Gotham Calling | I’ve read too many comics and watched too many movies. This is my way of giving something back to society.

Chuck Dixon’s grounded Batman

Posted on November 11, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

Chuck Dixon has written hundreds of Batman comics. On top of his lengthy run in Detective Comics (1992-1999), he penned his fair share of Catwoman and Legends of the Dark Knight issues, having also pioneered the ongoing series Robin and Nightwing, as well as the most awesome Batman spin-off from the ‘90s, Birds of Prey. Dixon created fan-favorite characters like Spoiler and Bane. Plus, he did a ton of fill-ins, specials, and mini-series, including the knockout crime yarns GCPD, Gordon’s Law, and Blackgate. Between this and his stint on Green Arrow (which often shared characters and plotlines with the Bat-titles), it was not uncommon for Dixon to have half-a-dozen Batman-related comics out each month for much of the ‘90s. He went on to relaunch Batman and the Outsiders in 2007 and, after a hiatus, recently returned to DC with the limited series Bane: Conquest.

Despite this impressive track-record and a loyal fanbase, Chuck Dixon doesn’t usually make the cut in debates about the best Batman writers. In part, I suspect his work isn’t more acclaimed because it’s not as show-offy as Frank Miller’s or Grant Morrison’s – Dixon is more of a gun-for-hire who prefers no-fuss storytelling rather than trying to reinvent the wheel (Howard Hawks, Leigh Brackett, David Mamet, and Donald E. Westlake are obvious influences). This approach may strike some as lacking ambition, but I think it’s an art in itself: Dixon has a talent for figuring out each franchise’s primordial appeal and delivering it in spades, perfecting the formula to maximum effect. As far as 1990s’ Batman comics go, if Alan Grant’s issues were punk and Doug Moench’s were heavy metal, then Chuck Dixon’s were reliable pop-rock hits with catchy guitar riffs.

Dixon’s attitude harkens back to his proud pulp background, having honed his craft in the 1980s with straight-up adventure titles like Airboy, Evangeline, Winter World, and Savage Sword of Conan.

So, when I describe Chuck Dixon’s Batman comics as ‘grounded,’ I don’t mean to say they’re bland or hackneyed. In fact, he rarely phones it in: even a gig that could’ve been mere a cash-in, like Batman versus Predator III: Blood Ties, turns out to be highly entertaining (in contrast to Doug Moench’s and Paul Gulacy’s godawful Batman versus Predator II: Bloodmatch, which was an insipid mercenary work lamely padded to fill the page count). What I mean is that Dixon’s comics tend to be anchored in fleshed-out characterization and cohesive world-building – although his stories aren’t exactly ‘realistic,’ they operate through very recognizable rules and follow a solid internal logic.

But let’s start at the beginning. Understandably impressed with Chuck Dixon’s hardboiled scripts for The Punisher, in 1990 editor Denny O’Neil hired him to write the first solo Robin mini-series, with art by Tom Lyle (who had already worked with Dixon on Airboy and Strike!). The duo fit into the Dark Knight’s corner of the DC Universe like a glove, spitting out solid thrillers that were unapologetically escapist yet did not condescend to the readers. Soon, Dixon and Lyle took over Detective Comics and their efforts together come very damn close to my platonic ideal of Batman stories. In a move that’s not as obvious as it may seem, Dixon – who went on to helm Detective Comics for years (mostly in collaboration with artist Graham Nolan) – made sure to justify the series’ title by featuring plenty of detective work. Fortunately, the man can spin a mystery and churn out a damn compelling investigation.

Detective Comics #644

The Dynamic Duo wasn’t the only one doing the detecting… Chuck Dixon devoted a lot of space to the GCPD, developing several of its officers. The result really felt like a detective book. For example, in ‘Shifting Ground’ (Detective Comics #721), set during the Cataclysm crossover, Dixon had three separate groups of characters investigating the identity of Quakemaster – the villain holding the city for ransom – and each was able to track him down through different processes of deduction (the disparate strands then came together in Robin #53). Other cool mystery tales included the classic ‘A Bullet for Bullock’ (Detective Comics #651) as well as ‘The Forgotten Dead’ (Nightwing #24) and ‘The Obtuse Conundrum’ (Robin #81).

Indeed, Dixon often made a point of challenging the heroes’ intellect. A central aspect of his version of Bane was precisely the fact that this villain should be a match for Batman on every level, including his brilliance. In Bane of the Demon, he commits an ancient text to memory eidetically. In Bane: Conquest, the two characters temporarily join forces and are able to plot an escape underneath their captors’ noses by constantly switching languages (including Portuguese, Dhari, and Latin).

It wasn’t all cerebral games, either. A consciously visual storyteller, Chuck Dixon usually scripts thrillers with clear geography and relentless forward momentum. In particular, he tends to write tense, claustrophobic set pieces revolving around people trapped in confined spaces. Also helping with the fast pace is his knack for snappy dialogue:

Batman #467

We are very far from the kind of superhero deconstructionism that tears the genre apart by exposing its inconsistencies and uglier subtext. Chuck Dixon seems more interested in imagining how it could work, integrating pseudo-realistic elements – like the street-level perspectives of the police and small-scale criminals – without going too far in terms of breaking the required suspension of disbelief.

For a particularly fun way to go about it, check out the issue he did with the price tags for the Dynamic Duo’s various expenses…

Robin (v4) #100

What brings it all together, though, is Dixon’s way with characters. He always made sure to get a firm take on what made each cast member tick. Check out how, in this career interview, he efficiently synthesized his understanding of the Caped Crusader and the Punisher: ‘Batman is the zealot driven by childhood trauma. Thus, a costume and all the toys and the sense of the romantic. He also has a code of fair play and strict rules of engagement. Punisher was traumatized as an adult, so he becomes an exterminating son-of-a-bitch using any weapon that will get the job done. He recognizes no rules.’

Besides getting to the heart of characters, Dixon is a master at organically conveying that heart to the readers, whether it’s through actions or through poignant intimate moments. Take the story he did for Batman Chronicles #1 about a gang hijacking a train with James Gordon inside. It was a taut little yarn, but behind its apparent simplicity we gained access to Jim’s thoughts about how it felt to be out of the police force (he had temporarily quit at the time), about his doubts over trusting Batman (this was after Knightfall), and about how the Huntress reminded him of his daughter (Batgirl). Those eighteen pages turned out to be a touching, well-executed piece of characterization. Similarly, back in 1999 Dixon did three memorable issues that may seem like little more than Nightwing bonding with Robin (Nightwing #25), Oracle (Birds of Prey #8), and Batman (Detective Comics #725) but are misleadingly superb, drawing on the characters’ shared history and wonderfully nailing each of their personalities. (Robin #67, in which Nightwing and Robin travelled together to No Man’s Land’s Gotham City, was also an excellent character study about their brotherly relationship.)

Bear in mind that that I’m not just talking about your usual macho voices. Robin was a series about adolescence, oozing with self-doubt and a healthy dose of lighthearted humor. Most of Birds of Prey’s main characters (heroes and villains) were women. Dixon also sought to establish a neat friendship between Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain (they first met in Robin #88 and later developed their relationship in Batgirl #20). Hell, one of the strongest candidates for Dixon’s most enjoyable book ever, Batgirl: Year One (co-written with Scott Beatty), closely followed the point-of-view of a young Barbara Gordon…

Batgirl: Year One #1

In terms of characterization, one of the few missteps I can think of is when Alfred left – in the aftermath of Knightfall – and Bruce Wayne proved utterly inept at household chores, screwing up everything, from making a tuna sandwich to doing the laundry (come on, he’s Batman, if anything he would’ve overcompensated by approaching each task with too much zeal!). Overall, though, hardly a note ever rang false in Chuck Dixon’s stories.

The other aspect that makes these comics ‘grounded’ is their tight cross-continuity. As a fanboy, Dixon clearly has a blast with this stuff. There are all sorts of interconnections, even when they don’t call attention to themselves (like the overlap between the Dynamic Duo’s cases in Detective Comics #683 and Robin #15, or the subplot from Robin #93-94 that gets resolved in Birds of Prey #40, or the guest-appearances by Blue Beetle in Nightwing #63, Robin #96, and Birds of Prey #37, all of which dealing with the fallout of Dixon’s Joker: Last Laugh crossover).

