The Super Blog Team-Up Post that Wasn't, and Bar the Doors

Doug: The Dreaded Deadline Doom. Creator changes. Cancelled titles. New directions for your favorite teams, heroes, and books.

Doug: All of those things have conspired in the past to give us a "Wait, what?!?" feeling. Those stopping by today for the promised second BAB entry in this summer's Super Blog Team-Up extravaganza may be wondering where it is. In the big picture, the SBTU group decided to postpone the event to mid-August. Several bloggers who will participate found that today was not going to work for them, so in the interest of quality a later date has been agreed upon.

Doug: Truth from this corner, however, is the post didn't get written. And it won't be written. The conspiracies against us in the present include time, family, vacations, and other general pursuits... but the bottom line is that we don't have a post for you today, nor will we for the foreseeable future. And lest anyone read into these comments, there are no troubles in BAB-land; Karen and I correspond as we have for the past dozen or so years, if a bit more infrequently now.

Doug: What we'd hoped to bring you was a review of the Paul Dini/Alex Ross treasury JLA: Liberty and Justice. If you've been around these parts for some time, you'll recall that we've reviewed the Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel books in that wonderful series. It was always our hope to finish the run by reviewing the Wonder Woman and JLA volumes. Sadly, we didn't get round to them.

Doug: While it was a lot of fun to be "back" in May, today's post is also our last, at least until some undetermined future notice. The Bronze Age Babies are going back into retirement. So while we'd love to say we'll see you tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel, we can't. But... never say never.

You all take care!

Be sure to stay up-to-date with Karen and her collaborators Larry & Bob on the Planet 8 podcast, 

and check in daily with Martinex1 and Redartz over at Back in the Bronze Age.

Send In the Clowns - Batman: Mad Love

The Batman Adventures: Mad Love (February 1994)
"Mad Love"
Paul Dini-Bruce Timm

Doug: No, we're not trying to milk any traffic from the Suicide Squad flick that releases toward the end of the summer. Shoot - I'm not even going to see it (I can't speak for Karen, though). Rather, we're here today because this is one of those Batman stories that often turns up on Bat-fans' favorite stories lists. I'd say it rests within my list, which has never been formerly compiled, I should add. But this is a good one, and for those among our readers who hold Batman: The Animated Series in high regard, it will be a trip down memory lane. Paul Dini has been praised on this space before for his collaborations with Alex Ross on the oversized DC storybooks of the 1990s; Bruce Timm provided the art on the very-fun Avengers 1 1/2 that many enjoyed. But these guys made their "claim to fame" by crafting the Batman cartoon, one of the very high points of comics-related material in that decade. Today's comic, if you've never read it, is a PG-13 story from Earth-BTAS.

Doug: Back in the early 1990s I had a recurring recording set on the VCR for Batman: The Animated Series. When our first son was an infant and on into his toddler years, it was a little easier to find time to watch my tapes. I'm pretty certain that I've seen every episode from the show's first few seasons. But when it evolved to The Adventures of Batman and Robin and beyond, it became more difficult to make the time. I really can't think of any clunkers in the inventory -- BTAS was consistently great. So later on I gave the four-color The Batman Adventures a try, and found it to be one of the best Batman books available at the time. Collecting the trade paperbacks from that series is on my "to do" list, primarily due to the timelessness of the stories told without the weight of continuity and "trendiness". To the book at hand, I don't believe I'd heard any publicity ahead of the release; but when I saw this square-bound beauty on the shelf at my LCS, I knew it was going home with me. Shall we check out a 100-Word Review of the plot?

Batman barely saves Commissioner Gordon from death in the dentist chair at the hands of the Joker and Harley Quinn. But in the melee the Joker finds out that Harley had left a joke as a clue; he neither found it funny nor appropriate that he hadn’t been the one to make it. Woven among vignettes of Harley’s origin, we watch her scheme against the Batman in an effort to win the Joker’s heart. We learn that she has truly given herself to the notion of being “Mrs. Joker”. Of course the plot fails and the Joker di-… does he?

The Good: Right from the beginning, the tagline atop the cover of this book just cracks me up: "Psychotic Mass-Murdering Clowns and the Women Who Love Them". And while that would make for a clunky title as compared to "Mad Love", it truly is the gist of the story. Sure, Batman and the Joker are the main attractions here, but this is really a tale of Harley's "mad love" for the Clown Prince of Crime. And what a Joker this is. Many have felt that the Joker of "Hunt the Dark Knight", Arkham Asylum or The Killing Joke is the most over-the-top DC has presented. I'd argue that despite being presented in the animated style, this Joker is as maniacal and unpredictable as Heath Ledger's turn in the film The Dark Knight. I recall feeling very uneasy whenever the Joker was on screen during that movie. Although not the same sense here due to the different medium, in retrospect this Joker is every bit as impulsive, violent, egocentric, etc., etc. as anything Ledger showed us.

