On 2000's Batman: Gotham Knights #5

As I've been reviewing my way through the last few years of DC's JLA series, I knew the final arc would feature the return of the villain The Key, who last appeared in the title during its first year, menacing the team in a scary new form in JLA #8-9. In between, he showed up in a very unusual place for a Justice League villain: a Batman comic.

The comic in question was the fifth issue of the new Batman: Gotham Knights series, launched in 2000 as part of the Batman line's post-"No Man's Land" status quo. It replaced the canceled Batman: Shadow of the Bat, a third ongoing Batman book that had been launched specifically to give an ongoing home to the character's longtime distinctive writer, Alan Grant.

Gotham Knights seemed similarly created for a particular writer's vision. That writer was Devin Grayson, who had spent the last few years writing various Batman stories, various Titans stories (Arsenal, JLA/Titans, Titans) and at least one story featuring Batman and a Titan (Batman Plus Arsenal #1). What separated her from many of her peers telling Batman stories in the late '90s was, I think, her focus on character work and probing the various relationships between the heroes she wrote.

And Gotham Knights, at least at the outset of the 74-issue series, was the Batman "family" book. Grayson's issues—which comprised about 30 of the earlier issues in the series—almost always featured Batman prominently, but he was usually paired with one of his allies, and Grayson would explore his relationship with those allies during the course of the adventure. 

If that wasn't enough to entice readers, the book also featured beautiful covers from Brian Bolland (starting with issue #2) and maybe the strongest back-up feature of any DC book ever: Batman: Black and White strips that, like the 1996 miniseries of that name, featured some of the world's greatest comics creators telling short, self-contained Batman stories in, well, black and white (These back-ups were all collected in Batman: Black and White Vol. 2 and 3, by the way).

Rather than digging through my comics midden for the issue I wanted, I turned to my local library, and borrowed a copy of the 2020 trade paperback collection Batman: Gotham Knights: Transference, which was comprised of the first 12 issues of the series (Grayson wrote the first 11 of these, while the twelfth issue is a fill-in by Jen Van Meter; pencil art was split between Dale Eaglesham, Roger Robinson, Paul Ryan and Coy Turnbull). 

Now, when the Justice League defeated The Key at the end of JLA #9, new Green Arrow Connor Hawke having KO-ed him with one of his late father's boxing glove arrows borrowed from the Watchtower's trophy room, they imprisoned his mind in "a perpetually branching fatal maze" and his body in what looks to be a hospital of some kind.

In Gotham Knights, Grayson presumes that it was actually Arkham Asylum and that, I guess, is enough to make him fair game as a Batman villain. The story was entitled "Locked", and it was pencilled by Eaglesham and inked by John Floyd. 

Like the rest of the first ten issues that Grayson wrote, the story has an unusual form of narration. Blue boxes with a computer-y font that open with "File Number" and signifiers like "SUBJECT: BATMAN" an "CLASSIFIED". These narration boxes will impart information about the story, as narration boxes so often do, but they also comment directly on aspects of the character who might be their subject, that character's relationship to the Batman and feature tangents in which Grayson can meditate on whatever that issue's particular focus might be.

Essentially, these mysterious files allowed Grayson to both show and tell within the context of her stories, which, for the first year or so, were mainly standalone done-in-ones, unified by the files and building up to the reveal of a classic Batman villain, who would feature in the series' first multi-part story. 

I say "mysterious" because it is not at all clear who is writing the files. The obvious suspect, given the title of the book is, of course, Batman, but they always refer to Batman as "Batman" rather than, say, "I", and, additionally, some of the language feels a little...off. For example, in the second issue, featuring new Batgirl Cassandra Cain, the files refer to her as "the female". That same issue refers to Batman at one point as "The Detective," which seems to suggest maybe it's Ra's al Ghul writing them. (I won't spoil it here, in case you want to pick this volume up. I will note it's not exactly a shocking reveal though.)

"Locked" begins in medias res, with the first page's four panels showing dramatic goings-on at Arkham. A turn of the page, and we get a double-page splash. At its center is Batman, battling a quartet of muscular, gray-skinned, bald men, decorated with golden symbols suggesting cogs and key symbols (These are the Key's android henchmen, The Keymen, which Eaglesham draws far differently than artist Oscar Jimenez did in that JLA story). 