I especially like how this moment from the mini-series Robin: Year One (about Dick Grayson’s debut as Robin)…

Robin: Year One #4

…was riffed on years later, in the story arc ‘Nightwing: Year One’ (about Dick Grayson’s debut as Nightwing):

Nightwing #104

Chuck Dixon went out of his way to develop a discernible geography for Gotham City and its surroundings (Tricorner Island, the fancy Gotham Heights neighborhood, the chaotic nearby town of Blüdhaven…), repeatedly visiting places like the striptease joint Stripping Post (Batgirl: Year One #5, Nightwing #65 and #104…). There were also recurring brands (some created by him, some borrowed from other DC comics), including the Irish fast food chain O’Shaughnessy’s (which shows up, for example, in Robin #20, Batman Annual #23, Nightwing #10, and Green Arrow #110) as well as the soda drink Zesti Cola (Detective Comics #645-646, Catwoman #19, Robin #61, and Joker: Devil’s Advocate, among many others).

In the case of Zesti Cola, it became more than a generic ersatz-brand – Dixon made it pay off with a couple of entertaining storylines exploring the company behind the drink, in the Psyba-Rats mini-series and the Birds of Prey: Revolution one-shot. Likewise, after gradually establishing the children’s franchise Crocky the Crocodile (Detective Comics #668 and #682, 1996’s Man-Bat mini-series…), Dixon made it the main focus of Robin #42.

The more you read, the more you felt like you understood this world. You knew that Zesti and Soder Cola were popular drinks and you got used to thinking of Curtains as the DCU’s version of Windows. You were thus able to share the characters’ specific pop culture references, like in this scene where Nightwing and Oracle travel to the future:

Nightwing: Our Worlds at War

This is exactly the kind of approach that appeals to me. These comics were populated by tons of people whose names and histories became familiar, giving the impression that they continued to live their own personal sagas between appearances, on the sidelines of the Dark Knight’s adventures.

Remarkably, a whole range of small-time players kept showing up again and again throughout the years, like the crooked informant Jimmy Wing…

Detective Comics #648

…or Homicide detectives Moses and Murphy, whose banter was always a feast of gallows humor…

Detective Comics #691

…or the Arkham Asylum psychologist Simpson Flanders (yep), who started out as a mean-spirited satire of liberal pop psychology (albeit an amusing one since almost by definition Arkham inmates are an unredeemable murderous lot) reminiscent of Doctor Bartholomew Wolper in The Dark Knight Returns.

Detective Comics #662

(In line with this joke, Flanders kept being viciously abused by different villains, until he was eventually eaten by Killer Croc!)

As you can tell by these last examples, Dixon’s comics were not devoid of a certain iconoclastic sense of humor. I will talk more about that next week.

Posted in WRITERS OF BATMAN COMICS | Tagged Batman's personality, Chuck Dixon, Denny O'Neil, Doug Moench, GCPD, Gotham City, Graham Nolan, Paul Gulacy, Scott Beatty, Tom Lyle | Leave a comment

COMICS CAN BE AWESOME (November 2019)

Posted on November 6, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

Your monthly reminder that comics can be awesome…

Bloodshot Reborn #14

Astro City: The Dark Age – book four #1

Superman/Batman #69

Posted in GLIMPSES INTO AWESOMENESS | Tagged Alex Sinclair, Ardian Syaf, Astro City, Bloodshot, Brent Anderson, Dave Lanphear, David Baron, John Roshell, Mico Suayan, Ulises Arreola, Vicente Cifuentes | Leave a comment

Brilliant horror short stories

Posted on October 30, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

In theory, horror shouldn’t be an easy fit for stories of ten pages or less. For a narrative to be truly scary or disturbing, the stakes should be painstakingly set up, the atmosphere should breathe, the fearful anticipation should be allowed to build up, and each shock should be earned.

In practice, comic books perfected this type of short story several decades ago, with horror anthologies becoming a staple of the medium…

For this Halloween, here are ten tales that brilliantly assault readers with striking images while using text to stretch out the tension as much as possible:

‘Dream of Doom’ (originally published in Weird Science #12, cover-dated May-June 1950), by Harry Harrison (script, pencils), Wally Wood (inks), Marie Severin (colors), and Jim Wroten (letters)

I’ll try not to overuse the adjective ‘nightmarish’ but in this case it fits like a glove. ‘Dream of Doom’ plays with a recognizably eerie sensation as it follows Arthur Bristol, an artist who is never quite sure whether he is dreaming or awake. We share his anxiety, as he is constantly jerked into new realities (including a meeting at a clear stand-in for the EC offices – one of several in-jokes in the story). Adding to the unsettling mood, the art is full of surreal, disconcerting touches, like the panel where the protagonist’s face is drowned by phantasmagorical phone ringing or the mise en abyme moment when a character holds a comic book page that looks like the one we are holding ourselves… Even Jim Wrotten, whose lettering tended towards bland typeset fonts, gets in on the act by conveying some inspired moments of shouting.

‘Carrion Death!’ (originally published in Shock SuspenStories #9, cover-dated June-July 1953), by Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein (plot), Al Feldstein (script), Reed Crandall (art), Marie Severin (colors), and Jim Wroten (letters)

Reed Crandall’s first story for EC Comics is a brutal, gruesome affair, even by today’s standards. With a tinge of noir, ‘Carrion Death!’ follows a crook on the lamb for whom things just keep on getting worse. The comic spirals through various kinds of violence, from a car crash to a strangling, from corpse mutilation to starvation, from the aggressive heat of the sun to the threat of flesh-eating vultures… Crandall’s meticulous attention to detail makes the whole thing look unbearably realistic, so that your face reading it probably mirrors the protagonist’s own panicked expression. To top it all off, Marie Severin’s colors conjure up the desert’s bleak aridness and shifting temperatures while Al Feldstein’s narration is almost poetically macabre.

‘The Worm Turns’ (originally published in The Thing #15, cover-dated July-August 1954), by Steve Dikto (art) and Charlotte Jetter (letters)

I don’t know who wrote this beauty, but it was clearly someone in tune with the 1950s’ wave of sci-fi horror, where giant, destructive creatures and scientific experiments gone awry acted out the worst fears of the early atomic era (although the idea of a mad doctor playing god goes back to Frankenstein, name-checked halfway through). ‘The Worm Turns’ is full of sick moments and a shockingly expanding body count, culminating in a resolution that somehow feels both hopeful and frightening. Yet the big draw is a young Steve Ditko’s artwork: not only does Ditko make the protagonist look truly menacing and twisted, but his rendition of the genocidal worm’s callous eyes, drooling mouth, and tubular, starkly inhuman body almost makes one afraid of even touching the drawings on the page…

‘Murder Dream’ (originally published in Tales from the Crypt #45, cover-dated December 1954-January 1955), by Carl Wessler (script), Bernie Kriegstein (art), Marie Severin (colors), and Jim Wroten (letters)

This stream-of-consciousness narrative about a man plagued with nightmares about the apparent murder of his wife is an effective vehicle for Bernie Kriegstein to indulge in the kind of aesthetic experimentation he often sought, breaking loose in hallucinatory, deliberately disorienting Freudian dream sequences. You may find the ending a cheat or a superb twist, but in any case you’re bound to be struck by the last panel’s cruel, horrifying rawness.

‘The Demon Within!’ (originally published in House of Mystery #201, cover-dated April 1972), by Joe Orlando (plot), John Albano (script), and Jim Aparo (art, letters)

Probably the most acclaimed comic on the list, this tale about a little boy who can turn into a scary monster at will won the Shazam Award for Best Individual Short Story and has been reprinted a number of times. The impact of ‘The Demon Within!’ derives from its Twilight Zone-ish sleight of hand – rather than the monster, the most terrifying force ends up being society itself… What truly scares the boy’s nuclear family is their possible loss of respectability and public standing in the community. Add to this Jim Aparo’s naturalistic depiction of suburbia, coupled with his signature tilted art and letters. Suitably, the creepiest images don’t even feature the monster – like the one with the doctor washing his hands before surgery at the Caufield hospital (a name reminiscent of Holden Caulfield, reinforcing the themes of loss of childhood innocence and repression of irreverence), not to mention the unforgettable final panel (a resolution that disturbingly evokes current parental strategies).

