Batman vol. 6: Bride or Burglar

While much of “Batman #50” have largely remained unspoiled for me, two details have emerged regarding it.  The most relevant one to this volume being that Batman and Catwoman did not wind up getting married. Which is too bad for a couple of reasons.  The first being that I was already looking forward to writer Tom King giving us the Bat-divorce in issue #100 if his hundred-issue-run plan is fulfilled.  The other is that Batman and Catwoman actually do make for a very likeable couple and this volume represents our last chance to observe this before it disappears amidst all the wedding drama.

Not at first, though.  The lead story in this volume, “The Origin of Bruce Wayne” finds the man himself in the position of comforting a young boy from a wealthy family whose parents were brutally murdered.  Bruce provides all of the comfort he can to this boy, drawing on his own experience with this situation, as he tracks the killer from Zsaz, to Two-Face, then to… well, that would be telling.

It’s a tragedy in one act and on two sides, skillfully rendered by Travis Moore, as the parallels between Bruce and the child are made clear, but he fails the kid by failing to let him know that he processes his grief as Batman.  His failure is a powerful notion for the story, except that it’s effect is blunted at the very end as I feel that we’ve been given a new and very minor addition to Batman’s rogues gallery. Even if he does have a memorable origin, I can’t see “Master Bruce” and his edgelord scarring going on to become a very memorable villain after this.  Let’s just hope he stays in Arkham and gets the help he needs.

(Memorable Batman/Catwoman Moment #1:  While Bruce puzzles through the case in the middle of the night talking out loud to himself, Selina sleeps peacefully.  Whether she was only pretending to be or actually asleep, it shows us someone who understands that being married to Batman is going to come with its own unique issues and has accepted it.)

“Superfriends” brings Joelle Jones and her wonderfully detailed art back to the series for a two-parter that features Batman and (wait for it) Wonder Woman fighting together.  It turns out that, years ago, the two of them encountered an individual known as The Gentle Man fighting off the hordes of Gehenna as they tried to break into our dimension from their own.  He’d been fighting for tens of thousands of years and, at the time, turned down an offer from Batman and Wonder Woman for them to replace him for a day. Now he’s taken them up on their offer.  So the two best fighters in the Justice League wind up having to fend off ravenous hordes of demons for an entire day. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it turns out that The Gentle Man left out how time passess differently in his dimension versus theirs and now Batman and Wonder Woman are in for a much, much longer battle than they initially thought.

King looks to be making a big statement about how true love endures between people no matter how long they’ve been apart.  I’d be willing to go along with him if it weren’t for the fact that the length of time Batman has to spend in this dimension pushes the limits of credibility even in regards to the character’s legendary resilience.  That’s certainly an achievement, but it’s definitely not a good one. It’s less of a problem with Wonder Woman given how long she’s lived already. In fact, the high point of the story is the casual repartee she has with Batman and how the latter is able to take some casual feminist ribbing from the former in stride.

Wait, on second thought, the actual high point of the story is Jones’ art.  It’s honestly just great to look at and appreciate the detail she brings to her work, but she’s also able to sell the story’s emotional content if not its logic.  Even though we only see The Gentle Man with the woman he loves for a brief time, their love feels genuine on the page just from how they look together. The growing resignation and even moments of weakness between Batman and Wonder Woman while they’re fighting also have real weight to them thanks to Jones’ work.

(Memorable Batman/Catwoman Moment #2:  It was close, but between seeing how Batman responded to Catwoman’s “You look ridiculous” assessment when he dons his Bat-armor, and her statement that she’ll fight alongside him the next time The Gentle Man asks for a break, I went with the latter.  The whole experience could’ve been a dealbreaking moment in their relationship. Yet Catwoman took it in stride and even found a way to turn it to her advantage in the end.)

Next up is the longest story in this volume, the three-part “Everyone Loves Ivy” with (nearly all of the) art from Mikel Janin.  As you can tell from the title it’s a Poison Ivy-centric story and one that’s arguably too ambitious for its own good. That’s because the story’s central conceit is that Ivy has found a way to take over the mind of almost everyone in the world using her plant-based knowledge and powers.  She’s doing this because the world is quickly beating a path to its own destruction and only by taking everyone over can it be saved and Ivy be redeemed in the process. Standing in her way are the only two people whose minds she wasn’t able to control, and you probably don’t need to guess who they are.

It’s not that I don’t think Ivy could take over the world.  It’s just that this setup seems more like the plot for an arc of “Justice League” or even an event series.  To his credit, King does a good job of keeping the scope of this storyline focused on the interaction between Batman, Catwoman, and Ivy and that gives it an intimate feel that helps to work around this disadvantageous setup.

In order to get the full effect of the story, and really understand why Ivy feels that she needs to be redeemed, you’ll have to have read vol. 4 of this series “The War of Jokes and Riddles.”  “Everyone Loves Ivy” draws directly on the character’s minor role in that conflict and digs into its larger implications. King works through that well enough, especially in realizing that it’s not going to be Batman or Catwoman who finally gets through to Ivy.  That said, the two of them do display some impressive cleverness in dealing with someone who has the entire superhero community at her beck and call.

(Memorable Batman/Catwoman Moment #3:  There’s a moment when Batman and Catwoman have some quiet talk and share their true feelings while taking care of the superheroes that come to get them.  While it’s fun seeing Batman take Superman out with a whistle, the real fun comes from the couple’s banter which feels like it could only have come from a couple who really love each other.)

Finally we have the title story, “Bride or Burglar” which is a fun piece of fluff that traces Batman and Catwoman’s history against the latter’s search for a suitable wedding dress.  Janin and Jones both illustrate the issue with the former handling the flashback sequences and the latter giving us the silent present day ones. Their work is as excellent as you’d expect with Jones communicating Catwoman’s determination to do this her way on her terms beautifully to the point where any words would’ve felt superfluous.

Janin gets something just as interesting to draw as we get to see snapshots of Batman and Catwoman’s relationship from every major age of comics.  His style is dominant throughout so a little bit of each age’s specificity is lost, but these sequences are still nice to look at and their two-page culmination is very nice.  King doesn’t do his artist any favors as acknowledging such a wide swath of Batman’s history in so short of space comes with some wildly contrasting tones as well. It’s also going to drive anyone who takes continuity seriously nuts because none of these scenes have any place in the modern “The DCU has only been around for five years” setup of the “New 52.”

(Memorable Batman/Catwoman Moment #4:  Was going to go with the two-page spread where the two put their entire relationship, and their current desire to get married, into context.  Yet I have to go with the page where Catwoman has Batman at her mercy with a cat pun-themed trap and puts the title question to him just for how it asks us to take something so silly seriously.)

I’m still not sure what to expect when I finally get to the wedding in the next volume.  King strikes me as a writer who really thinks things through, so I’m certain that he’s got a good reason why Batman and Catwoman aren’t going to get married.  That’s really too bad since we get more than a few good reasons showing us why they should. In fact, the volume as a whole is better showcase for the couple’s charms than their superhero adventures together.  At least “Bride or Burglar?” can stand as a reminder of better times for the couple before it all goes away.