The plot and script of this story are very well done. The pacing is perfect, and every scene either fills in some backstory (in the case of Harley's origin) or moves the "present" along toward the climax. Nothing is wasted in terms of page count or my time as a resource. I mentioned above that this is a bit racier than the stories we'd find in the regular four-color series about the animated world. The violence is ramped up, as is the sexual tension. Harley spends a fare amount of page time in nothing but a red teddy; however, it is inferred that although she chases the Joker for physical love he seems disinterested. As to the violence, as one might assume a fair degree of explosions, gunplay, and so on. You'd be right. There are also a few scenes that would definitely qualify as domestic violence, the whimsical style of the art aside. I thought about shifting that aspect of the plot down to "The Bad", but as it's important to the characterization of both the Joker and Harley I left it here. It fits.

While the themes are adult, the story is still told like a cartoon. Yes, it's violence is off the charts, but even that is so ridiculous that you really do feel like you're watching an old Looney Tunes. It's not good at all when the Joker knocks Harley out a 5th-floor window, and her landing is hard... but to the point where you expected to see an exaggerated "Splaaaat!!" Tastefully, it isn't that.

Lastly, it was nice to see a Batman story where he is a) solo and b) heroic. There is no line-crossing here, no gray area. This is the Batman we grew up with. Sure, he's slightly darker due to the tone of the story -- even here you can feel the impact of the works of Frank Miller and Tim Burton. But it's done better, taking the good aspects of the latter-day Batman mythos and combining it with the Bronze Age Batman of O'Neil, Adams, Englehart, Rogers, etc. And the ending is just right.

The Bad: As I said, the domestic violence aspect is something to be wary of. But then again, the overall violence level in this story would make me keep it out of the hands of a child. This isn't a "roll it in your back pocket and get on your bike" sort of comic book.

The Ugly: I guess I am hesitant to review comics where I'd really fill up this section. I find myself often leaving this blank. In fact, I'm basically typing this text so it won't be blank! But truly, there were no plot points that irked me, no blatant mischaracterizations, or anything overtly offensive about this book. You couldn't say it was "good, clean fun", but you could say it was fun.

"Mad Love" has been reprinted a few times, so it's not too difficult to find a copy if you've not previously read it. Again, like the Batman Adventures series, if you're a fan of classic Batman stories you will not be disappointed. If for some reason you're put off by the art style, I believe you'll put that behind you very shortly -- the stories are that good.

Shazam: Power of Hope, Part Two

Shazam: Power of Hope (November 2000)
Paul Dini-Alex Ross

Karen: We're back with part two of our review of this story.When we left off, Captain Marvel had been entertaining some ill children at a hospital with tales of his adventures. While at the hospital, he learns of a young girl who has had an accident and lost her sight. A doctor tells Cap that the girl's vision might be restored by a specialist in Japan with the skill to perform a complicated operation, but the girl cannot make the long trip. Cap decides to bring the doctor to her and in no time he is in Tokyo, where he locates the surgeon. He convinces the doctor he can get him there and back quickly. He puts the doc in a car and tells him to bundle up -and run the heater. You see, in order to get there as quickly as possible, Cap is going to fly them over the North Pole! He grabs the car and hoists it over him and off they go.

Doug:  Last week I alluded to my sense that the adventures of Captain Marvel always seemed to have a somewhat juvenile air about them, and that I'd even considered them beneath me.  But you know what?  I find that when I read this story I just totally suspend all disbelief, and take this for what it is -- and it's really, really fun!  For whatever reason, I don't look at this character or story through the same lens that I would a Superman or Batman tale.  And that's fine.

Karen: After he drops the doctor at the hospital, Cap begins taking the kids out to grant their wishes. Ross draws a two-page spread showing the Captain flying over the city, carrying the children with him, so they can experience the thrill of flight. In another section of the pages, he takes them to a zoo to get up close with a jaguar. And then he carries them under the ocean in a glass sphere so they can see the teeming life beneath its surface. He reflects that although he has done all of these things many times himself, doing them with the children and seeing the wonder on their faces makes it feel new again.

Doug:  My kind words above notwithstanding, I was unable to shake my reservations at these scenes of the Captain and the kids doing all of these risky things.  Yes, I know he's the World's Mightiest Mortal, and that he could probably save each and every child from whatever danger presented itself, but I still had a certain degree of parental uneasiness about these pages.  On the other hand, it was a wonderful display of one super person being able to be a one-man Make-A-Wish Foundation for these afflicted children, and that was heartwarming.

