Shadow of the Bat #1: This is not, of course, the post-Crisis series. That Batman: Shadow of the Bat doesn't debut until 1992. This is another reprint limited series focusing on the work of Englehart and Rogers, whose late 70s collaboration on bat-titles is celebrated. These first couple of issues, though, are pre-team-up of those creators. Here we have 3 Batman stories with Englehart and Simonson from 1977, and a House of Mystery story with Rogers on art written by DeMatteis. In keeping with my policy on reprints, I won't be reviewing it, but I'm noting it was out there. It runs for 5 issues.
Amethyst #12: Newell and Doran/Kesel fill-in on this issue. Amy is babysitting neighbor kids and tells them a previously unrevealed adventure of Amethyst and Prince Topaz where they must find a way to stop the onyx plague that turns its victims to stone. The solution involves a quest to the Emissaries of Varn. It's a shame Doran didn't draw more Amethyst as her art fits the material well.
Batman #390: The skies are still red as Moench's and Mandrake's story veers into high melodrama. After their kiss in the Gotham Observatory, Batman and Nocturna have a talk. She feels her theft is justified and won't give it up, but Batman can't just let it slide. Nocturna points out that Batman is attracted to "dark and dangerous" women, but he feels compelled to stop them from being that way. If they change to suit him, he can't love them. Batman, perhaps stung by the truth, leaves. Meanwhile, the Night Slayer is still stalking the night, and Catwoman's quest to clear her name by catching him brings her to the Observatory. Robin intervenes to stop her from taking in Nocturna, and as she is fighting him, Batman shows up. He likewise tells her to stand down. Catwoman realizes Batman has feelings for Nocturna and is hurt, and in her anger, vows again to bring in Night Slayer, whatever it takes.
Then she's struck by lightning.
Batman in anger and guilt blames Nocturna and carries Catwoman's body (dead or alive, it's unclear) away with Robin coming after him. Another earthquake in the series that has been shaking Gotham creates a rift between the observatory and where they stand.
All that aside, we get more of the buddy relationship Moench is developing between Bullock and Robin. It's really a shame that that will all go away following Batman: Year One.
Legion of Super-Heroes #17: This is the second issue of Legion (not counting the Subs) I remember reading, though technically I read it in its reprint in Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #342 in 1986. LaRocque comes on as penciler this issue. Super-wealthy Leland McCauley wants to get his rival RJ Brande out of the way. Charon, the man he's hired to do that, says that the only way is to get the Legion of Super-Heroes out of way. Then we cut to Dream Girl awaking form one of her precognitive dreams saying RJ Brande is going to die and it's the Legion's fault!
The Legion rushes to the rescue and deals with the assassin, then confronts McCauley. Brande refuses to press charges, though so they have to let him go. Brande decides to give up his public persona and this petty squabbling and head on into space on his own, anonymously, thus making Dream Girl's prediction sort of true.
Omega Men #33: In the first story, Klein and McManus bring most the Omega Men to a planet Nimbus is imprisoned on where they hope to settle the refugees of the Spider Guild invasion. Meanwhile, the other group that we last saw in Blue Devil has an audience with Harry Hokum.
In the second story by Parkhouse and Gibbons, an escaped, "mad android" hiding among the folk dwelling in the sewer system becomes a healer, but he's still hunted.
Star Trek #21: Rozakis Tom Sutton/Villagran give Spock a spotlight story in his new command. The Surak arrives at an unexplored planet. Beaming down with two crewmembers, Spock finds himself alone, and in a dream-like environment. He realizes it is a dream and manages to breakout by force of will. He then has to employ the Vulcan mind meld to help the other crew escape and finds the monster in the mind of Commander Brinks, who isn't fond of her captain, bears a resemblance to him.
Super Powers #4: Superman and Firestorm are investigating one of the "Seeds of Doom" and encounter a Roman gladiator and Steppenwolf. They follow Steppenwolf into the past, Firestorm and the Gladiator having to be wrapped in Superman's somehow expanded cape for the journey. In the Roman era, our heroes are captured and rendered powerless by Steppenwolf, then forced to fight in the arena. Firestorm manages to save both himself and Superman by separating into his component identities to escape the inhibiting device. The heroes defeat Steppenwolf and return to their own time to find the seed shriveled and dead.
Superman #414: Maggin and Swan/Williamson continue the story from last month's DCP #87. The Man of Steel is the captive of the Superman Revenge Squad. They take him to New Krypton, the home of the Kandorians, and forced to watch their conquest of the planet. Though they aren't able to win militarily, they employ means to mind control the Kryptonian population. They even bring them in to beat up Superman, and the poor guy seems so defeated he winds up sitting in a corner with his cape over his head. That's a ruse though, because when Sylvia (the human wife of Superman's cousin Van-Zee) shows up, she gives Superman a Phantom Zone Projector he had told her a little while ago to carry, predicting just such a Revenge Squad plot. The alien leaders are sent to the Zone. Before leaving New Krypton for what will be the last time thanks to Crisis, Superman retrieves Supergirl's body from space and brings it to her parents, Zor-El and Alura.
This is the last story where any of those Kryptonian survivors (or the Superman Revenger Squad) appear for some time, though many have ultimately been reintroduced in one form or another.
3 comments:
Nocturna's not completely wrong about Batman's codependent ways but the relative scarcity of women in the Gotham rogues gallery may point to something a little more complicated. Most of the people who Batman cultivates seem to be Joe Chill substitutes he can test issue after issue to see if they're the one responsible for killing his parents. He collects them like mementos in the cave. On the other hand, the women might operate like Martha substitutes who he doesn't necessarily need to fix but he definitely needs to engineer ways to prove to himself that he can keep saving them.
TLDR She wants to be Jason's mom and maybe if you stretch Batman's wife. I don't think Batman really wants to be married to Nocturna and be Jason's real dad. Part of him wants Nocturna to be his mom, which creates tension by setting them him and Jason up as rivals. Perversely I think the fans could see this and semi-consciously resented Jason for getting in Batman's lane so to speak.
Interesting reading! I think that's a good Freudian analysis of the fan reaction to Jason. Batman's sudden, deep attraction to Nocturna does seem to hint something else is going on. Moench never wants to wholly commit to a critique of Batman's neurosis as a couple of times mind-manipulating chemicals are mentioned then forgotten on Nocturna's part. Like with Poison Ivy, Gotham's men like to maintain plausible denial ability for their easy manipulation.
Great call with Poison Ivy who is most interesting in a Gotham Noir environment as the queen of perfumes, pheromones, poisons. But she does that to everyone, it's her thing. If I recall correctly there aren't any women in the Arkham Asylum book, she's mostly important in the Black Orchid miniseries.
Wonder if the Joker's occasional swerve into neurochemistry has a similar symbolic logic to it . . . the Joker isn't so much an epistemic threat to Batman's equilibrium as the transgressive power of laughter turned into murder. I should've done a "TLDKR" gag up there but this is probably more the end of Killing Joke.
Supposedly the entire existence of Robins is complicated for the theoretical juvenile reader who has to manage the urge to become Batman and then displaces the lingering resentment onto a privileged sidekick elevated in your place . . . at least this was Jules Feiffer's experience, when the boy wonder came out he hated that guy.
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