This is what happens when Techland goes to the comic book store: we end up talking about what we picked up. This week, Douglas Wolk, Evan Narcisse, Mike Williams and Graeme McMillan discuss the first issues of Neal Adams’ Batman: Odyssey and Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s Scarlet.
DOUGLAS: I’ll say this for Batman: Odyssey: it really doesn’t read like a generic Batman comic book, even beyond the early-’70s techniques that Neal Adams is still sticking with (thought balloons!). It’s pretty rare to see a writer-artist who overwrites this heavily, isn’t it? (“Just a cave? Just a cave? You know it’s not… ‘just a cave’!”) The whole scene with the two Man-Bats talking to each other–I kept flashing on the rat creatures from Bone squabbling with one another. And the Generic Oirish Train Conductor on page 2! And the guy who keeps calling Batman “Hombre Murcielago,” which adds five syllables! And “He’s targeting our–EYYOW! guns.” And Batman and Robin squabbling in the Batmobile like they’re in All-Star again! And the wildly off-model Commissioner Gordon! And the totally random page at which it breaks for a “to be continued”! And the bonus pin-up by the artist’s son, whose career it’s very sweet that Neal’s supporting up to and including getting him listed as a “special guest” at Comic-Con but really, now… And you know what? That’s all fine with me. I love it when this kind of eccentricity turns up in a mainstream comic.
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I also think it’s funny that a couple of sequences in here directly mirror scenes in Batman & Robin #1–the flying Batmobile and the gliders, in particular. Which do you suppose came first? I know this book has been in the works for a very long time–long enough that, as I recall, Frank Miller was originally supposed to write the dialogue. Actually, the multiple-Man-Bats business echoes the very first Morrison issue of Batman…
EVAN: Douglas, off-model is the watch-word here. I wanted to hate this book, but the Neal Adams-ness of it all fought my quibbles to a standstill. We get “hairy-chested love god” on the very first page, and he’s all like, “Oh, that scene on the cover? Here’s how it went down.” And then we go headlong into a story which, quite frankly, makes no sense. Adams’ visual sense is the draw here, because the dialogue and the plot don’t get told in anything resembling a cohesive way. There’s a thin line between quirk and self-indulgence and somehow Odyssey #1 comes up on the right side of the border.
The main thing that strikes me here is that Neal Adams is a Batman nerd. Moreover, Neal Adams is a Neal-Adams’-Batman nerd. Throwing Dick Grayson into the Tim Drake Robin outfit that Neal Adams designed, even though it makes no sense. Sure. Using Man-Bat, a character whose heyday coincided with Adams’ Bat-glory days? Yup. Name-checking Ra’s Al Ghul, whose most memorable stories were drawn by Neal Adams. Check. Yet it’s clear that Adams is aiming for something more than a retread of his greatest hits. The glider-capes and the flying Batmobile are/were new ideas of a new, now Bat-saga, daddy-o, and the philosophical rambles between Dick and Bruce hint at some big idea (most likely based around guns) that Adams wants to get at over the course of the series.
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I will say again that I’m glad I’m still able to be gobsmacked by Adams’ art. It’s always sad to see comic pros of earlier eras with their skills in decline, but that isn’t the case here. He may not be as fast as he once was, but Adams’ strength was always his design sense.
MIKE: “My hearing always was a cut above perfect. I heard what seemed to be a very loud voice… like a handful of fries in hot oil.” In a sea of quotable lines from this issue, that has got to be the winner. Douglas mentioned some gems already. Any other candidates?
I’m not familiar with much of Neal Adams’ work. Is it always this fast-moving? I feel like I just read an entire trade. And yes, it did seem to leave off at random spot in the story. I flipped through some of the filler in the back thinking I was missing a page or two.
I also have to add how much I want this iteration of the Batmobile. Not only does it look like a Pontiac Firebird (circa KITT) crossed with an earlier ‘vette but it has gull wing doors and can fly. The Tumbler has been dethroned.
Oh, and one more thing, Douglas. The conductor wasn’t a generic Irishman. It was clearly movie star Dennis Farina:
DOUGLAS: Oh man. Neal Adams would require more of an explanation than we’ve got time for, but I think a single anecdote will say something about his work: The first issue of Valeria the She-Bat, which he wrote, drew and published under his Continuity imprint, is cover-dated May 1993. Valeria #5 is cover-dated November 1993. There were no issues #2-4.
GRAEME: I am officially the grumpy old man of this group, then: Beyond “Oh, it’s a prettier version of All-Star Batman, with less outright bitterness,” I didn’t really get anything from this. There were seconds where I kind of enjoyed it – Batman thinking to himself that it was stupid to have pulled the gun before climbing the ladder, for example – but the rest of it was… I don’t know, something that felt like a reunion tour from a band that still felt relevant even though no one has bought their records in decades. I’m sure there’s an audience for this (hey, you all seemed to get something out of it), but it did nothing for me at all.
DOUGLAS: On to Scarlet #1. I’m still sorting out how I feel about this book: there are things about it that I dislike fairly intensely, but I also found it really promising and compelling, and I kept thinking while I was reading it that if this was some indie debut and I’d never heard of Bendis or Maleev before, I’d be telling everyone I knew that they had to pick it up. In some ways, this is the best work I’ve ever seen Maleev do–integrating the coloring with his linework, making Scarlet’s hair “pop” in every panel where it appears, doing fantastic things with texture everywhere. But there are places where his figures are so clearly photographs run through the Maleevotron 3000 that I’m not even sure what the characters here “look like” as drawings; if Iva, the Scarlet model, ever stops participating in the project, there’s going to have to be some kind of Man with the Getaway Face business where Scarlet undergoes serious plastic surgery, you know? I do think the fourth-wall-breaking aspect, having Scarlet not just narrate the story but tell it to us and (as she suggests at the end) bring us into it, is a fun idea, but I’d probably be more engaged by it if she were a character rather than an actress, if you see what I mean.