‘In the Shadows of the City’ (originally published in Haunt of Horror #1, cover-dated May 1974), by Steve Gerber (script) and Vicente Alcazar (art)

Always one to push the medium, writer Steve Gerber provides not so much a story as an exercise in instilling dread, upsettingly exploiting the mid-70s paranoia over urban crime (especially in NYC) by nudging readers’ fear of sudden, random, violent death. ‘In the Shadows of the City’ revolves around a psychopath obsessed with murder fantasies, somehow able to project them to potential victims. While the various POV shots make us share his horrific visions, the narration addresses us directly, breaking the fourth wall. The result is a diabolical comic that explicitly threatens its audience.

‘Deathwatch’ (originally published in Haunt of Horror #4, cover-dated November 1974), by Gerry Conway (script) and Young Montano (art)

Although nuclear war-themed post-apocalyptic fiction tends to be labelled as sci-fi, there is a reason this story was published in Marvel’s mature readers’ horror magazine. ‘Deathwatch’ is less concerned with realistically speculating about the specific outcome of an atomic exchange (here presented as catastrophic event, albeit not an end-of-the-world scenario) than with the horror that such an exchange could actually take place *at all*, hence its setting in a near future. We follow the aftermath through the perspective of Craig Macintosh, a soldier stationed in Alaska who, having survived the strike, comes to a life-changing realization about the conflict. Ultimately, Gerry Conway’s powerful agitprop script should be read as an indictment, not just of the Cold War, but of the military establishment itself, a message that cannot be delinked from the events in Vietnam at the time.

‘Clarice’ (originally published in Creepy #77, cover-dated February 1976), by Bruce Jones (script) and Bernie Wrightson (art)

Bruce Jones’ devastating gothic poem about a man in a cabin recalling his lover who died in the snow is morbidly beautiful and melancholic. The extra punch comes from the fact that ‘Clarice’ isn’t just about mourning, but also about guilt. Moreover, pleasingly, Bernie Wrightson’s haunting art doesn’t stick to literal illustrations – instead, it shows another layer of the story that you can take as either fantastical or metaphorical.

‘In Deep’ (originally published in Creepy #83, cover-dated October 1976), by Bruce Jones (script) and Richard Corben (art, colors)

Bruce Jones revisited some of the themes of ‘Clarice’ in this harrowing tale about a couple adrift at sea, where they have to deal with the merciless sun, the dangerous waters, the unavoidable tiredness, and, of course, the hunger and thirst. The great Richard Corben, who drew and colored ‘In Deep,’ delivered some truly desolate visuals as well as a couple of startlingly gory sequences. This is the stuff traumas are made of.

‘Done Deal’ (originally published in 2000 AD #1886, cover-dated June 2014), by Alec Worley (script), Tom Foster (art), and Ellie De Ville (letters)

Finally, a bit of urban horror with a more modern vibe worthy of the New Weird school of fiction. A tale of two teens with a comatose mother, ‘Done Deal’ effectively uses shorthand and familiarity to establish – in just *four pages* – both a slice of realistic family drama and a sinister revelation.

Posted in FANTASTIC ADVENTURES | Tagged 2000 AD, Al Feldstein, Alec Worley, Bernie Krigstein, Bernie Wrightson, Bill Gaines, Bruce Jones, Carl Wessler, Charlotte Jetter, Cold War, Ellie De Ville, Gerry Conway, Harry Harrison, horror, Jim Aparo, Jim Wroten, Joe Orlando, John Albano, Marie Severin, noir, politics, Reed Crandall, Richard Corben, science fiction, Steve Ditko, Steve Gerber, Tom Foster, Vicente Alcazar, Wally Wood, Young Montano | 2 Comments

Spectacular Spectre covers from the Hal Jordan era

Posted on October 24, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

A couple of years ago, I did a post spotlighting covers revolving around the Spectre, one of DC’s most aesthetically remarkable creations. As a character, this mega-powerful spirit of vengeance is not that easy to write, but his spooky looks do tend to bring out the best in artists, including the ones responsible for the series’ covers. In fact, the Spectre is such a strong visual presence in the DCU that, when his alter ego Jim Corrigan was finally allowed to move on (at the climax of John Ostrander’s and Tom Mandrake’s magnificent run), in 2001 the company ended up reviving the character with a different human host – former Green Lantern Hal Jordan, of all people (who, in seeking atonement for his villainous actions as Parallax, shifted the Spectre’s mission by focusing on redemption rather than vengeance).

Say what you want about that era, but at least it gave us its fair share of truly amazing covers. Because it was now Hal Jordan behind the Spectre, the character’s design was tweaked, incorporating elements from Green Lantern’s costume. Artists like Ryan Sook and P. Craig Russell ran with this, making the most out of the new look through beautiful covers that combined lyrical fantasy, horror imagery, and a dash of surrealism:

Posted in ART OF HORROR COMICS | Tagged horror, P. Craig Russell, Ryan Sook, Spectre | Leave a comment

Superhero horror movies

Posted on October 17, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

Writing about Todd Phillips’ Joker last week got me thinking about the fact that, by now, taking superhero iconography and filming it like a horror movie has become a proper subgenre onto itself. I’m not just talking about the occasional Lovecraft-influenced sequence in Aquaman or Doctor Strange, but about movies in which horror is clearly the main sensibility.

I guess it all goes back to 1989’s super-successful Batman, which Tim Burton shot like the creepy nightmare of a traumatized child from the forties, starting with Jack Nicholson’s own memorable take on the Joker…

Batman (1989)

Burton was clearly on to something here, recognizing the sinister potential of bringing comic book characters to life. Both genres lend themselves to easy allegories, which can lead to interesting hybrids: if superhero fiction is about ideals and aspirations, horror is a vehicle to tackle anxieties and fears, so there is something enthrallingly disturbing about combining the two.

Moreover, although Burton’s film departed from the source material in several key ways, this specific link wasn’t all that strange… From the very start, Batman comics had been full of vampires, mad scientists, and monsters, drawing on the aesthetics of horror movie posters and pulp covers. This has remained an enduring dimension of the franchise:

Gotham Knights 29

(Damn it, I forgot to include that last cover on my post about lying in Batman’s arms…)

Tim Burton went on to expand his idiosyncratic vision of the Dark Knight’s world through 1992’s Batman Returns, which also borrowed heavily from classic horror cinema (Christopher Walken’s character was actually called Max Schreck). That said, the sequel came across as (even) more of a macabre farce. Seriously, that film’s grotesque Penguin and twisted zombie Catwoman wouldn’t have looked out of place in the following year’s Addams Family Values…

Batman Returns (1992)

To be fair, much of Batman Returns’ bizarre sense of humor is probably due to the involvement of screenwriter Daniel Waters, who also wrote the cult black comedy Heathers, not to mention the outrageously cartoonish action movies Hudson Hawk and Demolition Man…

The latter one even got a shout-out in the comics, at the time of release:

Robin (v4) #1

Between Tim Burton’s two Batman pictures, Sam Raimi did his own Danny Elfman-scored, violent blend of dark superhero opera, R-rated action movie, and cornball tribute to old Universal monster films (with a few echoes of RoboCop as well). In 1990’s Darkman, Liam Neeson plays a disfigured scientist on a revenge quest against the gangsters who brutally attacked him and destroyed his lab. When he’s not brooding or shouting in agony, he is setting up zany traps for his opponents, playing them against each other by temporarily assuming their identities (he has developed a malleable synthetic skin that lasts for 99 minutes in the light!).

Darkman (1990)

Darkman’s tone is gritty and often over-the-top, from the finger-chopping mobster to montages of explosions superimposed on close-ups of Neeson’s eyes. The gothic flair is particularly prominent in a subplot about the anti-hero’s girlfriend, played by Frances McDormand. This could almost be the origin tale of one of the Caped Crusader’s many tragic villains… In fact, the grim, sadistic edge is quite in tune with the overall zeitgeist of post-Dark Knight Returns comics at the time (although the climax would’ve felt more subversive if Burton hadn’t played a similar card in the previous year’s blockbuster).

