Batman: Year 3

DC Comics

Writer: Marv Wolfman

Artists: Pat Broderick & John Beatty

This story arc takes place over Batman Issues #436 – #439

SPOILERS!

Mob bosses are being taken out all over Gotham. Batman senses there is a unifying undercurrent to these killings and investigates. What he finds is something brutal, something dark, something putrid, something that needs to be expunged, and that is just the beginning. We come to Gotham, and to Batman’s side, in the wake of the brutal death of Jason Todd. But Batman, the stoic that he is, surely wouldn’t permit that horror to affect his mission, right?

Marv Wolfman, in perhaps one of the strongest pieces of writing I’ve had the privilege to read in a comic, confronts the Batman with an identity crisis. Is Batman going to be able to keep to his code, or will he go too far? Wolfman assails Batman not just with the facticity of Todd’s absence, but with a series of blows involving Dick Grayson, Alfred, and even the very memories of Bruce Wayne himself. He asks us to question what might be inside the Caped Crusader’s head, and in his heart, and what sort of compromises is Batman willing to make to see his mission through.

We join Batman as he looks over Gotham Harbor, carefully watching one particular yacht as it bobs up and down on the waves. He must be listening in to the news reports as we learn from the broadcast that there is a criminal war going on, there is heavy traffic, and Gotham’s oldest orphanage is scheduled to be closed and demolished soon. Batman sees a helicopter coming in and realizes that this must be the means they will attack this particular crime boss, but he arrives too late. Unable to save either the crime boss, or capture those in the helicopter, he is helped out of the water, and back onto the dock by Commissioner Gordon. Even to the nameless cop at Gordon’s side Batman’s anguish and pain and the need to push himself to finish this mission are obvious. We leave him there and continue to a Parole Board hearing for Anthony Zucco. Who is he, you might ask, especially with all the names and faces that have flown past the bat-winged pages over time?

Before that question can be answered for us, we look in on Wayne Manor, and the familiar countenance of Dick Grayson as he once again strides the halls. It has been two years since he last resided in the Manor, and even Dick can sense something very amiss. There are no signs of Jason Todd anywhere. No pictures, no mementos, no personal belongings, not even anything in the Bat Cave, and this troubles Dick. How far gone could Bruce be if he is hiding all that was Jason from his sight, from his memory?

Back at the Parole Board hearing, we learn of Zucco’s upbringing. That he was an abused child that eventually came to live at St. Jude’s Orphanage where even the kindly nun Mary Elizabeth could do nothing to temper the rage within the child but pray for him. Zucco went on to join the mob and was an eager learner, always taking notes so that he could learn to be the best, which earned him the nickname Book. We learn how it was Anthony Zucco who was hitting up Haly’s Circus for protection money, and that it was he who was ultimately responsible for the death of the Graysons. Eagle-eyed readers might also notice the first appearance of a very young Tim Drake who, with his parents, witnessed the tragedy first-hand.

In a matter of only a few pages, we learn that Anthony Zucco was the man responsible for the events that led to Dick Grayson coming to live with Bruce Wayne as his ward, putting Bruce on the path that would lead him to adopt Jason Todd after Dick had grown up and moved on, the initial tragic moments of a boy’s shattered dreams in Tim Drake. Three Robins were given their path to existence that day, in that one moment of a cut trapeze line and a fall into nothingness. That moment also led to Dick’s being temporarily housed at St. Jude’s Orphanage, the very place Zucco grew up, and to the open embrace of Sister Mary Elizabeth. One road, one path, that doesn’t fork as much as it explodes into six different trails that would, for years, twist and turn and overlap each other like a braid in time.

Returning to Dick, he realizes he must speak to Bruce. Jason’s death must have affected him much more deeply than anyone had realized. As Nightwing, he sets out to search for Batman, who is underneath a blown-up building of another executed mob boss that he, again, was too late to save. Nightwing has no problem tracing Batman’s steps as he seems to have become sloppy, and resorts to using pure physical power to beat the information out of the crooks he needs to interrogate to get on the trail of the mob boss’ killer.

Back at the manor, Alfred frets. He was the one testifying in front of the Parole Board, and he, too, failed, as Zucco will be released. He is washed over with memories of the moments surrounding Dick’s path to becoming Bruce’s ward, and to becoming Robin. He recalls the lessons Bruce taught Dick, the hard work, and diligence that it takes to be the detectives they would become together. The patience required gathering the evidence, slowly, methodically, with an ethos overarching it all so that they could bring criminals to justice and have the means of putting them away, behind bars where they belong. Alfred is soon joined by the duo as they return, Batman in a huff stridently marching into the Bat Cave, and Nightwing finding out that Alfred, too, had noticed the removal of all traces, of all memories, of Jason Todd, and that it is equally bothersome to them both. Batman has become violent, rather than forceful, and is acting like a man possessed. Just when Dick turns to confront Bruce, both he and Alfred discover him to be already gone.