 

Karen: Considering what happens next, I think your concerns are well-founded! Next up is a trip to a national park. The kids pile into a van and Cap lifts them up and flies them over the countryside. It really is a breath-taking view, with beautiful green pine forests and a bright blue lake. Suddenly the placid flight is shattered by the sound of an explosion. Cap looks around and sees a rockslide and cracks in the near-by dam. He sets the van down away from the rockslide and quickly piles up boulders to slow the leak from the dam. Then there is another explosion, and when he investigates, Cap finds men trying to blast open a closed mine. He realizes the men are trying to illegally re-open the mine to get ore. Cap's appearance startles the men. He gives them a chance to surrender, and is answered with a shotgun blast to the chest, and then a bulldozer tries to run him down. Cap easily handles both, but one of the men sets off another explosion, and this one causes a massive rockslide on top of the looters. Cap manages to get them to safety, but the dam has completely sprung. He realizes the kids are right in the path of the surging water! He flies quickly to the van, which is already being carried down a newly-created stream, and grabs it and carries it away, just before it is about to plunge over a cliff. Placing the van on top of a mountain road to check on the kids, Cap mentally berates himself for not doing a better job. The kids are probably terrified. He opens the van doors and finds his young charges are thrilled -this is the most fun they've ever had!

Doug:  Well, back to me being a wet blanket.  I don't want to declare Paul Dini's script predictable, but I saw this one coming a mile away.  And I didn't like it when Cap set the van down, and I certainly didn't like it when I knew the dam was going to break.  I loved the thrill Captain Marvel was able to bring to these children, but it's sort of like being asked to go on a ridealong with a cop.  If the cop's nightly duties are working security at a high school basketball game, that's one thing.  However, if his patrol that night is through the roughest part of town in the middle of a hot, irritable summer, it's quite another.  Maybe I'm overthinking this -- of course Captain Marvel didn't know ahead of time that he was going to encounter the blasts, etc. And no, I haven't tried to shield my sons from all of life's travails.  I just thought these children were pretty defenseless in the event something did go wrong -- and when it did go wrong...

Doug:  What did you think of the way Ross drew the Captain when he was telling the miners that enough was enough?  That was a menacing countenance on our hero!  To be honest, and again this may speak to my limited experience with the character, it almost seemed out of character.  Totally in-character, however, were Marvel's facial expressions in this vignette; Ross knocks it out of the park on more than one panel. 

 

Karen: Oh, I would agree, the different expressions Ross imbues the character with are a highlight of the book. And my experience with the Captain is about as limited as yours, but my impression is that he is 'quick to wrath,' in an almost Biblical, eye-for-an-eye sense. Sort of a rough justice, I suppose, or Old Testament version anyway.

Karen: Back at the hospital, the kids excitedly relay their story to everyone, and Cap tells the young female doctor  in charge that if she thinks his presence is having a stressful effect on the children, he'll leave. Dr. Miller ("call me Ellen") says not to be silly -his time with the children might be the best medicine of all. She even gives him a little kiss, and that leaves the good Captain speechless. But only momentarily. Cap then asks about the boy he saw when he first arrived (back in part one of our review) who was playing catch by himself, and took off when Cap showed up. Cap suspects that this is the child Shazam told him about, the one who will look to Captain Marvel for hope. Ellen tells Cap that the boy's name is Bobby and he's been withdrawn since he arrived at the hospital. Bobby suffered a bad fall down his basement stairs -or at least, that's the story his father told the doctors. Cap tries to talk to him, but the big hero clearly intimidates the boy. Marvel -perhaps utilizing that wisdom of Solomon for once? - intuits that his imposing frame reminds Bobby of someone big who hurt him. He checks the boy's injuries and can tell they were not the result of a fall, but deliberately inflicted. He decides to try a different approach: stepping into a room, Cap disappears, and Billy Batson emerges. Bobby and Billy discuss baseball, a common interest, and soon, Bobby opens up, just a little. It's enough for Billy to be positive about the source of Bobby's injuries. He heads over to Bobby's house.

Doug:  So let's see...  Captain Marvel has to report to one of the head honchos at the children's hospital that he placed the children in front of a jaguar, flew at high rates of speed with no security harnesses, and rescued them from a locked van that was about to go over a waterfall.  Honestly, I can't see any lawsuits coming out of that.  

Doug:  I have another question for our regular Captain Marvel fans.  And no, I'm not playing dumb here for conversation -- I honestly don't know: Who is Captain Marvel?  Is he a being in and of himself, or is he more of an aura, or some sort of ethereal entity that must have a host such as Billy Batson to manifest a physical form?  I know this isn't the same situation as Marvel's Rick Jones/Mar-Vell dichotomy.  How does it work?

Karen: Yeah, I've kind of wondered that. It seems like there is a lot of Billy in the Captain. I never got the impression the Captain was a separate being but some sort of extension of Billy. But I don't really know, and I'm not sure if it was ever explained, or just suggested.