In Sam Raimi’s oeuvre, this stands halfway between the gory comedy of the Evil Dead series and the more conventional superhero shenanigans of his Spider-Man trilogy – not as cartoony as the former, yet much, much more deranged than the latter!

This initial cycle of surrealist gothic superhero flicks culminated in 1994’s The Crow, Alex Proya’s trippy adaptation of James O’Barr’s comic book about a guitarist who comes back from the dead to avenge his raped and murdered bride. I’m not a fan: the whole thing feels too much like an extended emocore music video. Unlike the comic’s version, at least the film’s protagonist doesn’t deal with his emotional pain by engaging in self-mutilation, but you can still count on plenty of poseur moves and pretentious, proto-poetic lines.

The Crow (1994)

Like its predecessors, The Crow was packed with overwrought pathos and pyrotechnic travelling shots, yet it also imbued the genre with an edgier attitude of nineties’ leather jackets, gun fu action, and harsh profanity. With the possible exception of 1997’s Spawn (which I haven’t seen), the one film that picked up on this new approach – and ran with it in a much more entertaining way – was 1998’s Blade, stylishly directed by Stephen Norrington and starring Wesley Snipes as the titular vampire hunter. This sleazy, adrenaline-charged thriller is like a time capsule of the late ‘90s understanding of coolness: there are techno beats, decadent orgies, bloody violence, mixed martial arts, swordfights, embarrassing CGI, and a firm belief in sunglasses.

Blatantly inspired by Hong Kong cinema, borrowing elements from the Punisher, and clearly anticipating the following year’s The Matrix, Blade is a visual treat, especially the delirious set design (which at one point includes a penthouse with a retractable wall and a waterfall with floating rubber duckies). Above all, Snipes totally owns the part, somehow landing even the weirdest one-liners, like the infamous: ‘some motherfuckers are always tryin’ to ice skate uphill.’

Blade (1998)

A shamelessly fun ride, Blade wastes no time on pointless origins, throwing viewers into a fully-developed world of underground vampire clubs and secret societies while trusting you to be familiar with enough of these tropes not to need too much guidance. The plot is nothing to write home about, but David S. Goyer did fill the script with some interesting ideas, like a specific type of vampiric racism or the generation clash between the gloomy old guard and the younger crowd who mostly wants to party (it’s as if the vampires of classic literature had to put up with all the millennial goths inspired by Neil Gaiman). Goyer also mercilessly reinvented the character created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan way back in 1973’s The Tomb of Dracula #10 (in fact, the film’s depiction ended up having a greater influence on the comics than the other way around).

You can argue that Blade is not exactly a superhero – he doesn’t have a secret identity, wear a mask, or display any reticence about slaughtering his opponents. Still, he has supernatural powers, a schlocky arsenal (a deadly silver boomerang, hollow point bullets filled with garlic), and finds himself saving the world from a monster, so I think he fits pretty comfortably in the genre. As for the horror side of the equation, the ‘blood rave party’ scene early on perfectly sets the tone with its mix of relentless gorefest and pitch-black comedy.

Following Blade’s success, David Goyer scripted a couple of sequels, both of them lacking the original’s freshness and manic energy. Although they expanded the franchise’s mythology, they didn’t do it in particularly creative ways. 2002’s Blade II was directed by Guillermo del Toro, so at least it had a couple of neat visuals (especially the vaginal-looking design of the new breed of vampires). 2004’s Blade: Trinity, directed by Goyer himself, has a deservedly poor reputation, but it works as serviceable trashy entertainment if you’re in the right mood.

The Blade franchise marks a kind of shift that came about around the turn of the millennium. If the 1990s’ movies mostly tapped into that decade’s gothic fashion, the 21^st century installments veered more into ultra-violence and psychological horror. This is in part due to David Goyer, who actually went on to shape much of the latest upsurge of superhorror, having become one of the architects of the DC Extended Universe (on top of producing a couple of Ghost Rider flicks, which I haven’t seen but, given the source material, I assume fall well within this subgenre). Most notably, Goyer scripted 2013’s Man of Steel, directed by Zack Snyder (who had made his film debut with a pointless remake of Dawn of the Dead). That controversial blockbuster sought to put a bleak, terrifying spin on the Superman mythos – an approach that David Yarovesky took even further in this year’s (regrettably uninspired) Brightburn.

Not long after Man of Steel, Josh Trank shot some of 2015’s Fantastic Four like Cronenbergian body horror, presumably building up on what Goyer and Snyder had done with Superman (although perhaps he was merely inspired by Jae Lee’s haunting art in the Fantastic Four: 1234 mini-series…). It wasn’t Trank’s first foray into this field: he had previously directed 2012’s Chronicle, which viciously merged the subgenres of teen superheroes and found footage horror. His Fantastic Four, however, was a flop, either because it was notoriously botched in postproduction or because mainstream audiences weren’t all that keen for a gritty reboot of Marvel’s First Family.

Fantastic Four: 1234 #1

In order to look at a much more interesting take on superhero horror, we have to go back to 2000’s Unbreakable, in which middle-aged security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis) gradually realizes he has super powers. This understated, slow-burn psychological thriller was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan back when he was on top of the world, before becoming mostly a widespread pop culture joke. Shyamalan’s artistic fall from grace occurred at different stages for different people (for some with Signs, for many with The Village, for most – including me – with either Lady in the Lake or The Happening), but I would go so far as to say that Unbreakable is his greatest work, complete with top-notch acting, thoughtful characterization, and tight direction (including, early on, a Hitchcockian long take inside the Eastrail 177 train that is a masterful example of cinematic storytelling).

One way to look at this movie is to see it as way ahead of its time. With its drab colors, depressing tone, deliberate lack of action, and proto-realistic approach to superheroes, Unbreakable was a piece of genre deconstructionism before superheroes became a recognizable mainstream film genre (sure, there had been Superman and Batman blockbusters in the past, but those were the exception, not the rule). However, if the movie had been released today, when audiences are so used to superhero origin stories and even to tense, down-to-earth approaches to the genre (like Marvel’s Netflix shows), I don’t think Unbreakable would’ve had nearly the same shocking impact. So perhaps it makes more sense to regard it as an extension of adult, revisionist comics like Watchmen or Neil Gaiman’s and Dave McKean’s Black Orchid, pushing their sensibilities even further by bringing to the screen a truly mundane, flesh and blood superhuman, filmed through discrete travelling shots that do not evoke the comic book format.

Black Orchid #1

That said, at the end of the day I don’t think comic geeks were M. Night Shyamalan’s main target audience here (hence the opening text explaining to viewers that comics are a big deal). Rather, the point of Unbreakable was precisely to disguise, for as long as possible, its superhero narrative. Shyamalan’s breakout feature, the previous year’s The Sixth Sense, had been a massively acclaimed horror picture with a satisfying surprise ending. Audiences coming to Unbreakable – even those who had seen the trailers – were bound to expect a supernatural tale along the same lines and the film’s eerie, suspenseful tone led them further in that direction. The twist this time around was that they had been tricked into enjoying a superhero movie (a concept that at the time brought to mind Joel Schumacher’s infamous, ultra-campy Batman & Robin). The final payoff clinched this idea, revealing to viewers that they had been watching an even more traditional superhero story than they had realized, albeit an exceptionally well-told one.

In 2016, M. Night Shyamalan gave us a second installment in what was to become the Eastrail 177 trilogy, Split, revolving around a creepy man with multiple personalities (James McAvoy) who kidnaped three teenage girls. If Unbreakable started out as an intimate drama that painstakingly built up towards a genre entry, Split presented itself as an unashamed spine-chiller from the get-go, kicking things off with a frightening cold open and escalating from there (Shyamalan had already embraced Blumhouse Productions’ low-budget horror house style in the previous year’s The Visit). On top of some pacing issues, the movie’s depiction of mental illness ranged from tasteless to ridiculous, but you’ve got to admire Shyamalan’s willingness to develop mind-bending, preposterous-sounding concepts with a straight face.

