Gotham City: Closed (Batman: No Man’s Land Secret Files #1 cover art by Alex Maleev)

“…and after the Earth shattered and the buildings crumbled, the nation abandoned Gotham City. Then only the valiant, the venal and the insane remained in the place called NO MAN’S LAND”.

Throughout the entire calender year of 1999, these words graced the first page of every Batman book and most of the Bat Family titles, and in 1999 that included a lot of titles. At the end of the millenium, the dark knight graced five of his own titles alone, Batman, Detective Comics, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman: Shadow of the Bat, and, The Batman Chronicles. After that you had the “Bat Family” titles, which included Robin, Nightwing, Azrael: Agent of the Bat, and Catwoman. Every single one of these titles, 88 issues in all for 1999, became covered in barbed wire and the words No Man’s Land graced the spine in red and yellow caution tape format.

Quarantined by the United States

So what was No Man’s Land (1999) and what made this event so much different? On a personal level, it was my entry into the world of comics. Once upon a time, a little scrawny white boy went to stay with is aunt on the Jersey Shore in Long Branch, and his aunt took him to Borders on many occasions. With what I could narrow down to be possibly 2007 (or 2008), I found the novelization of Batman: No Man’s Land (2000), with its awesome cover of Gotham in flames shaped in the bat symbol, by Greg Rucka on the shelf and rented it out.

What little kid would not pick out a book with this cover? (Batman: No Man’s Land cover by Joe DeVito)

In turn, No Man’s Land became my first real entry into the world of comics. I became enamored in a world full of savages and feudalism that was No Man’s Land (or NML as typically shortened to by the characters in the event). After the collective events of Contagion (1996) and Legacy (1996), events which featured a plague that caused chaos in Gotham City, and Cataclysm (1998), which featured an earthquake which destroyed most of Gotham City’s infrastructure, the city became unsavable. Therefore in their infinite wisdom, the United States government gave up on Gotham City and quarantined it, effectively declaring Gotham a No Man’s Land.

This meant that the bridges and tunnels were blown, effectively cutting Gotham City off from the United States of America. Can you imagine if the U.S. government woke up one morning and decided that the island of Manhattan would be cut off from the rest of the world? Crazy right, well in the world of crazy villains and dark knights, this dark reality came true. It is from here where we get some intriguing storytelling that a Batman or DC Comics story has never seen before. What happens to the urban legend and mythology of the Batman when there is lawlessness and there is no more fear, only thoughts of survival?

Welcome to No Man’s Land. Get it? Got it? Good (Batman: No Man’s Land #1 art by Alex Maleev)

A Whole New World

As the world prepared for the new millenuium and the world became even more connected through the Internet and cell phones, Gotham City entered the dark ages. As Oracle (Barbara Gordon) states to Batman about NML, “I’m a high tech girl in a low tech world”. The precedent is set right off the bat (haha), this is not the Gotham City that Batman knows.

As we get dropped off into Day 93 since the bridges were blown on “Black Monday”, Gotham City has become feudal with territories ruled by different villains of the rogues gallery, the GCPD, vigilantes such as Huntress, and simple street gangs such as the LoBoyz and StreetDemonz. Money and Jewelry has become worthless, in its place instead canned goods, batteries, and bulltets, especially bullets.

Most importantly, Gotham City is lawless. So what is the purpose of a Batman, Robin, or Nightwing? This is what makes No Man’s Land (1999) such an awesome story, as for an entire calender year, we see Batman and the characters of Gotham City getting pushed to their limits and their traditional character traits bent and even broken. Over 88 issues, we see many different arcs written by the various Batman writers of 1999, which include Bob Gale, Devin Grayson, Chuck Dixon, Greg Rucka, Dennis O’ Neil, John Ostrander, Ian Edington, Lisa Klink, Scott Beatty, Paul Dini, Kelley Puckett, Larry Hama, Janet Harvey, Bronwyn Carlton, and even Mark Waid.

Holy Toledo Batman! What a writing cast! Some names you cannot recognize, but a lot of them are Batman legends and overall fan favorite writers. Imagine if I listed all of the artists. To say this is ambitious is like saying the Patriots are good a football, the ambition hits you over the head like a crowbar to a Robin. Especially with the 1990s coming to an end where events clogged all of DC and Marvel. But No Man’s Land is all about deconstruction and rebuilding Gotham City, because Gotham is a character herself and impacts all of her residents.

So back to the plot, Batman + No Man’s Land= Disaster. Why? 1990s Batman, specifically post Zero Hour: Crisis in Time (1994), is one where he is an urban legend. The general populace has no idea he exists. In No Man’s Land, this does not work as it is a “show me” place where dominance is asserted. This is how territory is gained and held. In essence we see Batman and Bruce Wayne broken do to beyond basics in order to save Gotham City.

