Part of any mix tape is the mixer’s idea that “this is The Good Stuff”. But mix tapes have personality and purpose. There’s a reason Track 2 is Track 2 and is followed by Track 3, if you follow me.
So think of this as a mix tape of comics. The “Batman: Strangelove Mix” or whatever.
And here we go:
Batman and the Monster Men
by Matt Wagner
Batman: Strange Apparitions
Writers: Steve Englehart and Len Wein
Pencils: Marshall Rogers and Walt Simonson
Inkers: Terry Austin, Al Migrom, and Dick Giordano
Batman: Dark Detective
Writer: Steve Englehart
Pencils: Marshall Rogers
Inks: Terry Austin
The first “track” is Matt Wagner’s excellent retelling of the first encounter between Batman and Dr. Hugo Strange, him of the coke bottle glasses, weird little beard, and weirder little sinister man-crush on the Dark Knight.
Wagner sets Strange up as a sort of Reverse Batman; a brilliant man who has trained himself to peak physical perfection because of his tragic childhood. They could be twins, only Strange makes giant mutant cannibals and his childhood tragedy is getting picked on for his looks.
Hm. Maybe less a reverse Batman and more a cheap reflection. Anyway.
Set early in Batman’s career,
Monster Men acts as an overture to the other two books in that:
- It’s Batman’s first encounter with something a bit more horrorshow than your average mugger.
- The cops have it out for the Caped Crusader, to the point where they’re shooting at him.
- Can Bruce Wayne keep his crime-fighting nightlife from his attractive and intelligent Bat Girlfriend (in this instance, redheaded lawyer-in-training Julie Madison)?
Next up is
Strange Apparitions, which collects Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers’ run with the character. Never mind the fact that it was originally published years before Wagner’s Batstory, it plays out like a perfect sequel.
Hugo Strange returns to Gotham after his defeat at the crime-fighter’s hands, now with more madness and a twisted respect for Batman. Which doesn’t rule out a burning desire for revenge, but Strange’s respect for the man means that it can’t just be the usual deathtrap.
Oh no, nothing that simple: Strange’s revenge is learning the identity of the man under the Batmask and taking over his life. Then ruining it. To Strange’s way of thinking, that’s the only way of dealing with a foe equal to his own (perceived) greatness.
Beside this hassle, the cops are gunning for Batman, this time under the orders of corrupt city official Rupert Thorne. This time, the monsters come in the form of the radioactive Dr. Phosphorus, the tragic killer called Clayface, and one of the most blisteringly insane portrayals of The Joker.
And now the Bat Girl is stunning socialite Silver St. Cloud. Like Strange, she figures out that Batman and Bruce Wayne are one and the same. Unlike Strange, she’s…well, a stunning socialite.
After Silver watches Yet Another Batman/Joker near-deathmatch (on a steel girder in a lightning storm, no less), she decides that she’s not the sort of woman who can watch the man she loves do that. You know. Every single night.
She tells Batman as such, and they part ways on a lonely Gotham street, both sides a weird romantic casualty in Batman’s war on crime.
(As an aside, Batman takes out his frustrations on muggers and Clayface, to the point where he won’t even listen to Clayface’s bizarre-but-fixable plight. Not at all one of Batman’s best moments, but certainly one of his most human.)
Which brings us to
Dark Detective, also by Englehart and Rogers. This one’s an intentional sequel to their previous run in the prior volume. Silver St. Cloud returns to Gotham for the first time since the Bat-Break-Up…only now, as the fiancé of an up-and-coming politician. You can almost hear Bruce Wayne’s heart break when he sees her for the first time in the book.
Meanwhile, the cops are still at Batman’s throat. Silver and Bruce still don’t know how to balance their love and his nightlife. Hideously scarred coin-flipper Two-Face is up to no-good, as is scrawny fearmonger The Scarecrow, and The Joker decides to run for mayor of Gotham under the brutally direct platform of “Vote For Me, Or I’ll Kill You.” Joker’s bid for mayor pulls in Silver’s politician fiancé, which makes Silver a target for The Joker, which pulls Batman into the case moreso than usual.
And one more time, it comes down to Batman v. The Joker in front of the woman he loves, and one more time, the fallout is that Batman and Silver walk away from each other.
Now, the trappings of all three stories are pretty obvious: monsters and weirdcrime and bad cops and sexy leading ladies. They’re like the gadgets, Bond Girls, and car chases in James Bond films.
And that’s part of the charm of these stories, frankly, is that they’re sort of pulpy and weird and sexy in a way that feels right for Batman. They’re mature (not in the rating sense) takes on the character that don’t feel the need to be too serious or too campy or, really, anything but good stories.
This isn’t biff-pow Batman, or darkity-dark-dark angsty Batman, or even uber-prepared superninja Batman. This is Batman at his purest: a man who’s very good at what he does, but not perfect; a fighter of crime and lover of women, more knight than dark and absolutely the world’s greatest detective. And always a man who sacrifices a normal life so that nobody will ever have to go through what he did.
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