Doug:  We've remarked in each of our two previous reviews of books in this Dini/Ross series how humanistic these stories are.  While this one certainly has been up to this point, it really reaches full speed once the Captain approaches Bobby.  The switch from Captain Marvel to Billy Batson is a stroke of genius and brings the story to where it belongs.  No heroes, no super powers -- just Billy Batson wanting to confront a major social problem at its base level.  But this scene also brings one more question:  does the thunder and lightning only come when Billy changes to Marvel?  Because this switch from Marvel to Billy brings only a small puff of smoke. 

Karen: Billy reaches Bobby's house and his father, Mr. Bronsky, opens the door. Bronsky is a somewhat stereotypical view of what we expect of a child-abuser: a beefy guy in a tank top. When Billy tries to talk to him, Bronsky says he should mind his own business and slams the door in his face. The next time Billy knocks, it is much louder. Bronsky opens the door, baseball bat in hand, saying now he's going to get tough, but who should be standing there but a very stern-looking Captain Marvel. He grabs the bat and tosses it away, telling Bronsky he'll give him a chance to do right by Bobby, but if he ever hurts him again, he'll be back. So far I've really enjoyed this book but this was a big mis-step for me. Now Doug and I have already discussed our misgivings over this behind the scenes, but I'll let my partner elucidate, because he does it so well.

Doug:  Marvel didn't just toss that bat out of the way -- I think it landed in the next county!  If this was a tale of Daredevil, we know that somehow Bobby Bronsky's case would have landed in court where the DA would have convicted Bobby's father of child abuse.  But here the solution seems to come much too quickly, and is any justice really meted out?  As Karen says, this seems to show us that answering intimidation and violence in kind is an appropriate (and successful) response.  I don't think there are statistics anywhere that would support this notion.  And while the title of this story is aptly named "The Power of Hope", there is no one reading this who could possibly hope to solve the day's problems with the assistance of a superhero.  Dini and Ross seem to suggest that Bronsky is suddenly cured of whatever inclinations he has toward domestic violence.  It would be great if this is all it took.  What was Bronsky's deal?  Why does he behave this way?  Is he chronically unemployed, or an alcoholic?  Was he abused as a boy?  Is there a Mrs. Bronsky facing similar circumstances?  Is Bobby an only child?  As Karen said, we discussed this briefly via email and these concerns ran along the lines of our prior conversation.

 

Karen: I was thinking, they could have skipped the whole dam sequence and really built more of the story around this, delving a little more deeply into the situation. It just comes across as very poorly handled. When Marvel gets back to the hospital, he visits the children's intensive care ward and he spends time with them. While there, he becomes aware of how his special dual identity allows him to connect with the children - they recognize his child-like nature, despite his outward appearance. He sits by the bedside of a small girl who is dying and holds her hand. She smiles and they speak to each other, and she slowly passes away. Marvel knows, despite his great power, there are some lives he cannot save. This sequence is particularly touching.

Doug:  It is extremely touching, and full of dignity.  I was very pleased that in this scene it's not just the Captain at the bedsides of these terminally-ill kids, but their families are shown as well.

 

Karen: As the weekend comes to a close, Cap flies back to the Rock of Eternity, still feeling a bit troubled. The wizard asks him about how things went with the children. Cap struggles -he's not sure. He's glad he was able to make many of them happy but he feels bad that he could not help them all. Shazam reminds him that not even Captain Marvel can win every battle. Cap says that doesn't mean he'll stop trying - he wants to always fight for those who need him, those who are in despair.  The wizard nods and agrees, saying that Cap has given them hope. "It is a good and powerful force, one that I feared someone young and dear to me was losing. Have you not yet realized who?" Cap now realizes that the youth who was most in need of hope was himself -Billy! Shazam continues, saying that the responsibilities placed upon him are heavy ones and that by expressing kindness towards the children, they rekindled the hope in Cap's/Billy's heart. Shazam praises his protege for his selflessness.

Doug:  When there have been philosophical moments in these stories, they've been handled very well.  Each of the three books has been rife with proverbs and other bits of wisdom.  Dini's scripts for the most part have been outstanding!

 

Karen: Captain Marvel bursts out of the Rock of Eternity in pure jubilance (and quite an amazing painting by Ross). His heart is light again. Soon, we see Billy going over to a recovered Bobby's house, to play catch with him. Friendship is another gift that heals the human soul.