No Man’s Land needs visual dominance? Well Batman forces his enemies to say who’s boss and spread the world, along with graffiti tagging. Batman finds that he cannot work alone like he thought he needed to and like typical Batman, pushes everyone away. The solution? He calls in the calvary in the form of Robin (best Robin Tim Drake), Nightwing (tricky “not-yet Ric” Dick Grayson), Azrael (wannabe-Knightfall Batman Jean-Paul Valley), and even Catwoman (Selina Kyle, or as Tom King puts “Cat”). He even decides we need a new Batgirl, but we will get to that.

Batman decides that when faced with adversity never seen before to the superhero community of DC Comics, that he needs to roll with the changes. Even when they go against everything he has done previously in his then 10 year career. But this is not even the best part about No Man’s Land (1999), as everyone changes in the process, except of course for one character which we will come back to later. We see the change in the GCPD, as Commissioner Gordon rejects Batman after he had “abandoned” Gotham City for the first 93 days and begins to bend the rules of the police. The conflict here is beautifully writtenand carried out. But even Gotham in her infinite wisdom decides that in this harsh reality, the despicable rogues gallery must change too.

In carefully crafted deconstructive stories, we see villains such as The Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Two Face come to grips with the new reality. The Penguin, as predicted, became the underworld leader of smuggled goods from the outside worldworld. Yet in a story involving cops trying to smuggle kids out of NML, Penguin feels compassion and sympathy and helps fend off raiders to help them get out. Poison Ivy becomes a caretaker of lost and forgotten children of Gotham City in Robinson Park and defends them against the evil of NML, even providing food to Batman for the rest of the population. Two-Face…becomes a fair judge (we’ll come back to this later). This is the beauty of No Man’s Land.

This was not a smash em up and big battle event seen in many 90s events, but a psychological and introspective one. Oh but yes, we do get some awesome battles, like Tim Drake our lord and savior soloing Killer Croc through a car, Nightwing kicking ass and taking names in Blackgate, and Catwoman stealing and crashing a frickin helicopter in order to re-enter Gotham. But No Man’s Land (1999) was all about the mystery and thriller nature surrounding a major U.S. city with no electricity, running water, and structure. Well…it also made its mark for bringing two awesome characters into the DC Universe.

Enter Harley Quinn

Oh Mister J! (Batman: No Man’s Land cover art by Alex Ross)

In the 1990s, superhero animation reached a peak that has not been matched since. At the top of this peak was Batman: The Animated Series, which became an iconic staple of animation. Created by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and many others, Batman: The Animated Series created the definitive voices of Batman and Joker in the form of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill respectively, introduced new origins to villains through iconic storytelling, and introduced new characters to the world of Gotham City.

The most famous and longlasting being the brain child of Paul Dini, Harley Quinn. Simply a henchmen (or women) of the Joker, Harleen Quinzel was a shrink at Arkham Asylum turned lover of the Joker and was at her puddin’s side for all of the shenanigans. But you already know this, because she absolutely took off and became an icon.

So popular in fact, that she was introduced into the main DC Universe in No Man’s Land (1999) through the Batman: Harley Quinn one shot written by no other than Paul Dini. Yes that is correct, No Man’s Land (1999) is the introduction of Harley Quinn into the main DC continuity and the rest is history. But personally and for a lot of DC fans, this is not the best character introduction of the massive event.

Batgirl of a New Millenium

The Next Generation (art by Damian Scott).

For the first time since the events of Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), Batgirl appeared on the pages of Batman books. Except it was not Barbara Gordon, and in fact it was two different Batgirls. At the beginning of No Man’s Land (1999), Helena Bertinelli donned the cowl to put fear into the residents of Gotham that she could not do as Huntress. Well it did not go well from there, especially in the eyes of Batman.

After this false start, we finally got to meet the true Batgirl for the 2000s, Cassandra Cain. In the era of in-your-face young heroes of the “Young Justice” generation, Cass did not speak with words, but with her body language. She could read a person simply of their body language and because of that, could kick someone’s ass before her opponents even noticed they were getting their asses kicked. This makes her the best overall fighter within the Bat Family of all time, even better than Batman.

In No Man’s Land (1999), Cassandra is an agent for Oracle in the ruins of Gotham City, obtaining any information possible. However when Jim Gordon’s life is threatened by the assassin David Cain (hint hint), Cass steps in and saves his life. She then proves herself, without saying a single word, to Batman and Oracle and dons the cowl of Batgirl. It all went up from here.