The remaining mob bosses are gathered to try to work out just what is going on and whom to blame, as Batman arrives and offers to aid them in discovering the identity of the culprit. This is shocking both for the bosses, and for the reader. Since when does Batman ally himself with murderous criminal scum? We shift back to the prison as Zucco is beginning preparations for leaving, he speaks to one member of the Parole Board whom he had in his pocket due to his information in the Book. This is the key, we realize, and when Zucco reveals that this is all part of something he’s been planning for ten years, we know the mastermind of the whole plot.

Nightwing sets out, again, to search for Batman leaving Alfred alone with his thoughts, and his anger. Alfred surprises us by picking up a gun and seemingly sets himself upon a course to end Zucco as a means, in the hopes of saving Bruce from his demons and permitting Dick to see the killer of his parent’s answer for his crimes fully. Alfred does not fail to live up to our faith in him, as he cannot bring himself to sink to murder. An act for which he feels remorse, feeling that he, in some way, has failed Bruce, and Dick. But we know that it is an act that will ultimately save them. This view into the inherent humanity of someone who has witnessed so much tragedy and served faithfully these long years to fight the good fight and did not fail, but rather triumphed over the demons that threaten us all, especially the demon of revenge.

Nightwing’s searching allows him for introspection. He recalls what he was told about the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin, at the hands of the Joker. He had to find out what happened from other people as Bruce had just, simply, shut down. He closed himself off and went silent, not speaking to any of his family, Alfred nor Dick. Bruce has been trying to erase the very memories that pain him, perhaps in ways he as a child wished he could erase the memories of his parents’ own murder. He has been around far too much tragedy for any one man to bear alone. Dick has to find him, and soon. He is on the trail as he finds another place the hit men assaulted and he shows just how much he did learn at the feet of the Greatest Detective, as he finds evidence the police had missed. Batman makes his pitch to the bosses, and we turn our gaze upon the prison once more.

Alfred has come to speak, to appeal, directly to Zucco. He offers him a blank check for whatever it might take for him to leave Gotham, thinking this might help his masters’ heavy hearts, and Zucco laughs at him. Zucco is after what he’s always been after, Gotham itself. He is going to rule all of Gotham’s underworld. No mere money can compensate for the power which he has in mind. Through different means, one brutal and diminishing, requiring a pact with a pack of animals in human skin, and the other through diligent detective work, Bruce, and Dick happen upon the same information, and that it is Zucco who is in the center ring of this circus, and that he is being released soon.

Nightwing finds Batman overlooking the prison and joins him as they wait for Zucco’s release. We see Zucco being escorted out of the prison by Taft, the corrupt Parole Board member, and they witness Zucco’s murder as he exits the front door of the prison. Nightwing, thinking Batman knew that Zucco would be killed, finally has a chance to confront Batman with his aberrant behavior of late. In a heated discussion, we finally get a glimpse behind the cowl as Batman denies any knowledge of the murder, but more importantly, that he was so filled with rage that he was afraid he would himself kill Zucco for what he had done to Dick’s family. It is a chilling moment knowing that Batman was almost pushed to the edge of murder to avenge Dick, but we still realize that he is not processing the catalyst for all of this, the death of Jason Todd. Batman drives off, leaving Nightwing alone. We hear over the radio that everyone is searching for Zucco’s book.

Meeting back at the Bat Cave, Batman and Nightwing discuss how to find the book before anyone else, but Batman adamantly refuses any help. He flatly states he needs no partners ever again. Alfred is right when he points out that Batman is in the grip of fear that what happened to Jason could happen again, and is isolating himself as a preventative measure. Both Batman and Nightwing go about searching for information regarding the location of the book. Nightwing in the manner Batman taught him, to be the detective, to speak and to observe but not to coerce. Batman, however, is on a dangerous path and ruthlessly beats any lowlife that might have the information. Both don’t find much of a clue, except that the St. Jude’s Orphanage might hold the key. It is to be torn down the next day, and it cannot be mere coincidence that Zucco had finally used his power to get himself released just prior to such. They separately converge on the orphanage, with Nightwing arriving first. He discovers the hiding place of the book but is assaulted by Tate who has tracked him down and is, himself, after the book.

