DETECTIVE COMICS/Paul Dini run review thread

[JTStarkiller]

Quick question. Is DC #651 the first OYL Batman comic? Thanks.

EDIT: NM. Figured it out.

 

[JTStarkiller]

EDIT: Double post. Sorry.

 

[Mister J]

Detective Comics 817 is. It starts the 8-part 'Face the Face' arc that crosses over with the Batman title. Batman 651 is Part 2.

 

[kiuju2k]

Yeah its damn good. Batman having a good run oyl.

 

[PhotoJones]

Reposted from the Marvel B/T Thread:

B/T Continued or PhotoJones2 Buys DCU Books....

I'm officially a DCU reader, now. I suppose this post should go in the DC board, but hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves, here. I picked up the first four issues of Paul Dini's run on Detective Comics and here's what I thought, broken down by issue:

Detective Comics #821 - My first thought after reading the first few pages was, "Why didn't I pick this up a year ago?" I've always held Batman: The Animated Series above everything else Batman related. It was, to me, the epitome of Batman and nothing the comics have ever done has come close. Even now, Kevin Conroy's voice is what I hear when I read Batman on the printed page. Bob Hastings will always be Commissioner Gordon and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is the definitve Alfred (with a Michale Caine a close second). I'm sure this is no different then legions of Batman fans out there. That program was just that good. Now there's this. Issue #821 (as most of you all know) is a done in one story about a wannabe criminal mastermind falling victim to the World's Greatest Detective's, um...detective work. Dini gives equal time for Batman and Bruce, with the latter being more of a secret identity then the former. That takes it a little farther then what the animated series delved into, but it's something that's become accepted as the norm. There was one bit of dialogue that threw me and that was the description of Bruce Wayne as a "Gotham's most provocative young billionaire." I haven't kept up with all the Crisis' and retcons and reboots and I don't really intend to, but the Batman I have in my head isn't young. At least, not as young as a statement like that would suggest. I'm imagining early 40's and that line makes me think late 20's. That puts Bruce and Tim closer together in age, and the dynamic between an old man and a young boy is greatly lessened. That, really is my only complaint in an otherwise fantastic Batman comic book. It's so refreshing to read a complete story in a single issue. It definitely brings out an espisodic vibe from the old animated series. The art by J.H. Williams III is phenonemal. It's like the best of both worlds from Cassaday and Jae Lee. Very impressive and a very solid read.

Detective Comics #822 - Another excellent done in one case. I don't know what's exactly happened to the Riddler, but the explanation of a coma and his memory loss of Batman's identity is a good enough to bring me up to speed for this story. I really like this new role for Nigma; a sort of costumed, private investigor is a natural progression for his character. I hope Dini keeps it that way for at least a little while before he inevitably falls back into being a straight up criminal. The interaction between the two "detectives" in this issue was gold, especially the short scene in the Batmobile. Art-wise, Kramer is no where near Williams III's talents, but he's a good mix between Phil Jimenez and Doktor Sleepless' Ivan Rodriguez. The first few Bruce Wayne pages suffered a bit, but he really excels when drawing Batman against a night time, urban setting. It looks like he's the regular artist for the Dini issues and so far they make for a solid team. Again, I'm really digging these single issue stories.

Detective Comics #823 - I thought Batman was a DC character, not Top Cow. Huh. Joe Benitez's bull**** artwork sure fooled me. Of all the artists that must have been available for a fill in, DC went with this guy. Ugh. There's a conversation with me and Corp in one of these threads about T&A in comics and how it's everywhere and how it bothers Corp but not me, because supposedly I'm desensitized to it. I guess not, considering that splash page of a more than half naked Poison Ivy was made me do a double take. I guess after two artistically well done issues, Benitez is going to come as a shock no matter what he's drawing. His Robin is terrible and his Batman is a bad Jim Lee swipe. Thank God I see Kramer's name on the cover to #824. And thankfully, Dini's script is good enough to help ease the pain of Benitez's hackery. Seriously, though, the story is top notch. The first half of the issue has an almost tender quality about it. Ivy's attacked in Arkham and esacpes to go to the GCPD for help where Gordon and Bullock calmly hear her out while Batman offers to take her to back to cave while he can figure things out. It's as if, all things between them aside, these characters have been through a ton together and they seem to really look out for each for other, heroes and villians alike. It's a very weird take on the relationship Batman has with some of his villians and I rather liked it. That's all moot, of course, when Batman finds out why Ivy was attacked, and the status quo for their relationship returns to normal. I haven't mentioned it yet, but Dini's pacing is excellent. In this issue alone, he weaves a mystery involving Ivy, introduces a new villian/creature and wraps it all up by the 22nd page. That's an experienced writer. I'm really wishing I just picked up the remaining back issues instead of ending this with the next issue for today.