This time the very final twist – which I must spoil to discuss the film – was that Split was set in the same universe as Unbreakable, despite the fact that this had not been announced anywhere… It could’ve been a fan-pleasing throwaway cameo (akin to the one that unites Trading Places and Coming to America), but the implications were vaster than that. Revealing this to be a stealth sequel to a film set in a superhero universe (even if a toned-down one) recontextualized Split: instead of a regular horror tale, it retroactively became a supervillain origin.

This year, Shyamalan tied the two films closer together through a third installment, Glass, which brought back the surviving cast of both Unbreakable and Split. Even if you don’t see in this move a wink to the boom of expanded superhero cinematic universes, Glass is a full-on metafictional thriller: a chunk of it is set in a mental institution for people convinced they’re similar to comic book characters where psychiatrist Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) analyses their alleged powers, deconstructing the fantasy and thus suggesting yet another plot twist on the previous films. The horror, in part, comes from the fact that, although the patients aren’t necessarily deluded, that is the only rational way society can look at them (apart from the signature twist endings, Shyamalan’s oeuvre also has a strong leitmotif of spirituality, the two facets ultimately celebrating in their own way the act of letting yourself believe). Staple’s counterpart – i.e. the character who goes the farthest in terms of merging comics and ‘reality’ – is the titular Glass, whose genre self-awareness means that the film does for superheroes what Scream did for slasher movies. The fact that Glass is played by none other than Samuel ‘Nick Fury’ Jackson is the icing on the cake.

The result is definitely nowhere near as brilliant as Unbreakable, but Glass is still a clever, spellbinding – if uneven – film. M. Night Shyamalan pulls off a low-key superhero crossover event filled with existential dread. And while Bruce Willis doesn’t bring the same heartfelt nuance to his performance as in the former movie, Samuel Jackson is his reliable self and James McAvoy totally commits to his bizarre part(s).

Which brings us back to Joker. On the one hand, there is no denying that Todd Phillips – like Shyamalan – plays with superhero conventions, delving into a villain’s perspective while consciously avoiding the usual overblown set pieces. Hell, with its twisted, nihilistic Clown Prince of Crime and socio-political references, Joker should replace The Dark Knight Rises as the proper final installment of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy (following The Dark Knight). On the other hand, the horror of a supervillain origin works on a different level than in Split, because with Joker we know from the start where everything is heading: trapped in a prequel about an established character, we are never allowed to imagine that the protagonist can become anything other than a genocidal jester, which gives Phillips’ psychodrama a greater fatalistic vibe, like watching the tape of a deadly crash in slow motion.

In any case, it’s quite fitting that Joker came out in the same year as Glass, signaling the growing openness of superhero films to cerebral experimentation, which mirrors what happened in the comics decades ago. Indeed, by taking superhero elements and reimagining them in an odd, sinister light, Joker and the Eastrail 177 trilogy have created for cinema the kind of provocative genre hybrids that would’ve felt at home in early 1990s’ DC/Vertigo comics – the kind written by the likes of Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Jamie Delano, with art by Duncan Fegredo or Steve Pugh. Like those creators, Todd Philips and M. Night Shyamalan don’t always hit the mark, but it’s fascinating enough that they attempted to go there in the first place.

Posted in SUPER POWERS | Tagged Dave McKean, David S. Goyer, Duncan Fegredo, Gene Colan, Grant Morrison, horror, Jae Lee, James O’Barr, Jamie Delano, Marv Wolfman, movies, Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan, Sam Raimi, Steve Pugh, Tim Burton | Leave a comment

On Todd Phillips’ Joker

Posted on October 11, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

It turns out the most satisfying way to appreciate Todd Phillips’ Joker was to almost forget that it was a Joker movie.

Taken as a DCU entry, the project didn’t particularly appeal to me: a Joker origin story (when the character has always worked best as an enigmatic wild card who is more force of nature than relatable person) taking the Clown Prince of Crime seriously (rather than embracing his caustic wackiness) and apparently removing Batman from the proceedings (even though the Joker is much more interesting as an opponent to the hero).

Still, at least I knew Phillipps’ origin wasn’t going to be as lame as this one:

The Joker #5

In the past, I’ve enjoyed tales told from the Joker’s point of view (Robin #85, a couple of issues of the 1970s’ short-lived The Joker comic, The Brave and the Bold’s ‘Joker: The Vile and the Villainous!’ episode), but they’ve tended to exploit the amusing absurdity of the character’s surreal perspective rather than humanize him in a deliberately depressing way. And while I admit there is much to like in Alan Moore’s and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke (even if not all of it has aged well), I still haven’t gotten over the sour taste of Brian Azzarello’s and Lee Bermejo’s Joker graphic novel – by far one of the most atrocious works ever published by DC – so the thought of a grim, stripped-down approach to the Harlequin of Hate didn’t stir up pleasant memories.

Then again, I do love Elseworld tales, where I am much more forgiving of revisionist twists that would’ve upset me if they were canonical retcons. Making the Waynes’ murder a product of class warfare (implicitly recasting the Dark Knight as a reactionary retaliation from the 1%) and linking the Joker’s and Batman’s origins (both more *and* less directly than in Tim Burton’s blockbuster) aren’t completely new approaches, but they are elegantly pulled off – at least the latter, with both characters simultaneously realizing who they will be for the rest of their lives, thus retroactively (if subtly, offscreen) presenting the Joker as Batman’s primal counterpart.

In any case, it has long been established – and the epilogue toys with this – that, when it comes to the Joker, origins and recollections aren’t meant to be accepted at face value… As Moore famously had him declare: ‘If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!’

Mad Love

More rewarding that looking at Todd Phillips’ movie as yet another attempt to ground Batman’s cartoonier elements in sullen, self-serious pseudo-realism is to look at it from the opposite direction, approaching Joker as a quirky Joaquin Phoenix-vehicle that uses a goofy comic book character – just like it blatantly riffs on Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and King of Comedy – to spin a tragicomic arthouse drama about mental illness. Since most of Joker can ultimately be interpreted as a sick joke the titular character came up with (along the lines of ‘What if things had actually happened like this?’), you can go further and see it as the fantasy of a real-world patient, called Arthur Fleck, who is weaving into his memories bits from old movies and comics he came across over the years.

That said, it’s pointless to ignore the genre dimension intrinsic to any story starring a member of the Caped Crusader’s rogues’ gallery. Between the encroaching mood, the sudden bursts of violence, and the disturbing imagery (those blood stains on the white makeup…), Joker is – on top of everything else and true to the source material – a seriously mean slice of psychological horror with sprinkles of dark humor.

Moreover, even setting aside what I believe are pretty misguided controversies over the film’s discourse on terrorism, it sure is tempting to uncover in it a statement that goes beyond Gotham City, whether it’s a topical contribution to debates over the links between ‘lone wolf’ massacres and insufficient state provision of mental health care or just a populist indictment of social inequality (although, let’s face it, if you want to see an imaginative parable about class struggle on the big screen this year, you’ll be better served with Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite). Ambiguously playing into the ongoing culture wars, Joker suggests that comedy can be (literally) violent and its enjoyment conditioned by your position in the world. At one point, Phillips even doubles the ‘sad clown’ trope, as he slightly echoes a Quino cartoon involving Chaplin’s Little Tramp:

Yet I think reducing the film to such readings does it a disservice. Joker is at its most powerful when taken as a genuine character study, conveying the interiority of a damaged man falling apart (or, from another perspective, coming together) as he tries to simultaneously cope with a mental disorder and with everyday life’s micro- and macroaggressions, from wider social pressures to personal family drama. The protagonist himself explicitly tells his audience that he doesn’t want to be a political symbol, he wants to be treated as a human being with specific issues. Indeed, the film doesn’t justify the Joker’s actions so much as conceive a (physical and psychological) context in which they could emerge. The fact that we somehow empathize with this messed up protagonist is the greatest accomplishment of Todd Phillips’ atmospheric direction, which makes the most out of Lawrence Sher’s beautifully melancholic cinematography and plenty of effective needle drops along the way.

