Easter Eggs... Imported from Dundee

There are in-jokes that everyone goes 'aaaaaa'.

Then there are in-jokes that need a bit of explaining.

Alan Grant was into his last year of his great Batman run... The entire Gotham universe needs shaking up before the millenium. Let's have a bit of fun. Time for an Easter Egg, people!

So here was the forth page of Shadow of the Bat #73, panel one. Bats is talking to Oracle about the dangers of a wanted man. To illustrate the danger of this bloke, we get a graphic of Billy Wildman. However it's his 'Known Associates' we want to discuss...

American fans probably won't have got this, although I'm sure when they saw it the first time they must've felt something was afoot. This is a very British (and more accurately Scottish) comic in-joke. So allow me to explain it with this...

The three Known Associates are the grown-up Wilfred, Fatty and Plug of The Bash Street Kids fame.  

So this is what happens when you continue a path of mischief, you move to Gotham and end up on Batman's shitlist!

As all British comic fans ought to know The Bash Street Kids are iconic characters in British comics that appear in Dundee-based D.C. Thomson & Co's 'The Beano' comic.

Since I noted this in-joke, it has filled me with a wave of nostalgia. What introduced me to comics was that when I was about five years old my mum would buy me weekly copies of The Beano, in order to shut me up, I think. And to say that 'The Beano' has left a lasting impression over 25 years later is an understatement (I still can't believe I kept those Library editions for over twenty years in the attic!).... The Beano probably is the first reason I can think of as to why I read and adore comics as a medium. Seriously, I'm not alone in this nostalgia, for a lot of Brits from my generation and those older, the characters of The Beano are as important and closely loved than Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny is to American fans.

As to why this appears in Shadow of the Bat (and this time it's not just because it's another Scottish reference) is simply this... Alan Grant (along with Pat Mills and John Wagner) cut his comic creating teeth working at D.C. Thomson!

When Batman had to fight... Captain America!

In my home town there is a place where I can buy some back issues. It's totally a sideline, and is blatantly an opportunity to off-load a large amount of ex-Diamond stock. Or, it's the excess of a collection that the proprietor, has acquired. It's very late nineties, and there is a lot of what I consider to be... Throne Reading.

You know what I mean, comics that occupy that personal 5 minutes behind a locked door. Comics that you don;t feel too guilty about reading in such a situation...

There's an awful lot of nineties Marvel for sale here which is fine. Occasionally, I'll come across a gem or a complete miniseries, which will convince me to continue to pop my head in and wade through the old stuff that I have flicked through a million times before. And such an occasion happened yesterday when I picked up a NM collection of the 1993 release 'DC versus Marvel'.

Now I have a (hatred is a bit strong) dis-like for the use of the Batman to be used in DC Universe. It's not that I don't think that Batman, as an icon, shouldn't be utilised as a pivotal figure in a massive promotional crossover. Nor is it that I give a scooby that the reality of a normal bloke dressed up as a giant Bat fighting alongside and against Gods, Monsters, Aliens and Time Machines being particularly far fetched. Nope, it's because I'm lazy.

I'm lazy because I couldn't give a monkeys about the JLA relationship that Batman has. I don't care about his interaction with other DC superheroes. I don't want to involve my life knowing about the history of, say, The Green Arrow. And what the history is between Batman and the Martian Manhunter. Add to that, there's usually a character whom I don't know and couldn't care less in finding more about them. I look and see a Plastic Man in these books: and I think, balls to it!

Maybe it's the writing and the interpretation. Occasionally, these team books get it really spot on (Morrison's interpretation in JLA was pretty clever). Sadly though, usually Batman stands around looking pointless (like in an issue of Alan Moore's 'Swamp Thing'). Or worst still is when Batman is more filled out and the writer handling it gets it spectacularly wrong. For example the cameo of the Batman in the earlier issues of James Robinson's 'Starman', where the Bat broods, and only exists in the storyline in order for Robinson to lecture about his ushering a new breed of superhero. In short, these books aren't ABOUT Batman, he's just in them.

Seriously, I take most books that utilise Batman as a supporting character badly and I avoid them like the plague. Which is why I don't consider these books as being necessary to complete the Quest. And I'm not the only one, according to Grant Morrison in his 'SuperGods' book, Denny O'Neill felt pretty much the same as me. Batman works best in Gotham City. Usually. Why did I buy this miniseries, you may ask? Because it was very, very cheap.

DC versus Marvel is a strange one. I have no idea why either company did it. Oh, I suppose Ca$h had a lot to do with it. Guaranteed Sales; funny books is a serious industry that works on bottom lines. Even the writers that wrote this thing, even admit that their poor plot device is incredibly ropey, and it's best that the reader not to think too hard here! That this plot device exists primarily to ensure that the big guys fight each other very quickly and efficiently.

While there is a few cool setpieces involving our Caped Crusader (especially with Bullseye) the fight with Captain America is so bad as to not be funny. An entire four issue miniseries between this fight is reduced to a hand full of pages. For those who don't know the fight takes place in the sewers.

Perfect throne reading, then?

As Stan Lee might say, 'nuff said'.