Detective Comics #824 - Yep, this a solid, solid comic book. Dini's done in one formula and Kramer's pencils a great combination. Kramer, especially seems even better then before and MUCH better then Benitez's scribbles. I'll certainly be picking up the rest of the back issues and adding this to my pull list. As for the actual issue, it's nice to see the Penguin and Nigma having a go at being legitimate businessmen. It's just going to make the stories that much sweeter when they eventually resort to crime again. Even Batman's pleased, as he returns the stolen money (which was earned by less then noble means in the first place) back to the Penguin with the hopes that that'll help keep his casino/club in business and thus, keeping him away from illegal activities. That's a nice touch. The Lois Lane guest appearance harkened back to the Silver Age with her knowing Bruce's secret and both of them being genuinely pleased to see each other. I have expected Bruce to refer to Clark as a "chum." I don't know how I feel about that. It's not bad per se, it's just different from what I'm used to. Bruce was definitely a lot more personable in this issue then what I've seen in the past and that was a tad unusual. Still, it's nice to know he's got friends; the Zatanna cameo was especially good. And I like that while these are single issue stories, the continuity between them is strong. Nigma's a supporting character in the book, showing up at least for a few moments in the last three issues. I hope it stays that way. Already, his foray into legitimate business is starting to bore him. I can't wait to see what happens with him next.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this book and I thank Corp, Darth and Mister J for answering questions and recommending it. Most of the questions I do have are small and don't impact what's going on in the stories right now. I know about the whole OYL thing, but I'm not familiar as to what exactly went on. From what I gather, most of the heroes went away for a year and now they're back. In Batman's case, Harvey Dent watched over Gotham for him, but it's commented in one of these issues that that didn't turn out quite like Batman had hoped. "Where'd they all go?" is my main question, really. Other than that, I'll be happy to hop aboard the Detective Comics bandwagon and enjoy the DCU.

 

[Mister J]

PJ's actually reading DC stuff?!

Glad you liked what you've seen of Dini's run. The whole thing's been great to me.

 

[PhotoJones]

Crazy, huh?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The deal with DC over the past couple of years started back in Identity Crisis. That series revealed that some members of the Justice League had Zatanna erase the memories of any villains who came too close to learning of heroes' secret identities or harming the people they care about. They did it for years and, unbeknownst to them, parallel universe versions of Superman (from the Earth-2 universe), Lois Lane (also from Earth-2), Superboy (called Superboy Prime), and Alex Luthor (son of his universe's Lex, who was a hero) were watching them from an extra-dimensional haven that they escaped to during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. They judged the post-CoIE heroes unfit to call themselves such and broke free from their haven, intent on setting the post-CoIE heroes aright. In the end, it turned out that the whole thing was just a ruse for Alex Luthor to recreate the post-CoIE Earth in his image, with Superboy Prime as his accomplice. Over the course of their conflict with Alex and Prime, a lot of heroes are forced to take drastic actions and/or re-evaluate themselves. The heroes defeat them, but it shakes a lot of them to their core, especially Superman (who was turned against his friends and eventually loses his powers), Wonder Woman (who had to murder a telepath in order to keep a mind-controlled Superman from killing herself and Batman), and Batman (whose own paranoia and obsessive contingency plans gave Alex Luthor the means to put the life of every superhero on Earth in danger).

So the main three heroes go off to do their own thing for a year--Superman enjoys life as Clark Kent without the pressure of being the world's greatest hero, Wonder Woman heads to Nanda Parbat to find her spiritual center or something, and Batman takes a trip with Nightwing and Robin to reconnect with them and stop being such a dick. This "year without Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman--but not a year without heroes," as DC marketed it, is covered in the series 52. The other comics all just skipped it, which is what One Year Later was. At the end of 52, Booster Gold, his ancestor from the present-day, and Rip Hunter find that Alex Luthor's mucking about with the universe to recreate Earth in his image has resulted in the creation of 52 identical Earths in parallel dimensions to each other. An evolved form of the villain Mister Mind begins to feed on reality itself, however, which results in changes to the 51 other Earths besides New Earth, which is what the mainstream DC universe's Earth is now called.

So that's the basic backstory for the DC universe as a whole up to OYL. I'm gonna stick to Batman-specific stuff now, since that's probably all you really cared about to begin with.