Thanks to No Man’s Land (1999), we got a new Batgirl that carried her own solo series for 6 years starting in 2000 and became an icon character within a generation of heroes which include the fan favorite members of Young Justice (1998) and her in-comics best friend, Spoiler (Stephanie Brown).

So we got awesome storytelling and amazing new characters, but how does it hold up after 20 years? Well even before re-reading it this past month for this post, Batman: No Man’s Land (1999) has become a staple of Batman adaptations.

In Batman: Arkham City, the super prison strongly resembles Gotham in No Man’s Land (1999), with supervillains controlling different territory of the super prison that was created using a whole section of Gotham City. The Dark Knight Rises sees Bane literrally blow all of the bridges, isolating Gotham City from the world. The last season of Gotham was literrally called “No Man’s Land”.

It is not just in the Batman adaptations either, comic books this decade have pulled from the classic mega event. Zero Year (2013) by Scott Snyder depicts a year one Batman in a Gotham City without power and resources. Right now in the ongoing Batman run by Tom King, the City of Bane (2019) event draws from No Man’s Land (1999) as the villains have control of the city and have isolated Gotham from the world.

So yes, No Man’s Land (1999) has reached the point of iconic status where elements keep presenting itself through time as creators draw inspiration. Why is that? Because it was a damn good event. Re-reading it, you are thrown into the environment and surrounded by the terrifying visuals of desperation and a loss of all hope and whatever is good in the world. It is also Gotham City showing she can overcome, thanks in part to her guardian angels (and demons).

Before I end this piece, I am going to share my personal favorite arcs and how they make No Man’s Land (1999) so special and timeless.

No Law And A New Order

Welcome to No Man’s Land (Batman #563 cover art by Alex Maleev)

First off, yes your eyes are not decieving you. That is indeed Alex Maleev on art for the first story arc of No Man’s Land (1999). Years before he became a staple of Brian Michael Bendis’ work, Maleev gave us our first look at the brand new world of NML, and it is absolutely fantastic.

Writer Bob Gale and Maleev fully encase the reader into the world of NML and right off the bat you see the way life is lived in a city cut off from the rest of the world. Scalpers fight tooth and nail in the first issue over scraps of food dropped by a good samaritan flying over Gotham City (not Superman). Children fight over apples and cookies because this worth more than diamonds and money in NML.

In the decadance and vileness of NML, we see Batman trying to adjust to his new landscape…and struggling to do so. However in an incredible change on pre-No Man’s Land stories, Batman decides he needs to be out in the open and attack his enemies in broad daylight. In an awesome moment, the dark knight takes down Scarface’s gang and makes them proclaim that Batman is the boss and to spread the word, as the caped crusader begins to mark his own territory.

The Visitor/Stormy Weather

Not Even Superman Can Stop No Man’s Land (Batman #566 cover art by Jon Bogdanove)

It is not easy to tell a good Superman story. However, in two simple issues of the No Man’s Land (1999) saga, we get to see the man of steel in an interesting light. In “The Visitor” we get the answer to the question, “why not just call in Superman or the JLA?”. We see Batman let Superman find for himself why he cannot help save NML.

Superman decides that they need to start small and helps an engineer in restoring power to a part of Gotham City, hoping it would help re-establish some form of normalcy. However after completing the project, the engineer becomes a cult figure to the residents of No Man’s Land because he holds the power of electricity. In return, he is exchanged gifts and protection for power, just like a normal mob boss.

It is here where Superman realizes he cannot save everyone, something Batman always knew and let him figure out for himself. However later in the saga through “Stormy Weather”, we see Clark Kent come in and make a difference. The Smallville boy helps a farmer (yes farmer, or as they said in Batgirl (2009), “what do they even harvest in Gotham?”) in Gotham with his plants in a dry spell and defends him against the rogue GCPD members. In a short little story, the humanity of Clark Kent outweighs the power of Superman, and in turn demonstrates the overall brotherhood between the world’s finest.

I Cover the Waterfront

Don’t Mess with Cass (Batman #569 cover by Phil Jimenez)

Batgirl frickin rules. Simple as that. Although “Mark of Cain” is an awesome introduction, this one shot is the best example of the will and power of Cassandra Cain. Her mission, which she chose to accept, involves the rookie vigilante going to the last gas station in Gotham City to defend it from gangs, which houses a lonely owner of the station who chose to stay in No Man’s Land.

Through the night, Batgirl fends off all comers to the gas station and shows why she is a badass through her exemplary combat skills. But the real twist comes when the gas station owner shares that in fact he ran out of gas weeks ago. Distraught at the fact that she cannot get gas for the generators at Leslie Thompkins’ medical center, Cass could have abandoned all hope.