Image found at https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnLj0HqrK9rFxe9K-KkFKI-rgE2wE28hxkLoG4LC7swFLO6Gxu2BYVP95sIBizvabU9TwlRsVA-0OxLP9gEIsvkhaRrNYk7hp-zmnkKIzBHbQhEDvIsgLYdrMxXCQ5ISw9G9udP4rHplo/s640/Hero-Envy+Captain_Marvel_007.jpg

Karen: Another spectacular and heart-warming book, although I did feel the child-abuse angle was misplayed, surprisingly, by Dini and Ross here. But ignoring that, it really is quite gorgeous and well worth the time to read. Captain Marvel is distinctly different from Superman - after reading this, you'd never compare the two characters again, except power-wise.

Doug:  I agree with your summation.  I know that Alex Ross is a huge Captain Marvel fan, and his love for the character shines through these paintings.  This truly is a gorgeous book, and each of these stories have been wonderful all-ages reads.  And if memory serves, the Wonder Woman book, "Spirit of Truth" is no different.  But you'll have to wait 11 months to read our thoughts on that one...

Shazam: Power of Hope, Part One

Shazam: Power of Hope (November 2000)
Paul Dini-Alex Ross

NOTE:  As I've said in the past, some of the images in today's post may seem to have been cropped in a strange manner.  Chalk it up to my desktop scanner and the mammoth size of this book.  You have my apologies.  -- Doug

Doug:  I'm going to say it right from the top -- I know a lot of folks have had a long love affair with Captain Marvel, but I am about as close to a tabula rasa as it gets.  Sure, I watched the Shazam! Saturday morning show off and on, but I don't know that I've ever read a Captain Marvel comic before I bought this one 13 years ago.  Oh, I know the backstory and the cast of supporting characters, but I just couldn't say I'm a fan.  I do not dislike the character, although I'll say that I always felt he was too "juvenile" for me.  You know, I'm a big deal...

Karen: I'm in the same boat. I knew of the character primarily from the TV show, and had seen him in a few comics, notably Justice League #137, as a youngster. Later on, I read the character as written by Geoff Johns in Justice Society and developed something of an appreciation for him. And of course, there was the rather disturbing version of Captain Marvel from Kingdom Come. But that was it. Even today, if you say 'Captain Marvel,' a certain Kree-born hero is more likely to pop into my head first. I really only took notice of the character in the last few years because my husband loves him!

Doug:  I liked this story when I read it a long time ago, and I got that warm fuzzy again on the re-read the week before Thanksgiving.  It's quite a bit lighter than the Superman and Batman books in this series, and maybe that speaks to the prejudice I have that I noted just above.  But it works for the topic and the character.  I'll speak to a few of my misgivings when we get to the end of the story.

Karen: It seems that Captain Marvel should be lighter in tone -he just seems from a different era than the rest of the characters in these books. I think in many ways DC has always struggled to incorporate the Marvel Family into their universe. Their latest attempts with the New 52 -which I admit I am not reading -seem like yet another effort to drain all of the lightness out of the concept.

Doug:  Count me ignorant of the New 52 as well.  And I'd add that even though this story is set in a children's hospital and later deals with another serious topic, it does manage to stay light.  The "power of hope", I guess.

This scan courtesy of http://dailysplashpage.blogspot.com/2011/06/cap-volcano.html

Doug:  We open on a tropical island, where a volcano is erupting, but a city in high danger.  The World's Mightiest Mortal is on the scene, and with a plan that only Superman could execute (hey, this copycat stuff sounds like grounds for a lawsuit!), not only rechannels the lava but is able to plug the top of the mountain with a boulder the size of Rhode Island.  The two-page spread is wonderful.  You know, lately we've criticized Alex Ross's choice of monochromatic color palettes, but this story is so bright and breezy all the way through -- again, the art seems wholly appropriate to the character.  After saving the city, we get a montage of Marvel doing all of the things he does best.  It's a nice opportunity for Ross to cut loose with his photo-realism.  I love the humanism of this book -- I think the facial expressions Ross grafts to Captain Marvel are the highlight to me.  And yes, Fred MacMurray is in the house!

Karen: The depiction of Cap in the lava pounding on the rock really conveyed his godlike nature, as did his throwing the boulder into the cone. Yet he emerges from this all with nary a smudge! Again, godlike. The spread is indeed beautiful as we take in Cap over the broad expanse of land and ocean below. Immediately Dini and Ross establish Cap's credentials, as a being right up there with Superman in stature. The montage was fun, and being a fan of all things ape, I enjoyed seeing him subdue the gorilla. I agree with you regarding the facial expressions Ross gives Cap - look at these in contrast to how he depicts Superman. Cap always seems to be having fun when he commits his feats, basically showing off and messing around with the criminals he captures. Superman is all business. We can chalk it up to the Billy side of the persona.

Doug:  A gorilla then, Miss Karen -- just for you!