During the year he was away, Batman appointed an ostensibly cured Harvey Dent as the protector of Gotham in his absence. Batman returns to find that there's a string of villain murders with an MO that points to Two-Face's return. Batman confronts Harvey with the evidence and Harvey refuses to outright deny the charges because he's insulted Batman has so little faith in him. Ultimately, more evidence conclusively shows that Harvey wasn't behind the murders, but the damage is done. Harvey's alter-ego returns and, after the blow Batman dealt to his fragile psyche by tacitly accusing him, Harvey lets himself go, intentionally scars himself again, and returns to his Two-Face persona.

Regarding your question about the Riddler: He discovered Batman's identity a few years ago (real time) and secretly assisted Batman's childhood friend Tommy Elliott (now crazy and calling himself "Hush") in masterminding Batman's fall. That was the Hush arc by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee. After that, the Riddler basically fell as far as anyone can fall, being humiliated by Hush, then Poison Ivy, and then winding up a homeless amnesiac. Eventually, his memories return, along with a repressed memory of his father beating him because he believed little Eddie was cheating rather than that he was just ridiculously smart; that flashback forms the basis for the Riddler's odd need to leave clues behind that can ultimately be traced to him--he's still desperately trying to prove his intelligence. Anyway, he then went through this awful metrosexual revamp where his costume consisted of a loose-fitting shirt, slacks, and a giant "?" tattoo. During Infinite Crisis, he got his ass kicked pretty soundly by the Shining Knight and spent most of the 52 year in a coma. When he finally woke up, he started laying the groundwork for his turn to legit private investigator work, which is where you find him at the beginning of Dini's run. I love his new turn as a PI because he's ostensibly a good guy now, but he's still carrying on this little war to prove he's smarter than Batman.

As for Batman's new personable attitude, that's one of the chief changes that Infinite Crisis/52/OYL was supposed to bring to the character. After years of keeping to himself and being so suspicious of everyone around him that he built the Brother I satellite to spy on other heroes and uncover their weaknesses, only for the latter to lead to complete disaster in Infinite Crisis, Bruce is finally opening up some. You can tell in the first OYL arc that he's genuinely fond of Commissioner Gordon and that he appreciates Robin a lot more as a partner than just the kid he keeps around because he insisted on being trained. Between JLA and Superman/Batman, you also get the idea that he and Superman have this weird relationship where they consider each other probably their best friend while still constantly being slightly wary of each other. It's sort of awkward but in a genuine way. With that in mind, his affability with Lois isn't so surprising. He's not gonna win any awards for Most Sensitive Man of the Year, obviously, but he's definitely less of a hard-nosed bastard than he was pre-IC.

 

[PhotoJones]

Wow, thanks, Corp. That answers a LOT. It sounds like Loeb and Lee's Hush arc is worth picking up. I might have to track that down. I think my one remaining question is why did the Big Three go away? I mean, you specified why, but it seems...selfish, I guess. Especially for Superman. Also, who was it that had Zatanna erase the villians' minds?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Eh, Hush wasn't really that great, in my opinion. Remember when Mark Millar wrote Marvel Knights Spider-Man and people decried it for basically being a tour of Spider-Man's rogues gallery with little substance? That's basically what Loeb did with Hush. If you do want to pick it up, though, it comes in a really nice-looking set of two hardcovers and there's a kickass flashback scene with Alan Scott in it.

The Big Three really just went away to reassess themselves in light of the pre-CoIE people's criticisms. It's implied that Superman tacitly agreed with the little faction of the League's mindwipes, since it's pretty much impossible to hide anything from him with all his super-senses. Also, their own connections to each other had been tested with Superman's mind-controlled pwnage of the other two, Wonder Woman's murder of Max Lord (the telepath controlling Supes), which didn't please the totally anti-killing Batman, and Batman's mistrust leading to the Brother I satellite wreaking havoc on Earth's heroes before he finally took it down. There was a point in Infinite Crisis when Batman coldly asks Superman when the last time he really inspired anyone was, giving Superman's ego a blow since he's looked to as the shining example of heroism in the DC universe. He's the guy everyone was supposed to want to be like, but it turned out he was tainted and human, just like everyone else. So, more than anything else, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman had to "find themselves" again. They had to rediscover what it meant for them to be heroes.