Standing on the left page and gesturing dramatically is The Key himself, drawn by Eaglesham and company as the same gray-skinned, stringy-haired, red-eyed ghoul that he appeared as in the pages of JLA. He is ranting about keys and escape and the nature of reality, using very big words; he will do so pretty much throughout the issue. 

Meanwhile, the case file narration boxes appear across the top of the fist page, referring to The Key as "an unrivaled escape artist, armed with hallucinatory psycho-chemicals as well as drug-enhanced  intelligence and senses." We are also told that Martian Manhunter had designed a "doorless fractal time-maze" to imprison The Key's expanded consciousness, "but the Key never stays put for long."

His plot here is that he has somehow—it is never quite explained how—sealed each and every door in Arkham, trapping the staff in whatever room they happened to be in, and keeping them from caring for the inmates. If someone doesn't do something soon, they will start starving. 

Batman defeats the Keymen and has grabbed The Key by the leather harness when Batgirl and Azrael arrive on the Arkham rooftop, and, when The Key threatens to do what he did to Arkham to the entire city, Batman starts pounding on him, to the point that Azrael has to pull him off.

"Stop!" he shouts, "You'll kill him!"

Batman tosses Azrael aside and, when Batgirl intervenes, he tries to throw her off the roof top; instead of falling, she grabs a lightning rod, spins around it and kicks Batman, leading to two panels of them fighting. But Batman breaks the fight off, swinging away, so Batman fans would have to wait a bit to see who would win in a Batman vs. Batgirl fight.

It turns out The Key had injected Batman with one of his chemicals, "unlocking" Batman's rage and violence. This is part of a plan to have Batman kill him, which will help him achieve two goals. First, there's the notoriety of fighting Batman and, second, this will allow him to escape life itself. 

So Batman runs around Gotham a bit, fighting crime more brutally than ever—at one point, he hurls a drug dealer off a rooftop, but Batgirl is right behind him, and manages to catch the crook mid-fall—before circling back to Arkham to kill The Key.

There, Robin Tim Drake has been called in to watch over the badly injured Key, but the Key paralyzes him, and lectures him about what he's done to Batman, repression, escape, walls, doors and so on (One gets the sense that Robin is only in the story to give The Key someone to talk to for this scenes). 

The last person standing in Batman's way is an Arkham doctor, who makes a little speech about how he's devoted himself to preserving precious life, which reminds Batman of his father, and he's able to overcome the influence of The Key's drugs. 

In a rather clever ending, Batman tells The Key: 

This routine is getting tired, Key. You're an escape artist and you escape. 

That's supposed to impress me? 

The only person alive who could impress me right now is the person who could actually find a way to contain you.

In the very last panel, we see The Key in a straightjacket and leather straps, various orderlies working around him as he instructs them:

--Don't care what you do for Mr. Zsasz, this simply isn't tight enough!

And how many times do I have to explain-- We can't weld the box shut until I'm in it!

Seeking to impress Batman, he has taken to designing his own imprisonment, one that even he can't escape from. 

It's a pretty interesting deep dive into the psychology of The Key...at least of Grant Morrison and company's reinvented version of him from JLA, and a compelling exploration of why Batman is the way he is, particularly his devotion to never taking a human life, and how his parents—particularly his doctor father—influenced him.

In general, I'm a fan of Eaglesham's work. He has a highly detailed style well suited to superhero comics. Revisiting this story, though, I'm struck by a few things, like his body-builder version of Batman, complete with bulging veins visible through his costume, and his similarly muscular, more Barbie-doll version of Batgirl, which is in such sharp contrast to how Damion Scott was drawing her in her own title at the time. (Eaglesham, by the way, draws short Batman ears, making him something of an outlier for that point in time; me, as a fan of Norm Breyfogle and Kelley Jones, I say the longer the ears the better).

Though now 25 years old, I think the story aged rather well, and reads perfectly fine today as an interesting, evergreen, standalone Batman comic. Like the rest of Grayson's run on the title, I'd recommend it. If you've never read any of her Gotham Knights, do check out that Transference trade. 