Above all, what unquestionably elevates the whole thing is Joaquin Phoenix’s nuanced, compelling performance, which, for long stretches of the film, invites you to abandon any preconceptions and just accept Arthur Fleck’s subjectivity. If part of the fun is watching Batman’s mythos turned upside down, the most enjoyable moments actually take place when you let yourself forget Joker is set in the DCU at all. Phoenix’s gentle dancing, his unsettling gaze, his unexpected mood swings, his uncontrollable laughter, his facial plasticity, and his bony, contorted body make the character more concrete than a mere metaphor for urban malaise or rampant capitalism – and surely more unique than the embodiment of a multi-media franchise harkening back to a design Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, and Bob Kane created almost eighty years ago.

Batman #1

What won me over was not just finding at Joker‘s core a surprisingly rich and touching character-driven piece, but also the experience of navigating the tension between all the abovementioned layers, at times responding to the more dramatic aspects, other times to the geekier thrills of intertextuality, clearly not always in sync with the rest of the room. Like Arthur Fleck sitting in the audience at the comedy club, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing, I laughed when everyone was quiet and did so with a laughter that often betrayed discomfort, but I definitely got a kick out of it.

Posted in WEBS OF FICTION | Tagged Alan Moore, Bill Finger, Bob Kane, horror, Jerry Robinson, Joker, movies, politics, Quino | Leave a comment

Spotlight on Denny O’Neil’s and Mike Kaluta’s The Shadow

Posted on October 4, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

Like I mentioned in the blog’s latest manifesto, Gotham Calling is no longer focusing primarily on Batman comics, but that doesn’t mean we’re moving too far way… For instance, this week we’ll have a look at another DC comic featuring a dark crimefighter and a classic run written (mostly) by Denny O’Neil – namely the ultra-atmospheric The Shadow (1973-1975).

The Shadow #1

As some of you are no doubt aware, the Shadow is an iconic vigilante created by Walter B. Gibson (with the pen name of Maxwell Grant) in the early 1930s. The character actually started out as the narrator of an anthology radio show before Gibson developed him in pulp magazines, but it was the literary version that truly established the Shadow as we know it. In turn, that version was adapted to its own popular radio drama later on in the decade.

The deadly Shadow, who had picked up hypnotic abilities (i.e. ‘the power to cloud men’s minds’) in the exotic Orient (because Orientalism was a major leitmotif of 1930s’ pulp fiction), worked with a crew of agents, including – to use O’Neil’s helpful definitions – man-about-town Harry Vincent (the Shadow’s hands), the clever Margo Lane (his eyes), ex-boxer cabbie Shrevy (his legs), and communications expert Burbank (his ears). Besides his sinister laugh, the Shadow has become associated with a handful of catchphrases, most notably the intro from his radio show (‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!’) and the episodes’ recurring final lines (‘The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay… The Shadow knows!’).

DC got the rights to publish a Shadow comic during the 1970s’ pulp revival. Denny O’Neil was a solid choice to edit and write the series, as he had already proven his pulpy sensibilities through his fan-favorite Batman run (and he would further demonstrate them with his work on Doc Savage ten years later).

O’Neil threw himself at the material, sticking to the original setting of Depression-era New York City while channeling old-fashioned detective yarns… The very first issue featured a neat gimmick – early on in the story, readers were shown an enigmatic message while a caption box teased them: ‘Have you cracked the code? If not, see the page entitled “The Shadow Knows” following this adventure!’ And, sure enough, the back matter at the end included the code’s solution.

His second story was a whodunit, complete with an opening page establishing the cast of suspects:

The Shadow #2

In tales such as this one, Denny O’Neil used the fact that the Shadow was a master of disguise to add an extra layer of mystery. The readers (like the characters in the story, including the Shadow’s own crew) were not sure whom the Shadow was posing as, so there was often a moment when someone would suddenly reveal himself as the protagonist (and more experienced readers would start looking for that someone early on, trying to anticipate the twist).

To make matters even more hazy, in issue #8 we learned that rich playboy Lamont Cranston – who had been presented as the Shadow’s civilian alter-ego – was apparently just another agent acting as a front. Like in the original pulps, the Shadow occasionally borrowed Cranston’s identity (in one story, Harry Vincent even has to get him out of Canada because the team is going on a mission to Niagara Falls and they don’t want to risk having two Cranstons around). In turn, the Shadow’s true identity remained vague and elusive, thus furthering the sensation that he was an almost elemental force of justice.

The Shadow’s relative lack of characterization (slightly compensated by his supporting cast) probably doesn’t work for everyone, but I dig this kind of murkiness. The character was a shamelessly scary, unlikable psychopath whom you rooted for (with a perverse glee) because he was – at least in the best tales – basically fighting forces that were manipulatively presented as *even* scarier and more unlikable! You can draw a direct line from this run to many subsequent stories featuring the Punisher or the Dark Knight.

The latter connection was stressed by O’Neil himself, who wrote a couple of Batman issues – #253 and #259 – where the Caped Crusader diegetically established how one character had influenced the other…

Batman #253

(These are OK comics, but not as fun as Scott Snyder’s, Steve Orlando’s, and Riley Rossmo’s Batman/The Shadow: The Murder Geniuses mini-series, which is super-madness all the way!)

Indeed, it’s not surprising Denny O’Neil ended up working on the two properties. He has always felt quite at home penning fast-paced, two-fisted adventure and hardboiled crime (traits he later successfully developed in his influential run on The Question). He tends to come up with set pieces that, even when they are not entirely consistent from a logical point of view, nevertheless work on some visceral level, either by providing a cool visual or by conveying the hero’s badassery in a particularly satisfying way.

For instance, in ‘The Kingdom of the Cobra’ (issue #3), a rather run-of-the-mill thriller is elevated near the end through this awesome sequence:

The Shadow #3

You can feel the enthusiasm of everyone involved. In the back matter, O’Neil and his assistant Allan Asherman pretended that the Shadow was real and was monitoring their work. Issue #9 also featured a text piece on the Shadow’s mass media history, written by colorist – and Shadow aficionado – Anthony Tollin.

That said, the writing was somewhat uneven, with more than a fair share of plot holes and contrivances… Moreover, because the villains were largely forgettable and the Shadow such an unstoppable force, there wasn’t much tension overall. At the end of the day, what really carried the comic wasn’t the cast or the stories, but its mood. (This is also true of the two fill-ins written by comics scholar Michael Uslan, including ‘The Night of the Avenger!,’ which crossed over with Justice, Inc.)

To say that the mesmerizing atmosphere was the key selling point is not to dismiss O’Neil – it just means acknowledging that his main contribution wasn’t as the comic’s writer, but as the editor. After all, he found a perfect line-up of artists to deliver the series’ required noirish vibe, starting with Michael Wm. Kaluta:

The Shadow #6

Mike Kaluta’s acclaimed work (in issues #1-4 and #6) paid homage to pulp magazine covers, as tilted angles framed old cars, stylish dames, and armed crooks wearing fedoras. His luscious renditions of smoke and fog (or, as in the image above, of rain and puddles) beautifully merged with O’Neil’s purple prose. It also feels a bit like you’re watching one of those lesser known FDR-era crime flicks, such as William Keighley’s Bullets or Ballots or William Wellman’s Looking for Trouble.

In the series’ final issues, the art was provided by E.R. Cruz, who adopted a similar approach. I especially like his cinematic pace in this sequence:

The Shadow #10

Between Kaluta’s and Cruz’s runs, Denny O’Neil made the brilliant decision of handing over the art duties to Frank Robbins for a few issues. Apparently, Robbins’ cartoony style was not very popular at the time, but I think his retro-looking, expressionistic pencils are perfectly suited to this kind of material:

The Shadow #9

Plus, Frank Robbins’ work had a comedic tone and timing that both O’Neil and Uslan wisely mined, thus sort of anticipating DC’s more humorous take on The Shadow in the mid-to-late 1980s. Although there is little doubt that, for the most part, the closest successor to this series was Gerard Jones’ and Eduardo Barreto’s The Shadow Strikes!, scenes like the one below – with the Shadow and Margo Lane going undercover as a married couple – wouldn’t look out of place in middle of Andrew Helfer’s and Kyle Baker’s iconoclastic run…

The Shadow #9

In 1988, Marvel published a coda to O’Neil’s and Kaluta’s run in the form of the graphic novel The Shadow: 1941 – Hitler’s Astrologer (with softer inks, by Russ Heath, and lighter colors, by Mark Chiarello, Nick Jainschigg, and John Wellington). Hitler’s Astrologer told a nasty adventure that threw the Shadow into World War II. It had a twisted premise (which involved the Shadow trying to usher in Nazi Germany’s invasion of the USSR) and a knockout climax (which I won’t spoil here), but of course the high point was watching this quasi-fascist anti-hero and his gang go up against all kinds of other fascists, including a group of Irish fifth columnists!