In Superman's case, that meant putting aside the life he wishes he could have as Clark Kent, loving husband and noted journalist, and taking up the incomparable responsibility of not only being a superhero, but being the superhero. He consciously shoulders that responsibility at the end of his first OYL arc and accepts that although he didn't ask for it, someone needs to fill that void and the responsibility falls to him because he's the one best suited to doing it. So yeah, it's selfish of him to want a normal life when he's capable of so much more--especially since he eventually learns that his powers may have gone away because of the red sun he exposed himself to in his and the Earth-2 Superman's climactic fight with Superboy Prime in Infinite Crisis, but they stayed away because he subconsciously wanted them to. He redeems himself pretty well by the end of his OYL arc, though. Batman and Superman's OYL arcs were pretty much the only good OYL arcs, to be honest. Batman's was better than Supes', though.

The Justice Leaguers who were present for Zatanna's first mindwipe (on Dr. Light, who'd broken into the JLA satellite and raped Sue Dibny, wife of the Elongated Man) were Hal Jordan (GL), Barry Allen (the Flash), Carter Hall (Hawkman), Ollie Queen (Green Arrow), Dinah Lance (Black Canary), Ray Palmer (the Atom), and of course Zatanna herself. They voted on it with Ollie, Dinah, and Hal voting against and Ray, Carter, and Zatanna voting for, with Barry being the tie-breaker who ultimately votes for (this was shortly after his own nemesis, Professor Zoom, was thought to have killed his wife, Iris). The mindwipes also went beyond just clearing his memory of personal details about the Leaguers; in at least Dr. Light and the Top's cases, Zatanna altered their fundamental personalities to make the former less of a serious threat and more of a goofy rogue for the Teen Titans and the latter an actual superhero.

Even worse, Batman walked in on them during Dr. Light's mindwipe and Zatanna actually mindwiped Bruce to prevent him from exposing them. Bruce's mind is his greatest weapon, however, and he eventually figures out what happened to him years later; this is implied to be the start of his paranoia against metahuman heroes, which culminates in the Brother I satellite. Also, Catwoman is one of the villains they mindwiped, which causes her to question whether her recent activities as the superhero of Gotham's East End are really her own choice after Bruce tells her about the wipe. That plays a role in her choice to eventually murder Black Mask in secret. Everything's all intertwined like that, indicative of how cohesive DC's continuity was at the time (not so much anymore).

 

[PhotoJones]

Thanks again.

So, wouldn't all that feed Bruce's mistrust of Zatanna? I mean, he called her up to get some info on magicians and they chatted like old pals. Or was the her line about owing him a few favors a reference to what she'd done in mindwiping him?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Well, Bruce mostly moved on, but that Detective #823-824 arc brings any lingering feelings of mistrust to a close. I think he called her more because she's his main magical contact than anything else, though. He tries to stay away from magic as much as possible.

 

[PhotoJones]

Cool. Yeah, you guys were spot on about the greatness of Detective Comics. Even the trade dress for the books is awesome. I love the black and white covers with the art deco text. It makes Bianchi look that much better.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, every element of the book captures that art deco feel of the animated series. Even the font for the narrative boxes' lettering.

 

[PhotoJones]

I love it.

 

[Darthphere]

Told you so.

 

[PhotoJones]

Yes, you did.

 

[Not Jake]

I hate Kramer's art, especially his faces. Well, male faces. The nose maybe? I don't know.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm not a huge fan of Kramer myself. He's all right, but I keep wondering how much better Detective would be with a really top-shelf artist on it every month. Hell, if they could manage to get Bruce Timm, they could go ahead and just recreate the cartoon completely.

 

[PhotoJones]

I hate Kramer's art, especially his faces. Well, male faces. The nose maybe? I don't know.

I'm not a huge fan of Kramer myself. He's all right, but I keep wondering how much better Detective would be with a really top-shelf artist on it every month. Hell, if they could manage to get Bruce Timm, they could go ahead and just recreate the cartoon completely.

Like I mentioned in the review for his first issue, I wasn't keen on his first few pages. I do like his Batman a lot better then his Bruce, though. He's one of those solid, unassuming artists that gets the job done.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I really wish Dini could snag a J. H. Williams III or Kubert instead of Morrison.

 

[Mister J]

I'd love to see Dini with Williams III.

 

[PhotoJones]

I really wish Dini could snag a J. H. Williams III or Kubert instead of Morrison.

**** the Kuberts. They've been turning out **** for years. J.H. Williams III, I agree on though. His work is incredible.

 

[Not Jake]

Yeah wasn't that first Dini 'Tec ish with JHW3? It was great.

 

[PhotoJones]

Yep. Then Kramer, who was a bit of a letdown, then Benitez who was horrible, then Kramer again who was a welcome relief.