Let's talk at greater length about Shazam! #1

•Last Wednesday finally saw the release of Geoff Johns' follow-up to his 2012-2013 Captain Marvel/Shazam strip from Justice League, in the form of a new monthly series drawn by Dale Eaglesham and colored by Mike Atiyeh. I reviewed it here, if you'd like to read a full, formal review of the debut issue. If you would not like to, then I can tell you here that the first issue is pretty good: It's certainly not the Captain Marvel/Shazam comic I would have written, nor is it of the sort I would most like to read (both Multiversity: Thunderworld Adventures and Convergence: Shazam were closer to what I would have wanted to read; if they could do that in the DCU, I think they'd be all set). But it is probably the comic DC had to do at this particular point, to follow up on Johns' strip-turned-graphic novel with Gary Frank, which appears to be the basis of the upcoming Shazam movie.

So while there are still some strange, half-embarrassed elements from that New 52 relaunch of the character and franchise present, we do see Johns pulling back in some of his previous attempts to make the story more "realistic" or, well, gritty I guess, like Billy Batson no longer being the asshole teen he was when we first met him, but having genuinely changed as a person, becoming a protagonist that a reader might not mind being in the same room with.

Eaglesham was probably the ideal artist for the book at this point, too, as he can bridge the gap between Franks' style and still work in images that are light and fun. Like the above, which packs the whole Shazam Family--the transformed versions of Billy, Mary, Freddie and the three "Lieutenant Marvels"--into a single panel, providing them with a range of expressions that recalls Kevin Maguire's JLI comics.

•With his hood down, the biggest, most glaring change between Cap's traditional costume and his New 52 one is that he and his siblings all have perpetually shining lightning bolt logos on their chests. In the trailers for the movie we've seen so far, it simply glows all the time, as if actor Zachary Levi is wearing a neon sign embedded in the chest of his goofy-looking muscle suit. In the comics, the bolts shine with an electric blue light that interrupt the red/yellow color scheme, and further suggest a hollowness to the characters' torsos, as if they are living batteries with lightning bolt-shaped holes in their chests that the magic lightning emanates from. I'm...not a fan of the look.

That impression may be more suggestion than reality, but the lighting glowing from within a chest logo reminds me of Alex Ross's Kingdom Come Green Lantern (and the character's last redesign before The New 52-boot; there's a nice image of that in this survey of Alan Scott costumes), whose green armor forms a power battery of sorts around him, and, to a lesser degree the Alpha Lanterns from Johns' run on the Green Lantern titles.


•In both of the above images, you can see that the Shazam lightning logos are alive with Kirby dots. I...don't like that. While Jack Kirby was such a prolific superhero creator and comics artists for both of the Big Two comics publishers (and plenty of other publishers), Captain Marvel was a superhero character he did not create, and it seems weird that every appearance of the hero should be accompanied by a visual element that has long since become synonymous with Kirby.

•The teenage superhero confronting the gang of gunmen wearing cheap, store-bought masks of the universes preeminent superhero team made me a little uncomfortable. Coincidence or homage, you would think someone somewhere along the line would have noticed how closely resembles the scene from Spider-Man: Homecoming and felt at least as uncomfortable, and suggested maybe changing their masks.

•I was a little surprised that Billy alludes to his superhero alter-ego's difficulty with a name not once, but twice in the same comic, both in the panel where Captain Marvel/Shazam first appears, and the one in the above panel, where he mentions his name. As I assume anyone knows who has read this deeply into a blog post of mine knows, the character's name is "Captain Marvel," although DC has experimented for years in trying to change it to Shazam and, briefly, just "Marvel", which doesn't really help at all (In terms of the latter, Captain Marvel Jr. was going to become the new Captain Marvel, and take the name "Shazam," while the former Captain Marvel was going to take the place of the wizard, and go by "Marvel").

The idea of changing Captain Marvel's name to Shazam seems to be that since DC hasn't been legally able to name TV shows, comics and now movies "Captain Marvel" for so long, due to the existence of a succession of lesser Marvel Comics characters who have tossed the codename around like a hot potato seemingly just to keep Fawcett's superman down, a lot of people who don't read comics have just assumed Shazam was the name of the hero, rather than the name of the wizard. The problem, of course, is that since "Shazam!" is Billy's magic word, and the saying of it is so key to the character's basic story, that every time the character introduces himself, he should revert to Billy, and any time Billy tried talking about the hero, he would transform into the hero (that latter was more of a problem when Billy was a boy reporter; so far, this Billy doesn't have a job, although I guess I won't be at all surprised if he becomes an amateur podcaster or does a youth podcast for the local radio station WHIZ).