Instead she chose to fight, even for a seemingly lost cause. In the face of relentless pressure from the gangs and a rocket launcher, Cassandra Cain kicked ass. Her resilience impressed the gas station owner so much, that he gave up the last of his reserve fuel, which he revealed he had, to Batgirl. In her first real test, Cass passed with flying colors and showed off the awesomeness we would get in the new millennium.

The Ultimate Trust–Or the Ultimate Betrayal?

OH MY GOD ITS BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY BRUCE WAYNE! (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #125 cover art by James Hodgkins)

There are two things abundantly clear about No Man’s Land (1999). The one-shots are amazing, and Greg Rucka really showcases how much of a superstar writer he is. This was his first real entry into the world of DC Comics and comic books in general, and you can see through the epics of the saga that he can really kill it. Nothing says it better than the one shot in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #125.

In this issue we get one scene, but it is an epic one. Commissioner Gordon and Batman face to face for the first time in No Man’s Land (1999). Oh and by the way, it is in part 40 of the main storyline. One thing has been simple since the beginning of the event, Gordon despises Batman for breaking his trust by abandoning Gotham for 93 days.

In reconciliating, Batman gets desperate and even removes his mask to show that Gordon to always trust him. I will not even explain it further, just take a look at this page and just see how awesome it is.

(Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #125 art by James Hodgkins)



Endgame

Wow… (Detective Comics #741 art by Dale Eaglesham)

As I stated earlier, even through the character introspection of No Man’s Land (1999), one character remained the same, and of course you would know who that would be. As epic as the event kicked off, it closed along with 1999 in a bang as Gotham City was set to reopen. The Joker was missing and Batman was desperate to find the sick madman, along with dozens of missing babies.

In one of the darkest moments in a Batman books, Sarah Essen Gordon finds both the babies…and sadly the Joker. In a final act of defense, Sarah shields the baby as she gets murdered by the mad clown and the book cuts to a sickening image of her bloody corpse on the ground surrounded by the missing infants.

Joker sticks it to Gordon once again, after shooting and crippling his daughter Barbara, he murders the love of his life. The retaliation? A bullet to the knee cap. Just do not report it to internal affairs.

No Man’s Land comes to a sad end from here, with Commissioner Gordon standing at Sarah’s grave as the New Year’s fireworks for 2000 go off in the background, signifying the reopening of Gotham City and its reintroduction into the United States of America. In relation, we see Batman with the cowl off standing in a similar position, at the graves of Thomas and Martha Wayne, signaling the continuation of the never ending fight as Batman and DC Comics enter the 21st Century.

So that is No Man’s Land (1999). This took way too long to put out and was sitting in draft hell for a month, but the Halloween time seems appropriate. Like with the Infinite Crisis (2006) blog post, I am going to share links to how you can purchase the trades for this amazing saga. Please check it out, it was an amazing introduction for me into the world of Batman and you will be sure to enjoy it if you have never read it before. For now though, thank you for reading and stay tuned for more retrospectives and related content in the future.

Recommended Reading

Bibliography

Carlin, M., Dixon, C., Eaglesham, D., Edginton, I., Faucher, W., Gale, B., … Vincenzo, D. (1999). Batman: No Man’s Land. New York, NY: DC Comics.

David, P., Nauck, T., & Stucker, L. (1998). Young Justice (Vol. 1). New York, NY: DC Comics.

Dixon, C., Burchett, R., Renaud, C., Puckett, K., Moench, D., Jansen, K., … Barreto, E. (1998). Batman: Cataclysm. New York, NY: DC Comics.

Dixon, C., Grant, A., Moench, D., Taylor, D., Nolan, G., Johnson, S., & Aparo, J. (1996). Batman: Contagion. New York, NY. DC Comics.

Dixon, C., Grant, A., Moench, D., Taylor, D., Nolan, G., Johnson, S., & Aparo, J. (1996). Batman: Legacy. New York, NY. DC Comics.

King, T., Janins, M., Mann, C., & Romita, J. (2019). Batman: City of Bane. Burbank, CA: DC Comics.

Miller, B. Q., Garbett, L., Scott, T., Perez, P., Nyguen, D., & Fridolfs, D. (2009). Batgirl (Vol. 3). New York, NY: DC Comics.

Moore, A., & Bolland, B. (1988). Batman: The Killing Joke. New York, NY: DC Comics.

Puckett, K., Peterson, S., Scott, D., & Campanella, R. (2000). Batgirl (Vol. 1). New York, NY: DC Comics.

Snyder, S., & Capullo, G. (2014). Dc Comics: Zero Year. New York, NY: DC Comics.