Showcase Presents Batman, v. 5

Collects: Detective Comics #391-407 and Batman #216-227 (1969-70)

Released: December 2011 (DC)

Format: 448 pages / black and white / $19.99 / ISBN: 9781401232368

What is this?: Batman starts swinging into the Bronze Age, packing his sidekick off to college and hitting the mean streets of downtown Gotham.

The culprits: Writers Frank Robbins, Denny O’Neil, and Mike Friedrich and artists Bob Brown, Neal Adams, and Irv Novick

I read Showcase Presents Batman v. 1 and v. 2, but I had to give up reading the series. Unlike some, I have little tolerance for Silver Age stories from the DC Universe; I don’t care that the original writers and artists knew they were creating comics for kids or that the stories were unapologetically goofy. The stories are still goofy, and that does not amuse or entertain me.

So I decided to hop back on bard the Showcase train only when it hit Denny O’Neil Station, which it did in Showcase Presents Batman, v. 5. Not all of these issues are written by O’Neil (his first is Detective Comics #395), and Frank Robbins wrote more, by a 2-to-1 margin. (Mike Friedrich contributed three back-ups.) O’Neil does pen the most lasting contribution to Bat-lore in this volume — the creation of the League of Assassins in Detective Comics #405 — but I was surprised to discover Robbins co-created the Man-Bat (in Detective #400).

O’Neil’s writing … it’s hard to call it “realistic,” but his stories are less prone to the Silver Age flourishes that characterize the previous volumes in the series. O’Neil’s writing will occasionally indulge in asides to the reader, asking if she has spotted the key clue to a mystery, but his stories feel more modern. On the other hand, Robbins opens the volume with “The Girl Most Likely to Be — Batman’s Widow” (Detective #391) and “I Died … a Thousand Deaths!” (Detective #392). Those titles would have fit right into Showcase Presents Batman, v. 1, although the stories aren’t as hokey as their titles (or their punctuation) would lead you to believe. By the end of the volume, O’Neil and Robbins aren’t aping each other’s style, but there isn’t a tonal clash between their stories either — Robbins drifts toward the science-fictional, O’Neil toward the supernatural, but they generally restrict themselves to one major speculative element per issue.

The stories in v. 5 are obviously Batman stories, but they disdain a lot of the Batman trappings. Readers will probably be surprised that none of Batman’s impressive rogue’s gallery makes an appearance in this book. There’s no Joker, no Two-Face, Catwoman, Riddler … Even Robin leaves for college in the fourth story (Detective #393) after seemingly aging three years between issues. Batman abandons Wayne Manor for a downtown penthouse, the flashy Batmobile for a less noticeable muscle car. Bruce Wayne gets involved in victim services, helping those affected by crime with philanthropy and Bat-punches. The only freaks he encounters are Man-Bat (the scientist who turns himself into a man / bat hybrid) and the Man with Ten Eyes (a veteran whose ocular nerves are re-routed through his fingers). Both are good men driven toward bad deeds by madness or false information — very much in the Marvel vein of this time. Batman’s opponents are generally grandiose tugs, blackmailers, kidnappers, and thieves graduating to murder or attempted murder. All these gangsters give the book slight blandness, which makes the occasional note of goofiness a welcome bit of flavor. Had this been another, less-popular hero’s adventures, I doubt the stories here would have saved him from cancellation, let alone have supported two titles.

Still, there are some points of interest, even beyond assassins and Man-Bat appearances. O’Neil uses the ghostly Enemy Ace in Detective #404, which must have thrilled literally tens of readers. The Muertos, an immortal husband-and-wife team of villains, clearly presage O’Neil’s later (and much more important) Ra's al Ghul. Robbins’s most interesting story comes from his twist (ha!) on the “Paul is dead” hoax in Batman #322, in which Batman and Robin try to discover whether Saul Cartwright, a member of the Beatles stand-ins Oliver Twists, is an imposter.

The art in this book is top-notch. Bob Brown provides the art for early issues, and those stories have a stagy, first-generation Silver-Age style to them. But when pencilers Neal Adams and Irv Novick join the art rotation, his style gradually becomes more like theirs. And theirs … there are many valid complaints you can make about the Bronze Age — quality control for story content being foremost — but the emergence of the first generation of artists who were inspired by Kirby and other Silver Age greats make up for all of them. Adams is foremost among this group, and his art is wonderful: shadowy, evocative, action packed, pretty to look at. He also draws the majority of the covers in this book, and it’s jarring to see Silver Age copy on Adams’s more modern, hipper art. I was surprised how good Novick’s work was; not as graceful as Adams’s, but it’s an excellent complement: realistic while still allowing for some stylistic embellishments. He’s not someone who’s going to get much attention — today everyone remembers Adams, but no one talks about Novick — but his work is always enjoyable.

I enjoyed this far more than v. 1 or v. 2. Are these stories great? No; as I said, there is an unavoidable feeling of blandness throughout. Even Man-Bat, who alleviates this feeling in his appearances, is a somewhat bland (and obvious) idea. But given the art, the changes in the status quo, and O’Neil’s assassin stories, I get the feeling this series is on the brink of something exciting.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Chase

Collects: Chase #1-9, 1,000,000, and several Secret Files backups (1998-2002)

Released: December 2011 (DC)

Format: 352 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9781401232771

What is this?: An agent for the Department of Extranormal Operations deals with the heroes and villains of the DC Universe.