Michael Kaluta actually went on to become a Shadow writer himself, co-writing with Joel Gross a handful of comics for Dark Horse in the mid-1990s. Dark Horse probably hoped to cash in on Universal Pictures’ attempt to bring the Shadow to the big screen in 1994, but that film turned out to be much campier than the comics, which stayed closer to the source material. (A baffling, entertaining mess in which a scenery-chewing Alec Baldwin turns into smoke and uses elaborate gizmos to fight a shockingly orientalist villain, Russell Mulcahy’s The Shadow is best seen, not as a crime movie at all, but as part of the mid-90s’ wave of eccentric, visually stylish superhero adptations, alongside The Mask, The Crow, and Batman Forever.)

Kaluta’s and Gross’ first collaboration, the mini-series In the Coils of Leviathan, even included lengthy pastiches of the original pulps in the form of prose sections with some of the most purple descriptions I’ve ever read: ‘With mounting dread, as one might unwrap an unknown, sodden bundle, the sky dinges another point toward un-dark, hands trembling and eyes flickering to either side – will the twisted lump laying astride the curb be a discarded coat of pain, tossed off with someone’s forgotten life, the finger-spread pentalinear arc of smeared crimson mapping the final staves of its pointless symphony? Its surrounding stain the mark of ignorance or ambition?’

(I must admit I absolutely love this kind of hardboiled prose, even at its most over-the-top… Alan Moore has a chapter near the end of Jerusalem mocking it to death and, while I laughed out loud, I couldn’t help but get some genuine *delight* from the barrage of vicious images and expressions!)

Those Dark Horse comics actually share quite a few traits with Kaluta’s previous work with Denny O’Neil, albeit delving much further into the rich setting that is interwar New York City, with all its layers and contradictions. The scripts, while far from perfect, capture the grittiness of the 1930s’ crime scene and the art by Gary Gianni (In the Coils of Leviathan, Hell’s Heat Wave) and Stan Manoukian (The Shadow and the Mysterious 3) is incredibly moody in its own way…

Hell’s Heat Wave #2

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Allan Asherman, Anthony Tollin, Denny O'Neil, E.R. Cruz, Frank Robbins, Mike Kaluta, noir, Riley Rossmo, Scott Snyder, Steve Orlando, The Shadow | Leave a comment

COMICS CAN BE AWESOME (October 2019)

Posted on October 1, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

The Valiant #4

Red Mass for Mars #4

Quantum and Woody Must Die! #4

Posted in GLIMPSES INTO AWESOMENESS | Tagged Dave Lanphear, Dave McCaig, horror, James Asmus, Joe Rivera, Jonathan Hickman, Michael Garland, Paolo Rivera, Quantum and Woody, Red Mass for Mars, Ryan Bodenheim, Steve Lieber, The Valiant | Leave a comment

New Gotham Calling Manifesto

Posted on September 23, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

With over eight decades of material to delve into, the world of Batman comics is a gift that keeps on giving. From vampire film stars to old-school cops putting up with costumed crooks, from idiosyncratic creators to interesting artistic choices, from standalone tales that merit careful reading to large-scale quasi-post-apocalyptic crossovers, I’ll never get tired of the exciting, entertaining, and sometimes utterly baffling directions this giant meta-narrative has taken over time…

Still, after five years and almost 300 posts, I guess it’s time for an overhaul. As much fun as I’ve had exploring the corners of Gotham City and as much as I wish to continue doing it, this has become a limited take on my reading interests. So, from now on, Gotham Calling will no longer be a blog primarily about Batman comics, but a blog about comics in general.

Gødland #14

Well, ‘in general’ may be misleading, as the blog is bound to continue focusing essentially on genre stuff, particularly the kind of genres closer to Batman comics (two-fisted adventure, gothic horror, noirish mystery, superheroes).

There are many great works out there that fall outside this scope and I’ll fight to the death for the right of comics to be considered a medium rather than a genre – and a medium with the potential to tell powerful and nuanced stories (Rutu Modan’s The Property, Kathryn and Stuart Immonen’s Moving Pictures, David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp), to engage with mature, complex topics (Marjane Satrapi’s Chicken with Plums, Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina, Sam Kieth’s Four Women), to enable transcendent formal experiments (Richard McGuire’s Here, Max’s Rey Carbón, Chris Ware’s Building Stories), and to produce original, expressive non-fiction (Mana Neyestani’s An Iranian Metamorphosis, Edward Ross’ Filmish, Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza) at that. Still, I’ll let other voices scrutinize all those brilliant books. I have more fun digging through the trash of pop culture, looking for political subtext and artistic interest in works where they are not so apparent… or where they take a particularly eccentric form.

Incorruptible #18

In fact, the Caped Crusader and his supporting cast will probably never be too far away. Basically this will stop being a blog about Batman comics that often delves into other books and it will become a blog about all sorts of books that often delves into Batman comics – I’m guessing they’ll pop up around once a month, as I’ll continue to expand the sections ‘THE WRITERS OF BATMAN COMICS’ (Ty Templeton and Chuck Dixon are long overdue), ‘BATMAN COMICS FOR BEGINNERS’ (perhaps a post on trade collections about the extended Bat-family), ‘THE POLITICS OF BATMAN COMICS’ (depictions of religion and sexuality deserve closer attention), ‘GOTHAM CITIZENS’ (at the very least Spoiler and Condiment King), ‘THE ART OF BATMAN COMICS’ (Norm Breyfogle! J.H. Williams III!), ‘THE COVERS OF BATMAN COMICS’ (now a separate section, since covers are such a specific art form), and ‘WEBS OF FICTION’ (so many Elseworlds to explore…).

Yet I hope to branch out deeper into other territory – I want to write about Daredevil and She-Hulk, about Eurocomics and the Doom Patrol, about the role of cruelty in Will Eisner’s Dropsie Avenue and the depiction of madness in Shade, the Changing Man. Expect to find new sections such as ‘THE WRITERS OF SUPERMAN COMICS,’ ‘X-MEN COMICS FOR BEGINNERS,’ ‘THE POLITICS OF HELLBLAZER,’ ‘CITIZENS OF THE WILDSTORM UNIVERSE,’ and ‘THE ART OF DC HORROR COMICS.’ I want ‘WEBS OF FICTION’ to encompass various kinds of intertextual games, even when they don’t involve the Dark Knight.

The Invisibles (v2) #6

I’m also rearranging the ‘BEYOND BATMAN COMICS’ section and distributing those posts across new thematic lines. ‘FANTASTIC ADVENTURES’ will spotlight pulpy books with outlandish premises, such as sword & sorcery epics, science fiction, horror tales, and all sorts of schlocky escapism. This is where you’ll find the supernatural stuff, including over-the-top concepts like evil mutant dinosaurs or alien war zombies, as well as whatever fever dreams have popped out of the effervescent minds of Pat Mills, Peter Milligan, and Warren Ellis.

From the globetrotting slapstick of Spirou and Fantasio to the satirical cyberpunk dystopias of 2000 AD, from the nasty anthologies published by EC in the 1950s to Marvel’s more adult-oriented black & white magazines from the 1970s, not to mention the creative revolution spearheaded by editor Karen Berger in the late ‘80s / early ‘90s (which culminated in the Vertigo imprint), some of it is bound to be more lighthearted (including all-ages comics) and some of it much darker and occasionally offensive (evoking the ‘guilty pleasure’ feel of movies like the The Road Warrior or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). Among the surreal creatures, buoyant swashbucklers, time-traveling paradoxes, dimension-hopping fantasy, and all-around explosive mayhem, the idea is to celebrate the goofy weirdness and mindboggling imagination that can be found even in the most formulaic series.

