Some Thoughts on Batman #70

Tom King’s work, due in part to the properties he’s working with and their positioning in DC’s marketing strategy, is guaranteed to generate reactions. I don’t always enjoy it, but his work gives me plenty of material to poke at with theoretical sticks. When it comes to his Batman run – which has shown remarkable stability in the DM – the reaction seems to be born from an inability or refusal to tell it in a form more agreeable to a standard 22 page floppy. As writer his work is better understood and red in collections, which is how I primarily consume it. Batman #70, the star to “The Fall and the Fallen,” is among the best single issues of his run produced so far, it acts as a restatement of thematic purpose as it echoes earlier issues of the run. After unconsciously voicing his greatest fear and King’s central dramatic question, will he be able to get over his fear of loving something more than the Vow and grow. Batman #70 doesn’t have an answer to that yet, casting him in the same perpetual, nightmarish cycle, he’s been in from the start.

(Batman #69 - Yanick Paquette, Nathan Fairbairn, Clayton Cowles)

On the first page we are greeted by an Arkham inmate reciting a slightly modified version of ‘The Argument’ from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. By the end of the issue he’s preforming Dante’s Divine Comedy. The use of Blake serves two key purposes. First the creative team recontextualize the poetry, by breaking the meter and stanza and juxtapose it with panels representing the previous “Kightmare” arc. Using the poem in this manner transforms it into a metaphor for the plot of both the arc specifically and the larger Bane/Batman struggle that is at the center of the run. The second is how using that poem draws a comparison between the poem itself and King’s Batman run. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was part of William Blake’s personal mythopeia that used his own characters, and other religious figures, written in the style of biblical prophecy by way of John Milton. In short, William Blake wrote John Milton fanfic (and I mean that with love.) King is doing something similar with Batman and the DCU, with clear influences by Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and Grant Morrison. Which is also pretty much what every Batman writer sense Morrison and the conscious idea of writing a “Bat-Epic” came into being. If you did and interview with Scott Snyder and he didn’t explain how whatever arc was inspired by some psychological fear or feeling of inadequacy, you did a bad interview.

Batman awakes from his Fear Gas fueled Knightmares, seemingly with the knowledge he needs to break the cycle of violence that is consuming him and grow as a person. But, like our perspective as readers, it is up to interpretation and actualization his part. From a plot perspective Batman #70 with its action heavy nature echoes Batman #12, where Batman battled his way through Santa Prisca and Bane’s army. This time around things are decidedly less spread out. The echoes aren’t lost on Calendar Man, the antagonist from the Rebirth issue, as he reminds Batman through a mixture of pantomime in the second great single page for the issue.

As he battles his way up from the bowels of Arkham Asylum he seems to be disavowing nor even attempting to deal with what he has woken from, it poses too great a threat to his (split)identity. Instead like the start of “I Am Suicide” he verbally mocks Bane for giving him “bad dreams” in an overwrought display of machismo. Because he is more than a man, he is Batman, the Nightmare incarnate. There is a cold brutality to the art Mikel Janin and eventually Jorge Forgens create with colorist Jordie Bellaire to represent the fight through Arkham Asylum. Batman #12 is told entirely through double page spreads, save for two single page bookends. Telling that issue through spreads makes it light in terms of turning the page, but Janin’s layouts are highly considered to guide the readers eye and track Batman’s movements across pages. The spreads are spectacular, highlighting the absurd fighting but visually don’t call much attention to the damage or cost. In Batman #70 things are shorter, Batman dispatches his rogues often in less than a page. As he pummels the Riddler, letter Clayton Cowles punctuates a knee to the face with onomatopoeia. Other times all we are shown is the wreckage of bodies.

(Batman #12 Mikel Janin, Hugo Petrus, June Chung,Clayton Cowles)

That series of spreads and the action Batman #70 works in the way Stella Bruzzi theorizes the mise-en-scène in film, the totality within the frame, constructs the action male subject to suggest that “the hero’s internal damage or frailty exists in virtually inverse proportion to the external damage he suffers.”(1) Batman achieves immortality through insanity.This visual treatment of Batman isn’t too far removed from Jason Vorhees or a recent cinematic counterpart.

With the series recent use of dreams, their interpretation (or misinterpretation), and sadomasochistic proving, Batman #70 brings concepts of from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to mind. That is a movie built around a Batman misinterpreting dreams and pushing himself to the sadomasochistic edge out of fear. The film opens with a pair of dream sequences, over the credits audiences are once again greeted with the murder of the Waynes before transitioning into a restaging of the finale to Man of Steel. Placing those sequences so close together is perhaps a bit much, but along with the opening monologue as Bruce expresses a loss of faith, lays the foundation for how this character as has constructed a phantasical narrative that justifies and drives his hatred/fear of Superman and reinforces the dominance of the Bat-persona. It’s only after experiencing a psychic break, constructed through the film during the “Martha” sequence, that the character of Bruce Wayne reinterprets these dreams and comes out a new person. The film places a new found emphasis on the stupidity of the swing by Thomas Wayne, and how that emphasis reinterprets Bruce’s conception of his origin and purpose.

Tom King’s Batman isn’t there yet, the transition to artist Jorge Forgens represents a break with artistic style and potentially a psychic one. After he eventually defeats Solomon Grundy and Amygdala, all he can do is laugh. I’m sure whatever torture Flashpoint Dad has planned to prove his point will bring about some moment of realization. Until then, Bruce and Bane will just continue to lean into the overwrought defense mechanisms, their split identities as Bane and Batman, of two scared little boys from the alleys of Gotham and depths of Santa Prisca. Tom King’s run is entering the later stages, making Batman #70 a nice moment to restate things as the final journey begins.