Detective Comics issue #998-999 by Peter J. Tomasi

I'm once again combining a single review for two issues which are the penultimate and finale. That's mostly because I have less to say about each, and given that my long absence (in spite of the fact I did read and review The Batman Who Laughs last year at least) had kept my writing muscles atrophied when it came to comic books, I want to slowly build my way into budgeting my tim better so I can get used to reading comics once AND ALSO writing reviews. I mean, I still read comics during my three-year hiatus; I just wasn't sharing my insights and thoughts as religiously as I used to do when I created this blog (and two more others for X-Men and Hellblazer).

A recap: Batman stumbled upon a series of crime scenes that featured corpses that imitate murder of his parents from the clothes they wore down to the grisly details like matching gunshot wounds. As he and Commissioner Gordon tried to make sense of this, he gets a call from Dr. Leslie Thompkins who was used as bait by a morphing monstrosity that shot her withthe Joker's laughing has. She expired several minutes later even after an antidote was administered. Alfred, too, got stabbed a moment later when he answered the door. He described his attacker as 'Zorro'. Naturally, Batman deduced it could have been Henry Ducard, one of his former mentors who happened to be a criminal and a master of disguise. The same monstrosity came to kill Ducard, all while wearing the faces of the infamous Rogue's Gallery, every villain that Batman defeated and put in Arkham Asylum--some of whom he recently took his anger on after he lost Leslie and almost Alfred (thankfully Damian, Bruce's son, came around to help). 

By the time Batman encountered another former teacher, Thaddeus Brown (a.k.a Mister Miracle), his suspicions were confirmed that this creature seems to be interested in harming people who had trained him. I, too, was already suspecting something longer before I reached the last two issues. The fifth installment featured Dr. Hugo Strange, Demon Etrigan, and Dr. Silas Stone, and that's why it's such a clunky issue for me overall. The panels are quite busy. Mahnke and co. are working overtime here!

I don't want to get to it because during my first reading, I got lost halfway and even somewhat bored after page after page of fight scenes that sidelined actual storytelling. My second time reading it? I understood it much better but I was also underwhelmed and unimpressed. I suddenly ot flashbacks of PEARL which was the only lackluster arc Tomasi had written in New 52 for B&R. Much like for that, this Mythology storyline was beginning to lose me, which defeats the purpose of a penultimate!

Here's the only bright spot amongst the incoherence: a callback to the Hellbat and its history!

RECOMMENDED: 7/10

The finale was...a bit of a letdown only if you, as a reader, may have already guessed what the heck was going on all along. I may have my suspicions, but I was also hoping they'll be disproved. Sadly, they weren't. Apparently, Bruce subjects himself to a psychological nightmare sequence for EVERY BIRTHDAY of his. And this is what it looks like; his loved ones dying over and over again so he could face the sacrifice he has to make to become the Dark Knight. Really, though. Every. Birthday. And people used to wonder why they cast Robert Pattinson in the role for the latest Bat-flick, when the original emo heartthrob vampire was not Edward Cullen but Bruce Wayne. That scene where he buries young Bruce in order to become Batman was bad enough, but really? EVERY BIRTHDAY, BRUCEY? It doesn't nearly resonate, something I wouldn't expect from Tomasi, but even the seasoned Scott Snyder has his duds (TBWL being the latest one, in my opinion). What I can say about the closing chapter was that it provided us with very great scenes that involved Batman being confronted by his child-self. A tiny Bruce in Batman costume? It's cute and freaky all at once! I also like these particular pages below (and the one at the cemetery which I didn't bother to screenshot. Those were bittersweet panels if not morose).

I don't have anything else to say, really, except that even though the first two issues and the fourth had been great in building up the suspense and giving us some dark camp, the entire Mythology was simply not going to Peter J. Tomasi's finest work. I'm not even excited for the #1000 issue of Detective Comics, but you know, I'll be an optimist. It could get better. It has to!

RECOMMENDED: 7/10

Detective Comics issue #997 by Peter J. Tomasi

Since the last issue wasn't anything worth writing home about, I was glad it was remedied by this one, my most favorite installment of the Mythology arc mainly of two things, which I will discuss henceforth below. But first, let me try and tackle the art first since I don't think I've dwelt on Doug Mahnke's work that much.