Doug:  As we get a few pages into the tale, we realize that Marvel's adventures are being narrated by Billy Batson, youthful radio host of his own show.  Batson signs off, and thinks about how busy he's been -- work at the radio station, doing the research for his broadcasts, going to school, and oh yeah -- being a superhero.  It's a bit of a pity party, and as Billy looks forward to heading home or better yet -- to a baseball game on the station's free tix.  But the assistant GM stops Billy on his way out and explains that the station has been getting a ton of mail -- we're talking the size of a Santa Claus sack -- addressed to Captain Marvel.  She says that the staff is going to split it up and write answers to the children, as if they were Captain Marvel.  Billy sighs... This isn't what he had in mind.  He thinks to himself that this is a job for his alter ego, then lets us in on a secret:  The only time he "abused" the privilege of being the Captain was when he acted as his own "dad" in order to sign the lease on his apartment.  That's perfect!  It gets to the core of being a superhero, and the whole "with great power must also come great responsibility" philosophy.  One should not abuse their gifts.

Karen: They've gone with a slightly older Billy, and it's a good idea. You can see Billy enjoys talking about his alter ego's adventures, almost to the point of bragging -it's a bit egotistical. On the other hand, Billy doesn't seem to have much of a personal life beyond the station and his duties as Cap. A heavy load indeed. 

Doug:  Ross does a fantastic job on the details of Billy's apartment.  The baseball-themed bobbleheads are great, and the drafting table is probably pretty similar to Ross's own.  Billy begins to sift through the letters, some of which are silly, many even from adults.  Many of the people want things, some of them bordering on miracles.  Billy begins to feel agitated, when he opens one from a Dr. Miller at City Children's Hospital.  She requests a visit to the children from Captain Marvel.  Billy sighs -- hey, it's another one.  But then he notices several pictures of the Captain, drawn by the children who are patients at the hospital.  His dour countenance suddenly turns up.  Paul Dini writes a great caption here:  "Tired as I am, I can't help smiling.  I think about it for a few seconds, then I say, 'Shazam!'"  Very cool.

Karen: I enjoyed 'looking' around Billy's room too -I saw that poster of a baseball player on his wall and my first thought (being an A's fan) was 'it's Joe Rudi' but then I thought, 'No, it looks sort of like Mike Schmidt.' Then I looked at the Oreos on the couch, the airplanes hanging from the ceiling, the bobbleheads -it's these kinds of details that always make a Ross book fun (never mind the crowd scenes).

Doug:  Captain Marvel arrives at the Rock of Eternity in a flash to seek counsel from the wizard Shazam.  The mentor explains to his champion that children are impressionable, and faithful.  It's a pep talk, Shazam telling Marvel that he's aware of the stress he's been under.  He then closes the conversation by telling Marvel to be aware of one child in particular that he will meet.  We scene shift to the children's hospital, where Billy Batson approaches on the sidewalk.  He looks across the lawn, assessing the situation; he thinks about the needs of the kids who are patients.  Suddenly he turns to see a blind girl attempting to cross the street in the direct path of a large delivery truck.  Shazam!  Captain Marvel whisks the girl to safety in the nick of time, and he thinks to himself that he is needed, even here.

Karen: Both of these sequences are so beautifully illustrated. I love the way Shazam is presented as colorless, not wraithlike but fading away perhaps. 

Doug:  Captain Marvel makes his entrance in a playful way.  A young man tosses a baseball in the air, and Marvel catches it and asks if he can play.  He lands as the children come running, rolling -- any way they can get close to him.  Dr. Miller comes out to greet him, and Marvel explains that he'd received word from the radio station that the children have been wanting to meet him.  He tells the kids that he'll be around for the weekend, and they are the bosses -- whatever they want to do, name it!  Marvel then suggests that they start with a game of catch.  But the youngster who had originally tossed the ball into the sky only seems to withdraw.  Marvel wonders if this is the special child to which the Wizard had alluded.  Dr. Miller takes the Captain into the hospital to meet some other children.  It's a wonderful scene as their idol, their hero, strides into a common area where the kids have gathered.  They nearly mob him with requests -- can we go to the jungle?  -to the moon?  -on any kind of adventure?  Marvel thinks to himself, and tells them -- we can sure work something out.

Karen: I've become such a softie in my middle years. Seeing all the children crowd around Marvel brought a smile to me. Ross does a wonderful job capturing a variety of expressions on their young faces. But it was Cap's look, when the one boy tuned away from him, that was truly amazing.

Doug:  Of course Captain Marvel wasn't really going to take the kids on any sort of "superhero ride-along", but he does tell them stories.  Wondrous stories of defeating bad guys, juggling circus bears, and working over giant robots.  We also get a glimpse of Sivana, and of Mr. Tawky Tawny.  The children love it.  Alex Ross does such a great job in these scenes, depicting children with all sorts of ailments, all drawn and painted with dignity.  This is such a beautiful book.