The culprits: Writer Dan Curtis Johnson and artist / co-plotter J.H. Williams III

It’s not often that a penciler gets top billing over a writer on a book. It’s merely a convention that puts the writer first, but it’s a strong one, one that neither publishers nor readers violate without some overriding reason. That being said, there’s a short list of comic book artist who deserves to be listed first, and J.H. Williams III is definitely on that list.

So it’s not entirely surprising that DC chose to put Williams’s name first on the cover of Chase.⁶² Not on Williams’s later, more acclaimed work such as Batwoman or Promethea, but Chase, a late ‘90s series that followed Cameron Chase, a government agent tasked with keeping tabs on DC’s superhuman community. I have a feeling Williams’s name at the top is more a function of writer Dan Curtis Johnson‘s obscurity compared to Batwoman writer Greg Rucka or Promethea‘s Alan Moore. Yes, Williams is a co-plotter for most of Chase‘s run, but as an artist, he isn’t the J.H. Williams he will become in the 21st century. He even skips most of a couple of flashback issues.

That’s not to say that Williams isn’t excellent on Chase His art is strong, well laid out, and clear; he’s already working with non-standard layouts and non-rectangular panels. He manages to draw attractively without making Chase’s world artificially pretty. But that’s it — it’s pretty, not beautiful, and there’s none of the occasionally breathtaking work you find in Batwoman. (Obviously, I’m spoiled by his later work.) He’s working some things out in Chase; you can’t convince me that Williams would draw something like Chase’s clumsy hold on a pistol today. Also, Chase’s sister, Terry, is clearly v. 1.0 of Stacia from Promethea.

It’s not surprising that DC can collect the entire run of Chase in a single paperback volume and still have room left over for tie-in issues. DC’s trades are often excellent values, but Chase lasted only nine issues plus a 1,000,000 issue, which served as the series’s tombstone. That’s an incredibly short run, probably because it featured a new, low-power protagonist — a new female low-power protagonist in the DCU. By some lights, it’s a miracle it got nine issues. That’s not to say Chase deserved only nine issues, though.

In theory — at least for those unversed in comic-book viability — Chase is a good idea for a series. (It actually is a good idea for a TV show, I think.) Chase travels through the DC universe for the Department of Extranormal Operations, giving her the ability interact with almost any hero or villain. Williams and Johnson have her dealing with the Suicide Squad, Rocket Reds, Batman, Teen Titans, Booster Gold, and a couple of Green Lanterns. She has an interesting backstory: a childhood with a father who was a crap superhero, an adulthood career as a private investigator before she joined the DEO. Williams and Johnson delve deep into her past, with two flashback issues featuring her and another PI fighting the Cult of the Broken Circle. Both stories are fun, and I suspect there were a lot more stories of that type that Williams and Johnson could have told, but I’m also sure two flashback issues in the first nine didn’t help sales any. (Nor would the 1,000,000 crossover issue, if it hadn’t been the last issue.) I’m unconvinced that hinting Chase had superhero powers of her own was a good idea, but since the series had no definitive ending, I’ll reserve judgment on that.

I’m also unconvinced that the series had many more interesting stories left. Johnson and Williams told the story of Chase and her sister confronting their father’s secret hero career, and Chase explained what that meant for her own professional career in Chase #8. In one sense, the series could always have become a peripatetic trip through the corners of the DCU, but once Chase confronted her powers and perhaps her freeloading boyfriend, what’s left? I could see this being a 25-issue series, but that probably wasn’t the plan, and it definitely wasn’t what happened.

Chase’s appearances in the included Secret Files issues certainly don’t indicate there was a need for more stories. These backups are interesting if you simply want more Chase and DEO, but there’s no desperate reason for them to exist other than that, except as page filler. The best of the lot was The Joker: Last Laugh Secret Files, in which Chase and another agent, who survived a botched attack on Gorilla Grodd, interview survivors of the Joker’s attacks. The idea is better than the story, which needed more room to breathe but was still worth reading. The rest tend to blend together, an impression that is strengthened by the reprint editor’s refusal to label these Secret File stories. Evidently, some were tied to a specific storyline; adding footnotes or explanatory text would have helped clarify the incident in Kansas that everyone is alluding to but not explaining. A note that is included from the original printing of (what I’m assuming is) DC Universe Secret Files #1 says Chase’s fight with “Buzzword” (again, I’m assuming, as the name is mentioned only tangentially) is shown from Chase’s perspective in DCU Heroes Secret Files #1. However, that issue isn’t included; why is that? (Was it not published? Not very good? Not included for some other reason?)

I can see why this series is beloved by some. It was certainly ahead of its time, both as a precursor of J.H. Williams’s stardom and as a more grounded, broadly focused look at a superhero universe. I enjoyed and would read more, if it existed. That doesn’t mean the series was great, though it does mean it was better than a lot of other series that lived through horrible patches at about the same time. At $30 for more than 300 pages, Chase is certainly worth a look.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)