Crossovers: Batman/Spawn: War Devil

In comics when a successful crossover occurs, there is always a sequel just begging to be released.

In the case of Batman and Spawn there was less a sequel and more of a return match.

The first Spawn/Batman was a regular comic superstar-slug-fest. Miller and McFarlane took two characters that were synonymous with their comic creating endeavours, whacked the volume up to eleven and probably bought new cars with this very Image-like outcome (and I mean that in a good way).

'War Devil' definitely is not an Image book, this is a DC comic and it involved the holy writing trinity of 1990's Batman: Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon and Alan Grant (art was by Klaus Janson, a note of interest as he was involved with Frank Miller's DKR project). I can only assume Moench got top billing because he did the majority of the writing on this book. Anyway, there were a few ways this book could have gone...

This is a book that healthily sums up all of the various ideas and themes throughout the Trinities work. Hokum, for sure, but this was the 1990's and this stuff was always interesting. So what themes and concepts have we got? Satanism, Conspiracy Theories, Tyrannical Moguls, Buildings as Symbols of Power. All the big budget tricks are here: Historical mysteries, Pentagrams carved into Gotham and Assassinations. We've got a walking army of skeletons, Transforming demons. Oh, and fire, a lot of hellfire.

Like the Miller/McFarlane prequel, this has been written as a simple, fun one shot that had no basis on continuity or achieves any bigger purpose (hell, they even totally ignore the other book). It's a horror tale, pure and simple. But what it does do is actually make Al 'Spawn' Simmons a more rounded character, and a man dealing with the mistakes, or decisions of his own past. Spawn, here is dealing with his demons, because he works for demons, and is indebted to demons, it is only natural that he hopes to overcome these demons.

There could be more blatant finger-wagging by Moench, Dixon and Grant at the Image-creation (or indeed the path Image Comics were taking the industry), but they don't do it. However, there is a feeling of one-upmanship here; at it's heart they've taken MacFarlane's creation, added a proper grown up story arc and added character development to Al Simmons that 'Spawn', as a comic title, always promised in the 1990's but never delivered upon. Indeed this story doesn't actually need Batman at all, and he only really is there to deliver this line at the end:

“Good and evil are not determined by the intercourse of people with one another, but entirely by a man's relationship with himself”. For me, it's like Moench et al are using Batman to say to Image you've got a cool character here that can really go places, don't mess it up!

The book ends with hope. Spawn can successfully achieve redemption by doing the right thing, and in (a comic book way) doing so become a proper superhero that is personified by Batman. As Batman jumps off into the Gotham night, it's almost as if Spawn is straining himself not to follow him. And that is significant in itself.

The Goddamn Batman: And Spawn

The Spawn/Batman crossover that was released in way back in 199, is a bit of an odd beast. I'm sure that there was a lot of excitement about this book before the release simply because it was Frank Miller's first return to Batman since Year One and DKR. Even in the inside cover there is a note to mention that this is a companion piece to the Dark Knight Returns universe. Did it need any more hype?

Spawn, for those who aren't initiated, was Todd McFarlane's creation when he and a few other artists went and formed Image Comics. McFarlane had every ambition to take over the comic world with this guy and this crossover would've helped him to achieve this goal. From a promotional standpoint 'Spawn/Batman' would confirm that his new could have equal billing with comic book character royalty. There is no question, McFarlane's art is gorgeous. And the story, ahh the story, well most of it works...

There are a few moments of brilliance here. Like a lot of Miller's 1990's stuff there is a lot invention and experimentation going on, and this is all over this crossover. For example, there is the humorous determination of Alfred's insistence that Bruce should drink the calming chamomile tea that has been prepared for him. There is the 'mind fusion' scene between Spawn and Batman that is really well done. I love the consequences of the first fight (c'mon that's what two superheroes do when they meet for the first time!) between Spawn and Batman that really pads out Miller's updated characterization of the Bat. Also, there is a cleverness to the way Spawn is the presented as more heroic of the two in this crossover, by the stories end.

For me though, it is in this volume that the Frank Miller 'Goddamn Batman' is born. For sure, the older Batman in DKR is a cynical, calculating fellow that is weighed down by the demons of abandoning his vigilante quest. Added to the excessive actions of his enemies, the reader accepts that Batman must be a little more hard-boiled, and more hardcore, than he ever was before.

Here in this volume Batman, still early in his DKR-world career, is presented just as a really, bitter and twisted, highly obsessed Dirty Harry-style vigilante. For Miller, Batman doesn't like anyone or anything much. Any objective he sets himself is accomplished with ruthless aggression, and by any means necessary. This is the same Batman that would again pop up in later works.

However, where the story disappoints is that the entire project feels a bit too rushed. The finale happens way too quickly. I had to skip back a few pages to make sure I hadn't missed something in the stories climax (I hadn't). And the villain of the piece turns out to be a wet paper bag. Also, there is an almighty faux-pas that occurs right at the start of the book that cannot be easily forgiven by a true Batman fan.

You can now pick up this book rather cheaply. And for 50p at a comic mart, it's quite a lot of fun. It's just I expected, and you probably did too, a lot more.