Karen: Cap's adventures are fabulous and I was just as excited as the kids were, looking at those pages with the meteors and the crocodile men and of course the giant robot! I agree, I can't take my eyes off this book.

Doug:  I agree.  On the reread to polish up today's post, as well as on the scanning mission, I really lingered on several pages.  But when we conclude the story a week from today, I'll have a criticism of the plot.  So far so good -- but does it end well?  Stay tuned!

Batman: War on Crime, Part Two

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Batman: War on Crime, Part One

NOTE:  I did the best job I could on the art with the desktop-sized scanner I own.  My apologies in advance for pages that seem to be cropped in strange ways.  -Doug

Batman: War on Crime (November 1999)
Paul Dini-Alex Ross

Doug:  If you're like me, you recall that period around Thanksgiving, right near the turn of the century (doesn't it sound funny to say that?), when you swept into the LCS or local Barnes & Noble looking for the latest installment of the Paul Dini-Alex Ross collaboration.  It was almost painful to have to wait those 12 months until the next treasury-sized tome arrived.  But I lasted it out, bought 'em all (six if you also consider the collection of 2-page origins -- it does contain new material in addition to reprints from the first four volumes), and really enjoyed revisiting the first book last Christmas time.  You can jump to our review of Superman: Peace on Earth, here for part one, and here for part two.  Karen and I will again divide this massive story into two parts.  Look for part two next week, and then join us for the third and fourth Mondays in December as we'll also review Shazam: Power of Hope in two parts.  We'll close December with an obscure World's Finest story.

Karen: I wasn't buying comics regularly when these books were coming out, so my introduction to them came many years later. But I absolutely adore them. I find Ross' work gorgeous and could just sit and stare at it for hours. 

Doug:  The book opens with a brief recap of the origin of the Batman, with Dini and Ross paying able homage to the Bob Kane/Bill Finger original.  The panels on the right side of the page are particularly striking, and Ross's use of color in the last panel is a surprise and really stands out from the subdued blues and grays he'd used prior.  Very moody.

Karen: Not that anyone needs to be reminded of Batman's origin (particularly anyone shelling out the money for one of these books), but Dini and Ross get across everything essential to know about the character quite succinctly. As you say, the color choices really make the whole thing. I think little Bruce looks far more frightening than the Batman!

Doug:  Many of you know that Ross lives in the Chicago area, the north suburbs specifically.  I can tell you, living south of the city but going downtown often, just about exactly where Ross set the opening two-page splash.  Hey, did Gotham City have El tracks?  In the first few pages of this tale, we get a typically-brooding Batman, establishing for the reader his mission and his perspective on Gotham and its criminal element.  There are three nice vignettes of the Batman breaking up crimes, but this Batman is a far cry from Frank Miller's brutal rendition.  This Batman seems to operate more along the lines of Michael Keaton's famous line: "I want you to tell all your friends... I'm Batman!"  This Dini/Ross Batman is a detective, and seems to be omnipresent as criminals seek to intimidate, steal, and assault.

Karen: When I see Batman presented this way, I really have to think, how could he ever exist with those brightly garbed characters in the Justice League? His world seems about a million miles away from theirs. 

Doug:  That's an interesting comment.  If we ever get to the Justice League treasury that Dini and Ross crafted, we'll see in the opening scenes how distant Batman is from Green Lantern, Flash, etc.

Doug:  Bruce Wayne is of course the other side of the Batman coin, and Dini and Ross play Wayne as we'd imagine him -- smart, good-looking, wealthy, but reserved.  This version isn't foppish or too aloof -- this version is in complete control, similar to the portrayal of Wayne by Christian Bale in the recent Dark Knight trilogy.  We're told that Bruce Wayne is fully aware that crime isn't just in the streets and alleys of Gotham; sometimes it's in the penthouses and board rooms.  So we see Wayne and a lady friend at a ball.  Paul Dini writes a great bit of characterization, as Wayne thinks to himself, "This is the world into which I was born.  Over the years I have shut out any distractions it might offer, using it purely as a source of information -- an arena to develop contacts that will help me win battles elsewhere."  Perfectly driven, but not in any way insane.  This to me is how the Batman/Bruce Wayne dichotomy was meant to be portrayed.

Doug:  I wouldn't go so far as to say this Batman isn't obsessed with crime.  He is.  But the difference is that it doesn't seem to consume him.  Wayne wonders what his life would be like if he'd given in to the life that should be his -- the money, the fame, the women, travel, etc.  What if he'd been ruled by the temptations of those trappings?  What if... he allowed the crime to rule him rather than fighting to rule the crime?  We get to the centerpiece of the plot in a board room as Bruce Wayne listens to his executive board try to sell him on the notion of building upscale housing in a rundown industrial area of Gotham.  Wayne thinks that it is a troubled area -- he's there almost weekly to try to keep the human vermin from taking hold.  He's especially encouraged by a man named Randall Winters, who fancies himself a kindred soul to Wayne.  Bruce doesn't return Winters's affinity for their common upbringing, nor for Winters himself.