I don't want to make unfair comparisons between him and Patrick Gleason, who was Tomasi's partner during the Batman and Robin run for New 52. The styles were so inherently different anyway. Also, what I noticed more for this fourth installment was the great detail in the art , credited to Mahnke and co. And oh boy, were there great scenes that occurred here, and they've been made  visually striking, which is a credit to the main artist for delivering.

To recap: After Batsy's run-in with former mentor Herny Ducard, he began to notice a pattern, which was the fact that someone (or something) had been targeting men and women who acted as his teachers or even surrogate parents much like Leslie and Alfred. Naturally, my mind went to Ra's Al Ghul, so imagine my pleasant surprise when they brought in THADDEUS BROWN instead, also known as MISTER MIRACLE. This is a very obscure piece of fanlore that I only recalled because I'm still in the middle of reading the awesome Mister Miracle (2018) graphic novel which was, coincidentally, written by Tom King himself (Rebirth's writer for the flagship Batman title). I was already eating it up!

When you're a Batman writer, you need to take bigger risks like the Dark Knight, including the misses more than the hits. This, to me, was one of the most awesome hits!

Anyway, his Prime Earth version was said to have "educated a young Bruce Wayne in the art of escape". Hence that glaring cover! To keep up with the parallelism, Tomasi had Batsy and Thads chained underwater and surrounded by sharks. If it wasn't for the serious tone of the entire ordeal, this could have easily been featured in Adam West's Batman 66 show or comic! It was pretty funny as it is gruesome!

All I could think about during this scene was, 'Am I really just reading Batman surrounded by piranhas feasting on sharks and he uses a chunk of the shark meat to slide down the chain fastened around his ankle so that the carnivorous fish can chew around the leather strap? Right before Mister Miracle chewed on that strap too?' which was followed by a bemused, 'Why, yes, I am.'

The second thing that made this issue my favorite was the appearance of that morphing monstrosity (I'm just gonna call him MoMo as my personal shorthand from now on). Unlike in the last issue, it didn't just try to kick Batman's ass, MoMo decided to get even further metaphorical by shapeshifting into the Waynes and the rest of the Bat-family. Because, again, it's fuck-you-Bruce all the day, all night for this particular arc, and I guess that's why it's called Mythology. It revisits what makes Batman himself through a nightmare.

I am rating the highest because it's my favorite of all, so there's nothing objective about that!

RECOMMENDED: 9/10

Detective Comics issue #996 by Peter J. Tomasi

It just wouldn't be Detective Comics without Batman being a detective, and this third installment showcases exactly that. I don't really have anything much to say for this issue because I think of all six, I liked this the least, mostly because after the fast-paced excitement of the first two issues, this one slows down the momentum to set up necessary exposition again. Not that Tomasi didn't try to expidite the process by breezing through a couple pages of Batman, in several disguises, traveling Europe until he finds the man he'd been looking for.

And that man is no other than Henry Ducard.  

Because it's been so long, I barely even recall what more recent confrontation he had with Bruce until 'NoBody' was mentioned. That character was created during the initial run of Tomasi's Batman and Robin where Damian Wayne is the fourth Robin and also Bruce's son. It was definitely a callback that I can appreciate even though that particular wasn't the best Tomasi had to offer back then (that will come later on once he's polished his interpretation of Damian further and built up the father-son relationship more). So, to recap, Henry Ducard, according to online sources, 'is often credited in teaching him both detective/investigation skills and how to hunt enemies. Ducard's relationship with Wayne is often shown as strained, due to him being involved in the criminal underworld'.

Batman thought of him as the primary suspect after he got Damian to come so he can operate on Alfred. Damian is apparently still a pre-teen boy? I thought he at least reached his late teens, but then again Rebirth is like New 52 in a sense that it restarted stuff in canon again, so whatevs. Apparently too, Damian and Bruce aren't in the best of terms lately because of some issue I never got to read about because of my three-year hiatus after 2017, but it doesn't matter. Right now Batman is looking for Ducard because he has the most motive. OR DOES HE?

