Batman #16 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Greg Capullo (pencils), Jonathan Glapion (inks), FCO Plascencia (colors), Richard Starkings & Jimmy Betancourt (letters), Katie Kubert (assistant editor) & Mike Marts (editor)

Back-up by: Snyder & James Tynion, IV (writers), Jock (art), David Baron (colors) & Taylor Esposito (letters)

The Story: Batman goes into Joker’s lair to confront the madman.

Review (with SPOILERS): Geez, where to begin?  This issue had so many nifty moments.  We’ll get into those below, but let’s take a second to bask in how this creative team is really functioning as a TEAM.  That is to say that I don’t think every story beat is coming from the mind of Snyder and I don’t think every artistic flourish is coming from Capullo.  This comic really shows what can happen when gifted creators are working together rather than just having writers shoveling scripts at artists (and the teamwork continues at another level given the amount of history that Capullo, Glapion and Plascencia have together).   Onto the cool moments….

• The dancing guards: How warped was this?  Forcing Arkham guards to dress up as Batman and Joker and dance for days under threat of death?  This scene plays on both Joker’s sadistic nature and his obsession with Batman.  Just the idea that Joker can take over Arkham Asylum – and nobody really notices – reinforces the idea that AA is a totally fucked-up mess of a prison.  How in the world does Arkham hire guards anymore?
  
• The horses: Do you know how nice it is to see an artist draw a horse properly?  I don’t know if Greg Capullo has spent time around horses or if he’s just really paid attention to some photos, but he really has a sense of how they move and how all the parts move together.  I guess we also know why Joker was spending so much time bringing horses into Arkham the last few issues.  The brawl with the inmates was pretty cool too, especially the panel of Batman using his zipline-thing to pull himself out of the fray.  In that panel he has inmates hanging all over him and if you’ll notice, the panel itself has little panels hanging off the sides.  Cool!  My only quibble is that I’m not sure how Batman punches a running horse in the head and has anything happen but getting trampled.  Horses weigh ~1200 pounds and this one is running.  Batman weighs ~250 pounds and is standing still.  No amount of martial arts training overcomes that kind of delta in momentum.  If the horse is running at 30 mph the result is that Batman reduces the horse’s speed, but himself ends up flying backwards at about 25 mph (and breaks his arm probably).
• All the folks hanging from the ceiling: How creepy!  They’re all up there like vampires and made to chant to the “Bat-King”?  Are these guards or lesser criminals?
• Fighting the B-Team on the steps: How does Joker convince Freeze, Clayface and Scarecrow to be cannon-fodder on the stairwell and not part of the Justice League tableau?  Regardless, it was a great feeling of “you’re getting closer” as Batman nears his eventual goal.  He even had to climb towards his eventual goal like he’s climbing a mountain.  Brilliant!  I loved the way he just plowed through these three villains like he’s picking up speed too.  You almost feel sorry for Joker when you see how “on a mission” Batman is.

The whole tableau that Joker has prepared for Batman as a finale is beyond bizarre.  The concept that Batman is an inspiration to his enemies and a bane to his friends is an old concept, but rarely is it done this well: Joker with his rotting skin-face (it’s turning grayish green), the flies, the way he puts his fingers in that fat lady’s mouth (how often do you think Joker washes his hands?), they way they found costumes for the poor hostages, but “Superman” still has to wear a bed sheet as a cape, the way the other villains are only partially going along with Joker…

Batman (with this creative team) is on another level with their talent and attention to detail.  Enjoy it while it lasts!  After these guys move on to other projects, it’ll be a long time before Batman is this good again.

The only down-note for this issue is the back-up.  While I enjoyed the fact that the story continued after the ending of the Capullo story, I’m not sure that Jock is very compatible with Capullo.  After seeing Capullo own the Joker character for ~20 pages, seeing Jock’s depiction looked different, and kinda weak.  It’s about the little details: Jock’s face clips aren’t quite as good as Capullo’s (which have a Hellraiser quality to them), nobody gave colorist David Baron the note that Joker’s face is rotting and should be colored grayish (although Jock was told about the flies).  It’s such a change of pace after a rip-roaring story.  This isn’t a criticism of Jock per se.  I just think Jock and Capullo aren’t particularly congruous artists – and I’d say the same thing if Jock did the main story and Capullo the back-up.

One other tidbit.  I’m not reading any of the other titles in this crossover and didn’t feel left out at all.  If anything, I’m curious about how Joker captured all the other members of the Bat-family (although how do we know they aren’t a bunch of cos-players like Joker uses in this issue?).  That’s how you do a crossover: don’t punish people who only want to read one title.  Bravo guys!

Conclusion: (Ctrl-V) Another excellent Batman issue by the Snyder/Capullo/Glapion/Plascencia team.  Just appreciate the excellence.

Grade: A-

A Musing: (stealing a trick from MQ) – If you enjoy the art in Batman, go check out Haunt!  Seriously, that comic got so much crap, but it’s Robert Kirkman (who is no slouch) writing a story for this same art team.  Oh yeah, and there were a few issues inked by Todd McFarlane.  Everyone likes to make fun of McFarlane for the baseballs and all that, but he is an exemplary inker.

- Dean Stell