Batman vol. 3: I Am Bane
Retroactively speaking, there was one good thing about how writer Tom King delivered an utterly formulaic and predictable start to his “Batman” run with “I Am Gotham.” It meant that he had a relatively low bar to clear with subsequent volumes, which he did with (mostly) relative ease on “I Am Suicide.” With “I Am Bane,” however, we see the writer sliding back into the comfy chair of formula. The good news is that there are enough interesting details in the story itself, along with the developments offered in the other stories included here, to keep it from backsliding completely to the quality of the first volume.
The only thing keeping Bane sane during his withdrawal from the Venom drug that gave him super-strength was the mind-controlling powers of the Psycho Pirate. Then Batman gathered a crew to kidnap the Pirate so that he could reverse the mental damage done to Gotham Girl. Bane… is a vengeful kind of guy. Now he has come to Gotham to get the Pirate back and show Batman who’s boss.
“Knightfall” remains one of the defining “Batman” stories of the 90’s as well as the definitive Bane story. It is where the villain broke the back of the Bat, after all. While it made Bane a big deal for a while after that, his character has basically been suffering from diminishing returns ever since. Here was a character whose first major appearance really changed things for Batman. After every subsequent encounter failed to do that, Bane wound up becoming a lot less imposing.
That’s the case here as well. There is some decent buildup to the Bane/Batman fights, with a whole issue being dedicated to running the villain through Arkham Asylum in what feels like a mirror-image homage to “Knightfall.” The fights, however, still play out exactly as you’d expect. In fact, Catwoman offers the most savage takedown of this conflict. She notes at one point that Batman was able to distract Bane with “…Whatever you boys were doing. I assumed it involved blood and… flexing.” Which is as good a description of the fights in this volume as anything.
Fortunately there’s a lot of fun and interesting stuff happening around the blood and flexing to hold your interest here. Even though King has Bruce Wayne do the standard, “I’m not going to endanger anyone, so get the hell out of town,” speech to Dick, Jason, Damien, and Duke, there’s a lot of character put into the scene to make it enjoyable. From the bickering between Jason and Damien, to Duke’s shock at how… formally Bruce eats a hamburger these little things are just about enough to make you forget you’ve been down this road before. As is the fact that the scene is set at a Batburger where you can Jokerize your fries with special sauce.
On the more dramatic side are things like the parallel backstories King sets up for both characters in the third issue. It’s an effective way of showing that Batman and Bane are, in a twisted manner, two sides of the same coin. Giving them both something of a mommy complex does seem like something of an odd choice at first, but it pays off — for Batman at least — in the final issue. I also have to say that Bane’s journey through Arkham is the right kind of dumb for me. The villain tears through a good majority of Batman’s rogues gallery one after the other, usually with some pithy dismissal or another assertion that he… is… BANE afterwards. This works well when, after getting hit by Scarecrow’s fear gas, he exclaims that “I GIVE nightmares,” less so in scenes where he breaks free of the ice from Mister Freeze’s gun which is as ridiculous as it is implausible. Fortunately the good dumb encounters outweigh the bad, with the Riddler scoring an effective cameo as well to set up the next arc, “The War of Jokes and Riddles.”
Illustrating this all is David Finch and it’s perfectly suited to his over-the-top superhero sensibilities. King gives the artist lots of big, sensational action to draw and he delivers in every panel. Finch also displays enough subtlety to make the scenes where people aren’t beating the crap out of each other work, as the memorability of the Batburger scene is also down to his character work there as well. I can’t say that the artist does anything dramatically different here compared to his past work, so if you’ve already got an opinion of his style then this won’t change your mind. This does make me look forward to his next collaboration with King down the line.
That said, neither of them are done working together in this volume yet. There’s an issue which serves as an epilogue to the main story as Batman talks to Gotham Girl about what she wants to do next and takes the next step in his relationship with Catwoman. The Gotham Girl section is handled by Clay Mann while Finch does the Catwoman part. While there’s some good discussion between Batman and Gotham Girl that gets to the heart of the former’s mental state and informs the Catwoman bits, Mann’s work is effectively upstaged by Finch’s. Mann is a capable artist, but his characters and art aren’t as dynamic as the artist whose work makes up the bulk of this volume. It’s telling that King wanted Finch to illustrate the scene where Batman proposes to Catwoman because the artist knows how to make it memorable.
Now, about that proposal. It’s certainly an interesting direction to take the characters in. I’m not against it, but the only way I see it working is if King is serious about his plan to stay on “Batman” for a hundred issues. That way he can handle the characters’ married life himself before returning them to the status quo if it turns out to have been a mistake. And yes, I realize that Catwoman has already answered the proposal in the comics already. I’m writing this now because I haven’t been spoiled by her response. Yet.
Next up is a short, “Good Boy.” An Eisner-winning short I might add. This is King and Finch bringing Ace, The Bat Hound, into modern continuity and doing it quite well, all things considered. Ace is introduced as the sole survivor of a playing-card-themed setup by the Joker, an experience that has left the dog almost completely feral. Alfred thinks otherwise and takes his time to rehabilitate the dog, and prove a point to Bruce at the same time.
The thing I appreciate most about this story is its economy. King and Finch deliver a story with the right and just enough beats to work. By that I mean the changes in Ace’s and Bruce’s mindsets feel believable in the context of the story’s eight pages. That’s no small accomplishment. And yet… you could tell how the story was going to end even if you had no idea that Ace the Bat Hound was part of Batman’s Silver Age continuity and the ending is too cute in the most eye-rollingest of ways. A good story, undoubtedly. Eisner-worthy? I didn’t read the other shorts for the category so I can’t rightfully say. That said, it was the only nominee from a major publisher this year, so that fact might be telling in and of itself.
Wrapping the volume up is “The Brave and The Mold” a team-up story featuring Swamp Thing which gets points just from its title alone. Lloyd McGinn was an old man living in a decrepit apartment before he was shot twice in the head for reasons unknown. As Batman is investigating the crime scene with Commissioner Gordon, they’re paid a visit by none other than Swamp Thing. What reason could he have for taking an interest in this case? Well, it turns out that Mr. McGinn was Alec Holland’s biological father.
What follows is a surprisingly reasonable team-up by Batman’s standards in that he accepts Swampy’s help without too much objection. This is down to the fact that Batman understands how the loss of a parent can affect a child, and Swampy’s speech about how death isn’t “dust to dust” but just one factor in a never ending cycle of change. The duo’s talents also mesh together well as they follow the trail back to the killer, and there’s even room for some subtle humor along the way. Then you get to the ending and, well… I don’t think King was as clear as he could have been at the end of it all, but his point eventually comes across. Mitch Gerads, King’s collaborator on “The Sheriff of Babylon,” provides the art and it has a low-key feel to it that suits the nature of the story.
“I Am Bane” doesn’t convince me that King will wind up being one of the all-time great “Batman” writers. What it does do is give me more hope that his run will be worth following to the end. Whether it winds up being a hundred, or just fifty issues. Considering how many “Batman” comics I’ve read and am currently following, I’ve got to give him credit for that.