt for "inexperienced" readers explains
why the comic book audience has imploded so drastically over the years.
There are times when stuff seems to be missing, too, like maybe another
Azrael comic to which the characters refer late in the proceedings.
The art...ah, well, the art. Some of it's good (Matt Haley
on a 10 page Huntress story), some of it's O.K. (Nolan, the Balent/Giordano
combo), and a lot of it struck me, personally, as just Godawful. There's
a lot of use of "Image"-style splash pages and big panels, often for no
dramatic purpose, and artists who studied anatomy by watching Saturday
morning cartoons, and other artists that are so stylized you can't even
tell exactly what's going on. Admittedly, art is a subjective taste, but
aesthetically a lot of it left me cold.
Ultimately Batman: Contagion picks up a little
in the second half (though that may've just been because I had lowered
my expectations by that point), but it's comic booky in all the wrong ways:
glib and superficial and kind of dumb and silly. The plot is blah, the
characters unrealized, and the ideology disquieting. Still, I emerged with
a new respect for Doug Moench (I guy I never much liked as a Batman writer),
so maybe it wasn't a complete loss.
A few years later Batman comics re-explored the same theme
with an epic storyline where Gotham is wrecked by an earthquake and anarchy
ensues. Maybe they learned from Contagion's shortcomings and the Cataclysm/No
Man's Land epic is better. Personally, though, I'm disinclined to give
that second storyline a try after this.
Cover price: $17.95 CDN./$12.95 USA
Batman: The Cult 1991 (SC TPB), 208 pages.
Written by Jim Starlin. Illustrated by Berni Wrightson.
Painted by Bill Wray.
Letters: John Constanza. Editor:
Denny O'Neil.
Reprinting: Batman: The Cult #1-4 (1988 prestige format mini-series)
Rating: * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Recommended for Mature Readers
Batman is tortured and temporarily brainwashed by the
Deacon Blackfire, who's assembling homeless people into an army of brutal
vigilantes. Batman joins with this cult, but manages to shake off the brainwashing
and escape. But he remains broken inside and scared of the Deacon, allowing
the Deacon's army to literally take over Gotham City. Eventually, though,
Batman must rally his courage and, with Robin (then Jason Todd), bring
down the Deacon Blackfire.
The Cult is probably intended as a horror story,
more than adventure, and is quite probably the bloodiest Batman story I've
ever read, not to mention the grimiest with much of the action taking place
in fetid sewers. Unfortunately, too much gore can be...too much. After
you've seen the umpteenth image of stacked corpses, the story quickly loses
its ability to shock.
The first chapter is intriguing as we wonder just who
-- or what -- the apparently immortal Deeacon is and what are his goals.
It's atmospheric in a dark, grim sort of way. Jim Starlin and Berni Wrightson
use interesting techniques to portray Batman's drug-induced disorientation.
The character-stuff with Batman is decently handled (though has a major
misstep in implying Batman kills a man while under the Deacon's sway, yet
not having this factor into his later self-recrimination).
But Starlin falls into the lazy trap of concocting a story
geared around the stretched-out action scenes, rather than posing questions
about the plot or the characters. By chapter two he's exhausted his twists
and surprises so that, by the climax, I was actually kind of bored by the
lack of plot and characterization.
The socio-political stuff is poorly handled. There are
vague comments on religious fanaticism, but nothing insightful. The idea
of the Deacon becoming a rallying point for the homeless and disenfranchised
is unconvincingly handled: he offers nothing other than his war on crime.
Jim Starlin, like a lot of comic writers, seems to forget that, in the
real world, there are other things that fuel people's fears: hunger, unemployment,
etc. Nor is there any sincere attempt to portray the Deacon's flock of
homeless people as anything other than grotesque bad guys.
The idea that some Gothamites rally around the bloody
Deacon could've been an intriguing, and disturbing, comment on society...but,
likewise, never seems penetrating.
That's assuming all this is even sincere. The story ostensibly
decries the fascist Deacon, but the heroes are all gun-totting, non-accountable
figures themselves (the police, the army, even Batman himself is outfitted
with heavy -- albeit largely non-lethal -- artillery for the climax), while
the public, and democratically elected politicians, are treated with utter
scorn and contempt.
There are other, less profound, weaknesses. The Deacon
himself fails to be intimidating -- in fact, he seems like a bit of a dork
-- nor does his character seem to evolvee logically. There are weird plot
lapses, too, like a scene where a cop volunteers to go undercover in the
Deacon's group...but then disappears entirely from the story, or the fact
that the Deacon seems to have one major henchman throughout the story,
but then suddenly he has three in the climax. Berni Wrightson's art is
fine for the grittiness, and the "real" people, but is actually a little
silly when depicting the "super" guys -- Robin, in particular, needs to
lay off the steroids before he explodes.
In the end, The Cult seems heavily influenced by
Batman:
The Dark Knight Returns. Published just a couple of years after The
Dark Knight Returns, this was clearly intended as a sort of follow
up, at least format-wise -- a four issue, prestige format mini-series,
aimed at "mature readers". It even borrows Frank Miller's technique of
"talking head" TV commentaries, and the use of repetitive images, but badly
abuses both techniques. When whole pages are made up of the same image
over and over, it's not clear if we're looking at Art...or laziness. More
to the point, The Cult bears more than a passing similarity to "The
Dark Knight Triumphant" (the 2nd chapter of
Batman: The Dark Knight).
To be fair, The Cult attempts a more penetrating examination of
Batman's reaction to being, initially, beaten, but overall, Jim Starlin
and Berni Wrightson take 184 pages to do what Frank Miller did in only
46, and did much better.
This is a review of the version serialized in the Batman:
The Cult mini-series.
Original cover price: $17.95 CDN./__ USA
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