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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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You know comics have secured a wider berth in popular culture when women you don’t even know mention superheroes suggestively. Allow me to explain. I was buying some Fantastic Four Band-Aids the other day for my son, as my daughter already has some other Band-Aids with more of a girl-oriented license like Strawberry Shortcake. The grocery store checker, a 40ish woman, asked me if I was “into” the Fantastic Four. “Not really,” I said, “They’re for my son.” I mean, sure, I love the F.F., but I didn’t want to give her the impression I liked them so much it influenced my Band-Aid purchasing decisions. I almost got Batman ones, actually, but the F.F. ones were on sale. Maybe I should have said, “Yes, I love them!” proudly, and my failure to do this somehow hurts comics. Anyway, she said, “If I could have a superpower, I know what I would want to be.” “Yeah? What’s that?” I asked, politely. “I would want to be elastic.” She may have pointed to Mr. Fantastic on the box at the time, maybe not. “That would be useful,” I offered, again, just politely. Regular readers know I like a double-entendre now and then, but I really didn’t entend one in this instance. “Yes…that would be useful,” she agreed, then laughed and blushed, and I quickly caught up to what she was talking about, I think. “I shouldn’t have said that!” she said, embarrassed, and I told her it was fine, and we had a chuckle, and the transaction was over. And so ends another Tale from the Checkstand. Let this be a lesson that even superheroes can be sexy to “outsiders” and “pervertsuit” need not have such a negative connotation.
So it’s no surprise that the seminal Year One would get a redesigned (by Chip Kidd) hardcover treatment, with some bonus material, especially since the release coincided with this summer’s Batman Begins film, which borrows liberally from this very story. And this book is only twenty bucks—just five bucks per issue collected, only about a 500% increase over the 1987 cover price of these issues—so I guess we can consider ourselves lucky. But you know, the hardcover has lost a lot of its savor, now that junk like Batman: Hush finds its way into the format. So I was curious, especially after the overwhelmingly negative reaction from readers to Miller’s latest Batbook, All-Star Batman & Robin, if this fondly remembered tale still holds up. The first page to this collection, which if I remember correctly is recolored from the original to add more solemnity, bears the title, “Chapter One: Who I Am. How I Come To Be.” It might be nitpicking, but this title actually promises a bit more of a personal connection to Bruce Wayne—perhaps even a constant first person narration—than ends up in the final product. Significantly, the first character who narrates and whom we see, is Lieutenant James Gordon, newly arrived in Gotham from Chicago. Having Gordon compare Gotham to Hell right from the start is a good, dramatic touch, especially since Chicago itself conjures up images of police corruption going back generations. Miller similarly paints Gordon’s new partner Flass in broad strokes (“Cop got it made in Gotham.”), but if it’s a bit heavy-handed, at least he accomplishes these things quickly, in just two pages. Within four pages, Bruce Wayne returns to Wayne Manor, we see that police corruption goes right up to the Commissioner, and that a confrontation between good cop Gordon and bad cop Flass is inevitable. With just four issues to rebuild Batman’s world from the ground up, Miller is as focused as he has ever been.
Selina Kyle, the future Catwoman, appears soon after, and though her refashioned origin as a prostitute was controversial for its time, and still is used as evidence of Miller’s misogyny, I’m not convinced. There’s a great line here where she asks, “You know what I hate most about men, Skunk? Never met one.” That says a lot. If you grew up as a woman in a city full of venal, exploitive males, it makes sense to do your own exploiting, to use their weakness for flesh against them and gain yourself a modicum of power. It’s also significant that when the opportunity for change presents itself, she takes it, with no looking back. She’s inspired by a man, yes—Batman—but he’s not her savior and her morality remains her own. She just sees in his example a new way to gain power. It’s also worth mentioning that, unlike later Miller work, Selina is not called upon to titillate other characters or the readers themselves. It’s unclear how much of this has to do with Mazzucchelli restrained style, but there are no scenes where Selina acts seductive or suggestive in any way. As celebrated as Miller’s work is on this story, Mazzucchelli matches or betters his achievements. A superior illustrator probably second only to Alex Toth in his expert use of blacks, Mazzucchelli creates a Batman who may be the most imposing ever depicted, and yet also the most realistic in proportions. His sense of anatomy, drapery and composition are all excellent, and the action scenes are powerfully minimalist, the perfect frozen moment each panel rather than a jumble of “cool” poses. Kudos to DC as well for having Richmond Lewis recolor the series with the technology available today, as her original coloring for the newsprint Batman issues that first carried this story would have been woefully inappropriate on this quality of paper. See these fine examples sprinkled throughout this column for some great examples of what her reworking brings to the book, as well as the supplemental section in the back that shows some examples of the original and second coloring. As I said above, Gordon is the real hero of the tale, but Miller’s sometimes brief appearances of Batman are always well-written. He’s a man trying to do good first—his first “adventure” is without costume and with the bat gimmick still locked in his subconscious—and it’s not surprising that he screws up and bites off more than he can chew. He’s got a ways to go yet, and will need help, plus we quickly see how far he’s willing to go against the law for justice, and the answer is that he won’t let even corrupt police perish by his actions. The final scene in this first chapter, where Wayne is inspired by the appearance of a bat strong enough to crash through a window unscathed, is still fairly ridiculous, but as the logic behind dressing up as a bat to scare criminals is very shaky anyway, one can’t blame Miller for just rewriting the original Finger/Kane scene rather than coming up with a new, silly origin.