That's the problem he alludes to when he decides not to announce himself to the gunmen, and that the whole Shazam Family stumble into when they meet with the police after the fight. That it's apparently been a year since the events now collected in Johns and Frank's Shazam trade paperback and the characters still don't have names, and here we see Billy making a reference to the hero's "real" name before being cut off makes me wonder if DC and/or Johns are rethinking the name of the character, or are just acknowledging the difficulty in the change.

I guess it will be unlikely for them to not call him Shazam, given the upcoming release of the film, but it's not impossible. Maybe they will settle on something like Captain or The Captain or even Captain Shazam...? I don't know; I remain curious about Mary and Freddie's alter egos, as "Mary Marvel" and "Captain Marvel Jr." seem out, and "Mary Shazam" and "Shazam Jr." sound so silly.

And then there's the matter of the new Lieutenants, who we can be certain will not be Tall Marvel, Fat Marvel and Hill Marvel (Maybe they will have names referencing their powers of strength, super-speed and the ability to talk to machines, like Captain Thunder, Lighting Girl and...The One Who Talks To Machines...?)

•This issue ends with a back-up story about how Mary joined the Vasquez family, where she was the second foster child, to follow Freddie (introduced reading a book about making your own fireworks, with the words "For Adults only" visible on the cover). It's drawn by Sen, whose style seems far better suited to a kid-friendly comic than Eaglesham's (Like most DCU books though, this is rated "T for Teen", and DC thus doesn't really find it appropriate for most kids, even if it has so far been free of Black Adam tearing people limb from limb or anything).

Sen's Mary and Darla still look youthful when transformed; Mary does seem to "age up" now like Billy when she transforms, but Darla is supposed to retain her youthful look, even though Eaglesham draws her as if she too ages up.

But forget all that. Yes, Sen's art is great, and yes, it did make me want to see what this comic or the Shazam/Captain Marvel relaunch might have looked like had she drawn the whole shebang instead of Franks and Eaglesham (as well as what the characters might have looked like had they been redesigned in a more classic-looking direction than into the New 52 aesthetic; think Miriam Marvel and Black Adam's redesigns from the pages of Bombshells, for example). The important thing is this: Look, that rabbit has received Marvel-ous powers when the girl's transform!

This version of Hoppy is brown and white, like Art Baltazar's version from Tiny Titans and the DC Super-Pets franchise, rather than the pink of the original Hoppy. Not the shape of the brown of his fur after his transformation, too. I hope this wasn't just a one-off gag appearance and that we'll see more of Hoppy in the future. And I hope he will get a little costume, rather than just being a lightning-powered rabbit in the way that the first story arc's Tawky was just a magically powered-up tiger rather than a talking tiger wearing a suit. we'll see.

Review: Secret Six Vol. 1: Friends in Low Places

The second volume of the Gail Simone-written incarnation of Secret Six (following a healthy, 36-issue series that lasted from 2008-20011) reads infinitely better in trade than it did in serially published, comic book format. But then, it would almost have to, as the book's unusual delays hobbled it almost immediately upon launch.

The first issue, featuring artwork by Ken Lashley and a striking cover by Dale Eaglesham, was released in December of 2014. The "six" of the title were a half-dozen villains and anti-heroes, including the New 52 introduction of Catman (given a radically different costume that altered his original origin dramatically, but is otherwise a strong design), reappearances by the Simone-created Ventriloquist III (or II in the New 52, I guess) and Black Alice (whose New 52 debut came in DC Universe Vs. Masters of The Universe, of all places), plus mute Court of Owls assassin Strix (from Simone's run on Batgirl) and new characters Porcelain and Big Shot.

Structured as a bizarre (if familiar, Saw-like) horror mystery, it featured our point-of-view character Thomas "Catman" Blake being abducted and waking up in a seemingly inescapable, coffin-shaped room with the other five characters, while their captor posed a vague, open-ended question (which doesn't make sense, given what follows) and occasionally delivering electric shocks. A lot of mysterious elements, a lot of questions and relatively little connection to the previous series, outside the presence of this new, New 52 version of Catman.