Batman arrives on the scene only to be confronted with his worst fear. Nightwing is being beaten on by Tate with a crowbar. In a horrifying mirror of what had happened to Jason Todd at the hands of the Joker, Batman is forced to watch as he runs to save his son from a madman mercilessly beating him to death. This time, however, we are not dealing with a bound Robin, but an unbound one, and Nightwing is able to subdue his attacker and then evade one final lunge as Batman comes upon the scene just to see Tate miss his mark and fall to his death. We end the story with Bruce and Alfred talking, and Bruce finally realizing that his partner has grown into his own man, a fine man, and one he can be proud of, while Dick visits his parents grave for a long-overdue talk.

Wolfman’s story has us on edge the entire time as we witness what some might call Batman’s fall into despair. Batman has never been one to plainly express his emotions. Remaining cold and distant is a trademark of the Caped Crusader. Even at home with Dick, there was always something distant about Bruce Wayne. But with Jason Todd, Bruce opened up just a little window into his heart. He made a special place for Jason that was a little cozier than the space left when Dick grew up and moved out. It is this cozy sense of family that Wolfman exploits as we deal with the aftermath of having the Joker reach inside Bruce’s chest and rip out his heart by killing Jason. It is a wound that will never truly leave Batman. His behavior afterward is the physical manifestation of that shock and horror. He removes every memento, no small detail left, that may bring Jason back to mind. He wants to bury the memory like he did his parents. The thing is with his parents, he buried them and unearthed a Knight of Vengeance that brings criminals to face the justice they so deserve. He does that with a method, patience, and above all a moral code that categorically separates him from the scum he is fighting. He will never permit himself to sink that low. But, he did. Granted, he did not accede to murder but was almost willing to. He was brought to the edge of the precipice and looked down only to see his own eyes staring back at him in judgment and he nearly froze in that fear.

At the height of his despair, he finally realized that he was not alone. His earlier faith in Dick proved to be well met as Dick rose up to the situation and emerged triumphantly. Dick proved that Bruce’s careful methods worked. That he did not have to sink into the mire. I feel that Wolfman is also letting us know that this is only a first step, a realization, that Bruce is now on a journey that may lead to his healing.

Throughout the four-issue story arc, Broderick and Beatty’s artwork compliments these themes. They work in a medium of facial expressions and physical stances that reinforce the pain and the anguish that Batman is fighting. The action scenes are rendered with a fury that emulates the deviant methods Batman is using to combat his own demons as he lashes out like never before upon unsuspecting victims. Criminals though they may be, make no mistake, they were the victims of Batman in his wild, frenzied quest to exorcise the memory of Jason Todd’s murder from his own soul. He has taken it upon his own shoulders the culpability of the crime, as if he, not the Joker, had killed his partner, and the artwork echoes this guilt with its darker than normal tones, its brutal shadows and blood-splattered panels.

In the DC Universe Batman is definitely one of the more brooding souls, but we have never seen him so fraught with despair before that he has almost become what he has vowed to combat. This brutal departure from the norm is the clarion call of a questioning of purpose and of existence. How can Batman be if he cannot safeguard those whose trust in him is sacred, and in whom he must be able to place his trust? He is suffering from what we would now call PTSD. He has suffered a tremendous shock witnessing the death of Jason, being just a few moments too late. Too late. It is almost like you can hear that rattling around Bruce’s brain. Too late. He was too late to do anything to save Jason. He was too late to change the path his family walked in that alley so long ago. He was too late to notice anything amiss at the Circus. He was too late to save the crime bosses he knew were targeted. He was too late to make his peace with any of it. Could he have trained them better? Could he have been there for his partner? And is the price of his tardiness the recasting of the Batman into a figure just as brutal and dirty as those he has been fighting? It is only upon his arrival, late again to his mind, at the final battle in this story between Tate and Nightwing that he realizes he is not to blame. Joker was to blame for Jason. Zucco was to blame for the Graysons. Chill was to blame for his parents. And Tate is to blame for his own actions. And Dick and Jason? He may still owe them a debt, but he sits and realizes that he has done what he needed to do. Jason was a tragedy he must not allow to happen again, but his faith is restored by Dick and the man he has grown into. The hard part is what is next, the hard part is the healing.

This is one story arc that every collector, or lover of comics, should have at their fingertips. It is a vibrant reminder that the comics can reflect real life in ways many don’t realize. The sorrows and pain that many of us feel, so real to us, so palpable, yet in our own heads, is being acted out upon these pages in a grand style yet with a touch most human.

Writing: 10/10

Artwork: 10/10

Overall: 10/10