It’s interesting to realize now that Miller spends no time on several aspects of the Batman mythos some would argue are necessary to explore, such as Bruce’s childhood, his relationship with butler/guardian Alfred, his place in Wayne Enterprises and the establishing of the Wayne “playboy” persona. There’s no romantic interest in Selina Kyle as yet, no hint of a Robin. It’s likely that Miller knew other writers in the subsequent monthly Batbooks would be drawing from his beginnings to tell their own stories of these characters and events, and so he only concentrated on what he felt was most important. Typical of Miller, what was important was to establish Gotham as a character, establish his heroes as men out of place with their environment, and then have them destroy and reshape that environment to one in which they can operate and do good. Many have argued that Batman’s brand of justice is just another form of fascism, but he really does restrict himself to stopping crime and there is no indication here that he has any interest in affecting Gotham’s government. He just wants the people to be safe, safer than his parents were on that fateful night they were murdered. This moment has changed his life forever, and left him emotionally stunted, so Gordon is a good contrast to him. He’s just as reliable and honorable, but he’s more of a complete human, with the joys and weaknesses that brings. Year One is not the character study (Matt Murdock and New York) that Miller’s Daredevil was, and at this length, it can’t be, but it is nonetheless one of his most sincere and focused works, and his best collaboration. DC Comics. $19.99
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Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli and Richmond Lewis. It’s an interesting, and expensive, time to be a pop culture enthusiast approaching middle age. Music you grew up with on vinyl or cassette or bare bones compact disc is now reissued with better sound, nicer packaging, and often an extra disc of unreleased material worth listening to once. Movies are the same way, and we’re happy to pay extra for the Criterion Collection or a limited edition set with even more features. And comics—DC in particular has been on a roll with their Absolute Editions—slipcased hardcovers of popular comics with loads of extra material, for at least $75.00. 
Religious corruption—a favorite of Miller’s in the later Sin City--creeps in, and then, another favorite, our hero Gordon is beaten half to death by Flass and his cronies, in masks. Miller rarely will write a hero outsmarting his opponent; usually he gets hurt badly and comes back for vengeance, made invincible by his rage.
The next three chapters move as briskly as the first. It’s amazing how tight Miller’s plot is, especially when these days similar events would be played out across a year’s worth of a title. As with his previous classic, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the presence of the Batman causes a kind of war in Gotham, the sellout servants of order decked out in all their fascistic regalia to take out this lithe knight and anyone who stands in their way. Miller makes Gordon’s wife Barbara a pitiable woman, always there for her man yet not allowed a personality of her own or the ability to connect with her husband. Jim Gordon needs someone who understands his plight, his loneliness as perhaps the only man in Gotham who understands the spirit of the law and knows right from wrong. Until he learns that Batman is the other man who knows this, Gordon turns to the next likely candidate, Detective Sarah Essen. I like that Gordon gets to make mistakes as bad as Batman’s—it’s Gordon’s “Year One”, too, after all, and it’s smart that Miller ties Gordon’s trespasses to what readers can understand, like how easy it can be to fall for a coworker, or to convince yourself your wife doesn’t understand you, when you won’t let her understand you. And it’s also good that Gordon doesn’t get away with this mistake, either.