The second issue missed January, and didn't ship until February of 2015. The creative team remained the same, but the plot advanced only minimally, with the characters working together to escape their prison and kill their captors–save the unseen boss, Mockingbird. The present was broken up with flashbacks to Catman being thrown into another prison by a group of characters who may or may not have been the same as the ones imprisoning the Six, where he was kept one year and then released (Kind of like a less extreme version of Oldboy, really).

Who many of the characters were, and what their relationship to one another and why they were targeted remained a mystery. Mystery is fine, of course, but keep in mind that this was a brand-new series still in the process of establishing a premise, and after just 40 pages spread over three months, it still wasn't quite there.

And then the book disappeared for a while, missing three months and only reappearing again in June with the third issue. At this point, the art started changing, with Tom Derenick drawing the final 12 pages after Lashley's first eight, but it finally came together. These six odd-ball characters were going to band together to find and fight Mockingbird for what he did to them. Their initial base of operations would be Big Shot's home in a Gotham suburb.

The book remained on schedule after that point, shipping monthly, but the damage was apparently already done. There were a lot of hurdles placed before readers to make it this far, as they had to wait a total of seven months for the first three issues and, if the sales estimates to direct market retailers are any measure, few stuck it out and were content with what followed: By the sixth issue the book was selling several thousand copies less than when the previous volume ended, and by the seventh issue it was reaching cancellation levels (As it turns out, it is to be cancelled, being one of the many comics to not be reborn during this summer's "Rebirth" initiative).

Readers who encounter the book in trade for the first time will, of course, be spared all the waiting and the threat of waning interest between issues. The extraordinary length of time that it took Secret Six to hit six issues is still somewhat evident here, however.

Like all DC books, Secret Six had an eight-page preview story appear during DC's Convergence break. Most of the trades in which these previews have appeared have done so at the beginning of the book, but because of the timing of Secret Six's launch and the delays, their preview appears practically at random in the middle of Simone's storyline (between issues #3 and #4). It's a bit jarring, as the preview story is actually a completely complete story, and one in which the Six are presented as a fully functioning team taking on the sorts of mercenary jobs that the team in Simone's previous Secret Six series did. But that's not really who this team is, at least, not yet, and so it reads like a hiccup in the narrative, a flash-forward not demarcated as such in anyway.

By issue three, the book begins to take form, and Simone has fun contrasting her characters with the wholesome-looking, sitcom stage of a house that Big Shot, a private eye named Damon Wells with the super-human ability to Hulk out. Members of her old Six appear as mercenaries working for Mockingbird, sent to try and recover the new Six: Ragdoll, Scancal Savage and Jeanette, all rather ridiculously concealing their identities in head-to-toe, Snake Eyes-like black costumes with red goggles.

Just as I was starting to get comfortable with the series, despite not being a huge fan of Simone's sense of humor and actively disliking her reinvention of Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle's Ventriloquist and Scarface characters married with elements borrowed from horror movies (plus, telekinesis!), the last panel of the fourth issue drops some bombshells, including the true identity of one of the new characters and Mockingbird.

So overall, it's a pretty strong book, particularly if you were a fan of Simone's original. Lashley's art was fine, but that of Derenick and Dale Eaglesham is far better, particularly for a book with such a large cast and so many colorful characters (Derenick draws the sixth issue in its entirety, Eaglesham draws #4 and #5, plus the eight-pager in the middle of the book).

Like the previous Secret Six, it's a book about some fairly terrible, extremely broken villains-turned-anti-heroes who form a makeshift family and bond over scrambled eggs and mutual enemies, falling victim to and occasionally victimizing worse people. Despite my dislike of The Ventriloquist and Ferdie, this is a strong, diverse cast with an interesting mix of personalities, powers and gimmicks. Had it managed to ship monthly and with its eventual art team at the beginning–say, if DC held its launch until June 2015's "DCYou" initiative–it likely would have fared better, perhaps even surviving into the "Rebirth" phase of DC's publishing plans.

I'm a little baffled by the last two issues, though, as Mockingbird's real identity is a weird one, as is that of the traitor in the Six's midst, as is the reason the Six and Mockingbird are in conflict at all.

