Batman vol. 8: Cold Days
So “The Wedding” didn’t go as planned and Batman is still a confirmed bachelor. Which is fine because that means his marriage to Queen Watevera Wa’nabi in “The Lego Movie 2” is now canon. Right? Wait… It isn’t? Awwwww…
Anyhow, Bruce’s attempted marriage to Selina also represented his big grab at happiness in the life he chose for himself. As it didn’t work out, where does that leave him? According to Bane at the end of the previous volume, the answer is broken. Current writer Tom King obviously agrees with this sentiment and makes his case for Batman’s new status quo while throwing in some all-new tragedy for the character to experience along the way.
It’s not immediately obvious how the title story means to address the recent events in Batman’s life. “Cold Days” starts off with a cute/clever concept for its story: Bruce Wayne is drafted to serve on a jury on a case where Batman apprehended Mr. Freeze in connection with the deaths of three women. Even though Freeze has recanted the confession he gave to police, it seems like a fairly open and shut case involving Batman having a routine encounter with a member of his rogues gallery. Most of the jury thinks so too with a majority ready to issue a guilty verdict after a short period of deliberation. The sole holdout they have to convince, however, is Bruce Wayne.
Why on Earth would Bruce Wayne want Mr. Freeze to go free? He’s the whole reason Freeze is in custody, so arguing for the man’s innocence is tantamount to admitting that he’s made a huge mistake here. While King has shown that he’s not averse to picking apart the conventions that underpin superhero convention (see also: “Batman vol. 2,” “The Omega Men,” the current “Heroes in Crisis”) I was honestly a little relieved to realize that’s not what he’s doing here.
By having Bruce argue for Freeze’s innocence with the jury, he’s not asking us to consider the idea of Batman — the World’s Greatest Detective — to be flawed. No, he’s trying to sell the idea that the events of “The Wedding” have left the character in a very bad place. A place where he’s going to make mistake. A place where his rage gets the better of him. A place where he has to resort to some morally and legally questionable methods in order to clean up the mess he’s made here.
As someone who loves the idea of Batman as an infallible badass, someone who’s going to outsmart and (if necessary) outfight any opponent who comes his way, being asked to consider these things is a little upsetting. At least it would be if this situation didn’t have the context it did. “Cold Days” eventually winds up being incredibly effective at showing us the effect that the events of “The Wedding” had on Batman. He’s in a bad place that has the effect of compromising his values and effectiveness and that’s disturbing to consider.
The ray of hope the story offers is that he’s not so far gone to not realize that he has a problem. Which is a much more interesting path for the character to take. Instead of putting us through another storyline where Batman insists that he’s fine only to eventually break down and realize that he’s not, King is going to have the character acknowledge and work through his issues on the job. Even if it leads to uncomfortable moments like the ones provoked here.
Lee Weeks provides the art for this storyline and it’s strong stuff. He gives the brief moments of superhero violence an appropriately gritty and intense look to them, but the majority of his work takes place among the members of the jury. They may be exasperated at what this rich, privileged guy is making them do yet Weeks never has them come off as caricatures that would have us take their concerns less seriously. It’s a storyline that asks its artist to communicate intimate drama and Weeks delivers that in spades here.
Matt Wagner doesn’t go in for that kind of drama in his story, “The Better Man,” but he’s not being asked to. This one-off is a nice encapsulation of the Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson dynamic as we’re treated to another retelling of the early days when the latter came to stay with the former. It’s balanced against present day scenes as the two fight against some of Batman’s, uh… less appreciated members of his rogues gallery. (Condiment King fans represent!) While the story calls for some abrupt changes in tone as it jumps between time periods, Wagner is able to handle the shifts with skill and nails the emotional content of the story.
(Which is why it’s really disappointing to hear him say that he regrets doing this story in the first place. Originally Wagner’s son, Brennan, was supposed to color this story which would tie in nicely with its father/son theme. Unfortunately one of the Bat-editors thought that Brennan’s coloring wasn’t consistent with the house style and brought in another colorist to handle the issue. It’s really disappointing to see that things turned out this way with DC’s handling of the situation being genuinely worthy of a slow clap.)
Though the scenes in the past don’t really tell us anything we already know about how Dick acclimated to life with Bruce, they still play off against the present day sequences. Specifically in the way that where Bruce provided comfort for his ward after the death of his acrobatic parents, it’s now Dick’s turn to help his father in his time of need. It’s a story that aims to warm the heart and manages to earn the right to do that along the way.
That being said, if you thought that delivering a story like this was meant to soften us up for the bad things that were going to happen in the one that follows it… you’d be right. “Beasts of Burden” continues the fun vibe and bantering of the present day Batman/Nightwing scenes of the previous story. This is done while scenes involving a man with one arm doing some normal and some very bad things are interspersed between them. All of this is just a lead-up to the man doing one very bad thing to Dick.
“Beasts of Burden” is an unusually serious story for the villain involved, given that he tends to work best in an over-the-top story like “My Own Worst Enemy.” King does make a good, if heavy-handed, case for taking him seriously. Aside from what he does to Dick, we get to see the character have things out with his dad as the story goes on and get an idea of how he turned out the way he did through this. It’s a not-so-subtle nod to the father/son dynamic between Bruce and Dick, which sends Batman on a ruthless quest to track him down.
Most of the two issues that follow the opening one are given over to Batman’s journey, which takes him from a Gotham gun shop, to Bronze Tiger and a bunch of ninjas, to a distaff member of the New Gods, and eventually to the frozen wilds of Russia. Watching Batman hunt his foe is as thrilling as you’d expect, with the circumstances behind it providing additional urgency. Narratively, the only real issue I have with it is the final confrontation ends in a situation that’s not too dissimilar from the “I’m not going to kill you, but I don’t have to save you” finale from “Batman Begins.” It’s a mindset for the character that works as far as that version of him goes, but doesn’t really fit the way he’s been portrayed in comics for the majority of his career.
There is one bigger problem I have with “Beasts of Burden” overall, and that’s the art. I feel bad saying this because Tony Daniel turned in some superlative work in the previous volume selling a dystopic vision of Gotham City. Here, he delivers more quality, stylish superhero work that would normally elevate any superhero story. It’s just that it the slickness of Daniel’s work feels at odds with the nature of the story.
There’s one page, the full-page headshot of Batman saying “Run” to the gun shop owner, that really sold the idea that what had happened to Dick was having an awful effect on the character. The rest of the story has the look of a standard superhero adventure. Mind you, it’s still a really good-looking one, but it lacks the emotional impact you’d expect from a story with an inciting incident like the one this had. All due respect to Daniel, I think that Weeks probably would’ve been able to deliver on the emotional content of this particular story in a better way.
If there’s one thing that King wants his audience to take away from “Cold Days,” it’s that the events of “The Wedding” have had a definite effect on Batman. I think he manages to sell that better in the title story than in “Beasts of Burden.” Mainly because the latter feels like it’s piling a new tragedy upon a still-recent one and there’s going to be diminishing returns when that happens. The events of the volume do convince me that Batman is in a bad place right now, and that’s still interesting to consider and observe since we don’t see the character there that often. Even if the execution isn’t as solid as it should be, what’s here still has me interested in seeing where King is going with his take on the character.