Karen: That sequence felt a bit like "The Last Temptation of Batman" - perhaps condensed, but I sure hope that it is going somewhere. I want to say one thing here: although I love Ross' art, I feel a little disappointed in Bruce Wayne's appearance. He's a little too similar to Ross' Superman, all lantern-jawed and slick-backed hair. I would've liked to see a substantially different face.

Doug:  Characters in comics looking different is a relatively recent phenomenon, isn't it?  Really, the first artist I recall who really went out of his way to make the characters look differently was John Byrne, followed by George Perez.  But I think there is merit here -- and their body types?  If I recall, Batman is 6'3" and Superman's right about that same height.  So even physically they appear as twins.

Doug:  While on his nightly patrol, the Batman hears gunshots.  He speeds to the rooftop of a convenience store in the Bayside Industrial area -- the "future site" of Wayne's investment.  A gunman races out the door of the store as Batman lands.  It is only a moment later and the thug is down and bound in an alley.  Cautiously entering the storefront, the Batman finds a scene that he knew would play on his eyes -- the proprietors of the store, both slumped over the main counter, both dead from gunshot wounds.  But in moving closer, Batman hears something from the floor behind the bodies -- the sounds of crying, coming from a young teen fallen to the floor in his sorrow.  Batman is taken aback, feeling that he is viewing himself, some three decades earlier.  He lingers on top of a streetlight as the ambulance comes to remove the corpses, as the boy has lost everything and may potentially come under the care of social services.  The boy's name is Marcus, but it might as well be Bruce.

Karen: Man, these pages really hit me in the gut. The boy, staring up, the absolute loss and devastation in his eyes -Ross really knocked this out of the park. You can't look at this and not feel a lump in the throat.

Doug:  And I can tell you from living near the city of Chicago, this sort of scene plays out nightly, yet far worse on the weekends.  The total disregard for human life in our urban centers not only boggles the mind, but chills the spine.  The Batman is attached to this particular case.  He trails the police to the local precinct, where Marcus is interviewed.  The boy awaits his next move, which may come from the police in the form of temporary housing.  Batman rescued himself from the depths of crime by apprehending his parents' killer; Marcus won't have that.  Marcus will need to resist the undertow of the crime in which he lives.  Batman goes undercover the in the next days, watching as gangs make a move on the now-abandoned convenience store.  He watches as the turf is marked, fully replacing the life that once was in the Bayside area.  Big business used to dominate this part of town, and it thrived.  However, when those businesses moved on, the locals were faced with a rapidly-changing economy.  Some found crime as a way to heal those wounds brought on by the declining dollars and cents.

Karen: Batman's concern for the boy is touching. Dini and Ross do a great job in showing the reader that Batman's whole 'war on crime' is not about an obsession to punish the criminal but to save lives.We see how crime ruins lives, of the victims, the perpetrators, and everyone around them. Although Superman is usually thought of as a big Boy Scout,  Batman in his way is just as much a do-gooder.

Doug:  This is a very humanistic story.  As we approach the halfway point, it's certainly going to be about the now-orphaned Marcus.  But Bruce Wayne/Batman sees the people of Bayside as individuals.  He moves among them, hidden, hearing their stories and watching their lives.  He monitors those who think of tearing apart the neighborhood for the re-development and plans on how to sidestep those coming events.  Wayne sits in a diner to collect information and watches the waitress -- an attractive young woman who he knows well.  She's a habitual criminal, and he's collared her on several occasions.  She works at this greasy spoon, hoping to "go straight"; he knows that it won't be long until she's back to the dark side.  As he pays his bill, he tips her $100 -- maybe it's his way of sustaining peace in her life for just a short time more.

Doug:  I love these books!  Paul Dini, with plotting assists from Alex Ross, really takes us inside the minds of definitive versions of these characters.  I know many of our readers complain that Ross's depictions of heroes are almost god-like.  I hate to tell you, but I think it's supposed to be that way!  This is our mythology, friends -- modern heroes in the same vein as Hercules, Gilgamesh, Thor, et al.  These are our larger-than-life characters, and they do swoop down from the heavens to try to make our lives easier.  Are they always right?  I think we saw in our review of "Peace on Earth" that no -- they aren't.  But then, that's not out of line with stories we know from the Greeks, the Nordic lands, etc.  Alex Ross brings all of this to a wonderful 2D realization, and for my money it's incredible.

Karen: My partner just summed up my feelings, and did it very well! Ross month is off and running!