As if to blatantly disprove this theory, the morphing monstrosity from the first issue comes back, and this time it became a hydra of many heads, only that each head corresponds to the face of the villains Batman has fought in his Rogue's Gallery, including the ones he just beat up in the beginning of this issue. At this point, I'm getting suspicious that this might all be metaphorical. Oh, and it also killed Ducard, and with his dying breath, Ducard was like, "Yo, I'ma die on you out of spite especially cos you killed my son too!" 

That was pretty much it. In comparison to the first two, this was a bland monthly release. Even with the Damian cameo.

RECOMMENDED: 7/10

Detective Comics issue #995 by Peter J. Tomasi

Batman thought that the most haunting call he's gotten tonight was when Commissioner Gordon asked him to check a crime scene where uncannily accurate copycat versions of his parents' corpses were left inside a water tank for display. However, it got worse when a close associate, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, called him while she's under attack by a creature that seemed to be using her as bait to draw him out. Shit hit the fan when she got shot by the Joker's laughing gas. Desperate, Batman calls Alfred so his trusted butler can get the antidote ready by the time he reaches the Wayne Mansion to save the woman who had saved his life as a child long ago. And that's where we pick up for the second issue.

There isn't much that happens to this issue as far as action is concerned. And by action, I meant the usual fodder of Batman kicking ass. We got plenty of that from last issue. However, what makes this installment a compelling one nevertheless was how it tackled Bruce Wayne's relationship with the good doctor herself. While using the trope in which a soon-to-expire character started frantically monologuing as she fights to stay conscious and alive, Leslie tries to reassure the scared little boy she knew so well that's concealed by that mask he wore as the Dark Knight. 

I also thought it was pretty creepy seeing her with 'Joker face' the entire time, wheezing with laughter, all while delivering dramatic statements about how proud she was of Bruce and not just because of his work as Batman. It's downright cruelly ironic in a sense that the woman who became a second mother to Bruce wore the face of his arch-nemesis, the Clown Prince of Crime. I couldn't think of anything more sadly fatal than that. It's like being traumatized all over again.

There was also a beautiful sequence later on that was drawn as a two-paged spread in the issue in which Bruce tries to revive Leslie, and we get fragments of shared memories between them going as far back as his childhood, when Leslie tried to help him mend what could have stayed broken inside the young Bruce forever but didn't, because she came to his life.  This kind of earnest emotional aspect to Tomasi's writing is very familiar to me. It was the reason his 40-issue run for Batman and Robin made me such a huge, raging, bawl-my-eyes-out fan.

Of course, since this is Batman we're talking about here, he hasn't even caught his breath and properly grieve Leslie's passing before Alfred is getting stabbed in another scene after he answered the door to what he believed was supposed to be Commissioner Gordon. But no...it was...Zorro? Because, fuck you, Bruce, that's why. As any Bat-fan knows, the Waynes went to see THE MARK OF ZORRO on the night the parents were gunned down. In and out of comics, Zorro or his archetype did inspire the creation of Batman.

I think the issue's end is the best yet for this arc, which isn't really saying anything. Fueled by grief and rage after losing Leslie and almost losing Alfred, Batman goes to Arkham Asylum to meet his old friends and rehash the past: "I want you all to think this place as like a carnival of funhouse tonight, except the only monster in here with you IS ME."

RECOMMENDED: 8/10

Detective Comics issue #994 by Peter J. Tomasi

I have been a fan of most of Peter J. Tomasi's work, particularly of his New 52 BATMAN AND ROBIN run. Granted, it's been YEARS since I followed the current line-up of DC's REBIRTH save for that seven-issue oneshot Scott Snyder did that wasn't compliant to the canon at the moment. This is why I think it's only right to come back to my readings by selecting the Bat-writer I have the most interest in, a sort of relearning the ropes. 

The thing about Batman comics is that there's an overwhelming amount of shit to read, but like with most long-running series especially in the comics medium, the best thing to do is to pick an era and stick with it. That's what I did with New 52 even if I was solely following Bat-related stories and not the entire DC lineup (unless to contextualize crossover events; but even then I merely just do minimal research). 