‘HARDBOILED CRIME’ will focus on (comparatively) more grounded material, including gritty thrillers, detective stories, vigilante-themed exploitation, and anything that emulates film noir. I often gravitate towards this type of stuff, perhaps because the illusion of safely – and temporarily – accessing the kind of environments (criminal underworld), characters (testosterone-fueled bastards), and situations (deadly violence) I find so unappealing in real life provides some sort of perverse catharsis to all those lingering impulses. It’s also a sensory thing: bloody fisticuffs, smoking guns, dirty sidewalks, and sexy silhouettes are the perfect raw material for visually compelling narratives. Indeed, they’re perfectly suited for the language of comics, to the point that the graphic novels from the series Sin City, Parker, and Tyler Cross clearly belong in the pantheon of the most hardcore explorations of noir in any medium.

That said, besides retro-stylized works, I’ll try to tap into different branches of crime fiction, especially indie comics with a hip attitude by the likes of David Lapham, Rich Tommaso, and Anya Davidson. I’ll also continue to look into street-level action books set within superhero universes and even westerns when I feel like it.

‘SPYCRAFT & WARFARE’ is the spy fiction section. It is bound to have some overlap with the previous two, but with espionage and foreign intrigue occupying a more central position. The focus may seem narrower, but this is a fascinating narrative line with a large set of specific tropes I’d like to explore more thoroughly. There is so much about spy tales that can be fun to discuss… Toby Miller really nailed it in his thought-provoking book Spyscreen when he argued that this is a genre whose appeal can be seen as lying ‘in the romance of citizenship: readers and viewers test and enjoy limit cases presented by the comparative anarchy of international relations, where loyalty, patriotism, and even the mundanity of public employment, are suddenly reforged as plays with death and doom.’

My taste in spy fiction is relatively broad, accommodating different traditions. Many critics and fans make a rigid distinction between the more action-driven, escapist approach to the genre and a more low-key, sophisticated one, the two extremes embodied, respectively, by the James Bond franchise and John le Carré’s novels. For me, though, the division is not so straightforward. After all, even the escapist show Mission: Impossible had episodes like ‘Live Bait’ and ‘The Mind of Stefan Miklos,’ which anticipated the kind of cerebral confrontations George Smiley would have with Karla in the works of le Carré, and even the initially low-key Harry Palmer films, for all their drab, naturalistic mood and ‘working man’ protagonist, culminated in an over-the-top climax (in Billion Dollar Brain) that wouldn’t look out of place on a Bond movie. (Hell, my favorite understated, pseudo-realistic spy show airing at the moment, Counterpart, actually has a sci-fi premise at the core.)

With that in mind, there’s actually quite a lot of material to dig into, especially once you begin to tackle the unstoppable deluge of Cold War throwbacks and 007 spoofs. Plus, this section will also embrace straight-up war stories, including men-on-a-mission yarns (which are a sort of cousin to spy thrillers).

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4

You get no points for guessing the theme of the ‘SUPER POWERS’ section, as it’ll delve into the purest of comic book genres. For starters, expect more posts on accessible, continuity-light superhero series and R-rated revisionist works, but I’m also interested in how incredibly intricate and self-referential mainstream stories have become over the years, so I’ll be writing about that as well.

In retrospect, you can see how the superhero boom sprung, not just from the power fantasies of immigrant kids coming to terms with the Great Deppression and European fascism, but from various strains of late 1930s’ / early 1940s’ visual culture, from Technicolor fantasy sagas like Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz and Alexander Korda’s The Thief of Bagdad to the rip-roaring exploits of outlaws fighting social injustice in the likes of Michael Curtiz’s The Adventures of Robin Hood and Rouben Mamoulian’s The Mark of Zorro. Still, probably nobody at the time expected a high concept as childish as Superman to generate so many lasting, successful variations, with a whole industry managing to keep this admittedly silly archetype enduringly relevant and captivating. Muscular embodiments of the United States have been pitted against hordes of Nazis, commies, sinister doppelgangers, orientalist stereotypes, and all sorts of enemies du jour. There have been countless kid sidekicks, super-pets, secret identities, nuclear origin stories, deliriously illustrated slugfests, masked fetishism, inventive powers, confusing reboots, derivative plots, proto-fascist subtext, and a history of somewhat awkward attempts to deal with diversity (going back to the first female lead, the very strange Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle, according to Jon Morris’ informative The League of Regrettable Superheroes).

Playboy millionaires in fictitious cities gave way to the class-conscious Spider-Man franchise, with its obvious puberty metaphor and its quintessential connection to NYC’s architecture and lively melting pot. (It’s no wonder Spidey has had more cool film versions than any other superhero, whether it’s Sam Raimi’s charmingly retro, soap operatic, and slightly hysterical trilogy or Jon Watt’s thrilling – and self-reflexive – millennial comedies, not to mention the trippy geekgasm that is Into the Spider-Verse.) Creators like Steve Gerber, Rick Veitch, and Joe Casey have reinterpreted the genre in offbeat and provocative ways. The postmodern edge of Alan Moore’s and Frank Miller’s dark deconstructionism in the 1980s mutated into the turn-of-the-millennium’s widescreen superheroics (The Authority, JLA) and more colorful reconstructionism (Astro City, America’s Best Comics). Who knows what’s coming next?

Final Crisis #2

Not all sections will be defined by genre. ‘GLIMPSES INTO AWESOMENESS’ will be more art-centric, highlighting neat covers or intriguing splash pages and letting you bask in their glory without much in-depth discussion. While many of the other posts will seek to draw attention to how deceptively clever some works can be, this section will focus on a more visceral kind of appeal, which – let’s face it – is also a big part of this medium’s power (writers like Fabien Nury and Fred Van Lente know just how to punctuate their narratives with striking moments, just as artists like Joëlle Jones, Sophie Campbell, and Frazer Irving excel at crafting awesome-looking panels that you can stare at for ages).

Because sometimes I feel like writing thousands of words about a comic book, but other times I just want to share gorgeous, context-free images with bizarre creatures or clown Vikings and leave the rest up to your imagination…

Ivar, Timewalker #9

Finally, there will continue to be occasional ventures into prose novels, movies, and television, usually – but not necessarily – with some tangential relation to comics. Again, you can count on more junk than highbrow art, privileging cult works over the mainstream canon, although these distinctions are sometimes blurry and, ultimately, absurd. After all, we now live in an era where you can regularly watch shows with cool ninja fights mixed with intelligent writing (like in Daredevil or Westworld).

More than ever before, audiovisual fiction seems to be taking its cues from comic books. Not only have interconnected superhero sagas become a dominant blockbuster genre, but so many smaller comics are being adapted to the screen that I’ve completely lost track. You might think a film buff/comic geek like me would be all over this, yet I’m actually growing increasingly frustrated… As much as I love it when these two media draw on each other for inspiration, I prefer it when that inspiration is channelled towards fresh material. When it comes to direct adaptations of existing characters and concepts, I often feel like I’m getting less instead of more. So, my main focus won’t be to scrutinize live-action versions of comics – in line with the spirit of the remaining sections, I’m bound to be more interested in older works with fantastic elements, criminals, spies, and/or superheroes, including the same *type* of exhilarating narratives and memorable imagery that adorn my favorite books. And since they fit into the genres discussed elsewhere, I’m also redistributing the posts from ‘BEYOND BATMAN FILMS’ across the blog.

All in all, I hope you’ve enjoyed the past five years. It only gets better from now on!

Black Science #15

Posted in MANIFESTO | Tagged espionage | 2 Comments

Yep, it’s another 50 kicks in the head

Posted on September 16, 2019 by I.M. Baytor

Yesterday was Gotham Calling’s fifth anniversary. I tend to celebrate these by paying tribute to Batman’s longstanding tradition of noisily kicking his opponents in the head (and mostly having a pretty good time doing it), a tradition that often involves artists and letterers going overboard with wild acrobatics and sound effects.