And now let's discuss spoilers, after this image from the cover of Secret Six #2, so click away now if you don't want this spoiled for you.

Okay, ready?

Here's the last panel of Secret Six #4:

Mockingbird is The Riddler, and Big Shot is Ralph Dibny, who pre-Flashpoint was known as The Elongated Man (Whether that's the case in The New 52 isn't revealed; Dibny mentions his ability to stretch, but not whether or not he was a superhero with a costume and codename.)

Why did The Riddler take on a secondary codename? Why did he abandon his riddle/puzzle motif? When did he take up long-term kidnapping? No idea. As for why he had it in for the Six, they were all aboard a yacht of his when a precious gem was stolen, and he thinks one of them did it and still has the gem. That's why the "What is the secret?" question was so weird; he had trapped them in order to get the thief to confess, apparently, but the set-up didn't make sense, as he threatened to kill one of them if they couldn't answer the question...not riddle, but question. Wouldn't "Who has my fucking diamond?" be a better question...?

The yacht that the diamond was stolen from blew up and sank, and during the chaos Ralph Dibny and his wife Sue Dibny were separated; he assumed she was dead. It turns out, she wasn't dead, but was with Riddler/Mockingbird this whole time. Although she seems to have amnesia?

And so Dibny's powers somehow changed a little, so that he looks/made himself look completely different, and only swells rather than stretches...?

And also The Riddler is madly in love with Sue, and was planning on proposing to her with the diamond, even though she was already married to Ralph...?

Like I said, none of this makes a whole hell of a lot of sense to me. The reveal isn't really one of those New 52 paradox reveals, as it doesn't really matter who the Dibnys are, and everyone knows The Riddler (although I found Catman and Scandal's characterizations of him as a loser odd; sure, he's no Joker or Lex Luthor, but he did conquer and rule Gotham City for months during "Zero Year").

Riddle-obsessed villain The Riddler being in conflict of mystery-loving hero The Elongated Man, even vying for the affections of the same woman, is kind of interesting, although it's pretty out-of-left field in this comic...and what makes it interesting is knowing the Dibnys and a little about their history, of course.

The conflict is kinda sorta partially resolved, with The Riddler and Sue escaping and Ralph/Damon with his new team, but there are a lot of loose ends that Simone will have to wrap up before the series ends in June, and there's only one more trade paperback's worth of issues to do it in.

You know, I think I actually kind of like this new Catman costume okay.

Dale Eaglesham

I don't know if I would go so far as to say that it is better than any of the old Catman costumes (of which Norm Breyfogle's early 90s redesign was my favorite), but if the character has been so radically reinvented in the post-Flashpoint, New 52 continuity that the magical cloth his cape is made from is no longer an aspect of his origin, nor was Batman an inspiration for his own costumed identity, then there's really no reason to have him wearing a cape or so closely resembling Batman.

This new cat-mask that Secret Six artist Dale Eaglesham has drawn is pretty damn creepy, and the tight brown leather costume and the vaguely Michael Jackson-esque jacket may look like the sort of things that a costume designer on a TV show or a film might cook up for the character (One of my biggest complaints about modern superhero costume design, particularly in the post-Flashpoint DCU, is that the costumes seem like they are those that would be worn in superhero films and TV shows, rather than superhero comics), but I think it works well in the context of this series.

Especially as I don't think this series is long for this world, and this Catman may very well end up being a temporary, out-of-continuity Catman, like that in the 1993 Legends of The Dark Knight story arc. Between the unfortunate delays–this month's issue is only the third since the series launched way back in December of last year–the unlikeable (mostly) new(-ish) characters and writer Gail Simone's dimming star as a direct market sales draw, I won't be surprised if this new iteration of Secret Six dies a quiet death in six months or so.


That said, the last panel of this issue is pretty explosive, including a surprise reveal of the true identity of the current Mockingbird (Hint: It's a character tied to DC's best-selling franchise!) and an unexpected secret identity for one of the Six.

I don't know that will be enough to save the book, and hell, if they can stay on schedule form here on out it might be, but whatever happens, I'd like to take a moment to appreciate that very creepy, very different take on Catman.

>snicker!<

(Panel rom Justice Society of America #22 by Geoff Johns, Alex Ross, Dale Eaglesham and Nate Massengill)