I disclose this because reading the first six issues of this MYTHOLOGY arc for Detective Comics meant there were a few head-scratching instances because I cannot recall a certain callback to a previous storyline that had been covered before. However, it's a good thing I have this blog because Tomasi actually pulled from his own canon from BATMAN AND ROBIN that happened to have been influenced by Grant Morrison's BATMAN INCORPORATED events as well. One of these days, I'll read my reviews so I can refresh my memory. In the meantime, let's contend with my initial assessment for the debut issue of Tomasi's Detective Comics arc called 'Mythology'.

Everyone grew up with Batman; the post-millennials may had been the last batch who were aware about the 'mythology' of this superhero, and that knowledge was mostly derived from the DCEU films, if not the Nolan trilogy. So we can all collectively say that Batman's origin story of trauma and trying to cope/rise above it by becoming a vigilante had been done to death already. And that's the task Tomasi decided to tackle here; how do you make something as common knowledge as the recipe for, I don't know, casserole, and mix it up so it can be made fresh for not just new readers who will pick up Detective Comics for the first time ever, but to the devoted fanbase who have close to twenty or more years of reading Batman? The answer, apparently, was something macabre.

(Oh, and it's worth noting that this Bat-title has now been numbered according to how many issues there have been from the beginning of its publication, hence why this is #994. I think it's actually pretty cool. I'm not sure if the flagship titles is doing the same.)

After the pages open to a young Bruce Wayne seeing his parents die then years later he's Batman, gracefully moving across the skyscrapers during patrol night, the next pages cut to Commissioner Gordon and our hero looking at a pair of corpses preserved inside a large water tank. They've been dressed as no other than Thomas and Martha Wayne--except that the uncanny likeness went so much deeper than designer wear and accessories. These victims had even undergone extensive cosmetic surgery, and the bullet wounds they each sustained were an exact match from the original crime scene. Now, who would be cruel enough to do this? (I actually started typing this review of the first issue of the arc already knowing how it ends because I finished Mythology in one sitting yesterday. Usually, I start typing a review after I finish an issue to build up excitement, so you can imagine how much I'm trying not to hint my overall opinion for now until I finished typing all the reviews for the six issues). Whoever it is, I speculated they must have known Batman is Bruce Wayne. This was clearly a theatrical way of explicitly stating such a well-guarded secret. Honestly, any of the Rogue's Gallery would have pulled it off, if they knew who Batman is under the cowl. A few would have such attention to detail, however.

Normally, I'd say I can only imagine what it must have felt like for Bruce (even as Batman) to examine dead bodies that were specifically made to resemble his parents right down to the most dastardly detail of violence. But since I lost my own father two years ago, I know exactly how I would feel if it was me in his situation. I'll be rightfully pissed and vengeful. Losing a parent unexpectedly was bad enough; losing both to a murder you witnessed as a child is a thousand times worse. And now as an adult man dressed as a vigilante trying to make something out of the grief, you find yourself staring at copycat versions of people you love most in the world being paraded as ghoulish attractions? The absolute WORST! Still, that's probably only the cherry of this shit-cake.

Wile still in the middle of putting things together with Gordon, Bat's attention abruptly shifted to a drastic call from one of his secure com lines. The issue reached an action-packed climax in which he's trying tor rescue Dr. Leslie Thompkins, who was his psychiatrist as a child, and one who made such a huge impact in his journey of recovery. She was chased by a...morphing monstrosity that looked generic and yet terrifying all at once. Why did it try to lure Batman using Leslie as bait? Did it have anything to do with the copycat Wayne corpses back at the crime scene? In any case, it was ravenous and seemingly unstoppable. One of the things I like about Doug Mahnke's art so far was that it had the right kind of 'broody' that was definably Batman: dark shadows against surprisingly clean lines even during more kinetic sequences. As far as action goes, the issue delivered well, though nothing groundbreaking, really. 

I thought that the twist at the end with Leslie, as horrible as it had been, was very well done and certainly made me look forward to the next installment. For a monthly release, that's always the goal of a single comic book issue. Exposition and Rising Action were both established for Raze, the first of a six-chapter arc. Like I said, I read all of the issues, so my next reviews may be shorter than usual (or combined, depending on my mood), on account that the middle installments didn't engage me as much.

RECOMMENDED: 8/10