Batman: Broken City

DC Comics

Writer: Brian Azzarello

Artist: Eduardo Risso

Letterer: Clem Robbins

Colorist: Patricia Mulvihill

In Batman: Broken City, Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso (100 Bullets) give the dark knight a confusing case where murders pile up, a used car dealer commits sororicide, and even Scarface is scary.

This is a brilliant little crime novel. The writing is crisp and the dialogue’s interesting. It’s also the best noir writing in comics since Frank Miller gave birth to Marv and Sin City. If the world of sequential art were to lose Mr. Miller tomorrow, Sin City would find a capable new interpreter in the hands of Brian Azzarello. That said, Broken City has its problems. Namely: this is a crime story first, and a Batman story second.  

Azzarello’s Batman is entertaining, but lacks a deeper resonance. The character is sympathetic, tortured and nasty—all the things Batman should be—but this Batman doesn’t have the intelligence that Jeph Loeb or Paul Dini give him. The tension between refined aristocrat and heavy-handed bruiser defines Batman. Azzarello’s Batman, like the Batman of Superman: For Tomorrow, is consumed entirely by the mask, a one-trick pony. Bruce Wayne is a virtual non-entity.

Fatman (the guy) and Little Boy (the girl).

This choice is Azzarello’s to make, but, in my opinion, it short shrifts the character. Batman’s at his best when he wrestles with the two sides of his personality. This dichotomy underlies all of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, and made Grant Morrison’s recent “Batman and Son” arc a masterpiece (in one remarkable scene, Alfred has to teach Batman how to be Bruce Wayne again).

This guilt-centric depiction isn’t totally unwarranted. For Azzarello, guilt is Bruce Wayne’s defining characteristic. The Bruce Wayne of Broken City literally can’t sleep for dreaming. He’s terrified by nighttime visions of his parents’ murders. He obsesses over it, and even imagines different scenarios where he saves the day, or joins them in death. The way Bruce Wayne projects himself into the past shows how well Azzarello understands guilt. While using guilt as a theme for Superman: For Tomorrow worked wonders for Clark Kent (Methodist farmboy Superman actually goes to confession with a catholic priest in “For Tomorrow”), but focusing on Bruce Wayne’s guilt is like focusing on Mark Rothko’s use of color: it’s overkill.

The supporting cast is far more interesting. Scarface and his ventriloquist/assistant, Arnold Wesker, are psychotic and frightening, instead of just comic relief. The ventriloquism act isn’t a gag for Azzarello, it’s a symptom of a profound and dangerous psychosis. Broken City’s most interesting characters, by far, are a pair of Japanese assassins named Fat Man and Little Boy. They’re the epitome of everything a comic book character should be: interesting but menacing, bizarre without being comic, and defined as much by their visuals as by their written characters. It’s more than a little cliché, but a Japanese assassin named after an atomic bomb who wears a radioactive-hazard symbol eyepatch is still amazingly cool (in my book). Artist Eduardo Risso is to thank for that.  

As restorative as a sixteen month Puppies calendar.

In Risso’s hand, Gotham is soft clay, kneaded into a nightmarish land of shadows and angles, devils and angels. Gotham is a character for Risso, perhaps moreso than for Azzarello. Risso relishes drawing backgrounds like few other artists do. Too many pencilers give Gotham a modern, well-lit look. Not so for Eduardo Risso. The electric light fixtures are creepy and foreboding, the machine guns flare like sacrificial torches, and a cold, sterile fish market is as scary as any medieval dungeon. This Gotham actually looks…well, gothic. Batman isn’t at home in a normal looking city. He needs gargoyles, grotesques, and gigantic, menacing limestone angels to perch on. He gets all of these, and more, thanks to Risso’s attention to detail.

Complaints aside, this is an extremely competent piece of work with a lot to admire. All the same, hopefully Azzarello’s next assignment on a regular DC title will be with someone besides Bruce Wayne.  

Worth the money? Because the focus is on story rather than character, this is a good title for the casual reader. If you’re looking for a character study, though, go elsewhere.