Writer: Christopher Priest Artist: Shawn Martinborough(p/i), John Lowe(i), Ben Dimagmaliw(c) Publisher: DC
Yes! By the cosmos, yes! Batman: The Hill is the justification of what I've been saying in every response I've made defending my criticism of the Batman titles. This is the antithesis of No Man's Land. This is pure Batman!
Okay. Calm down inner fan-boy. Calm down. Deep breath. Okay. I'm ready. Yes! No. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Now I'm ready.
From the moment you open the book, you know you are in the talons of an author who knows Batman. It may be his actual lack of Batman experience that gives Christopher Priest such a clarity of vision to see what others--apart ironically from Larry Hama--have been missing.
In the onset, a jewel thief attempts to crack open a bank vault. Batman awaits inside, and the Dark Knight doesn't even bruise a knuckle on the loser. He uses a tool from his utility belt. Yow! Some comic book days, I really think the writers forget the belt holds Batman's crime-fighting arsenal. It's not there to hold up his trunks.
On page three, Mr. Priest and Shawn Martinborough displays Batman's ghoulish sense of humor. Yes! Batman isn't an emotionless void who wars on crime. He's not the Punisher. He's far more complex. It takes a twisted sense of humor to treat criminals like children, and that's what he does. He dresses up like a giant bat knowing that these dregs of society fear the dark. He makes them drop their guns and wet their pants. Now, that's funny. Batman also gets a kick out of playing with Commissioner Gordon's head. That's why his disappearing acts are so fun. They evoke no mystique for Jim Gordon--whom here almost represents a father figure to Batman. Gordon knows Batman is a man. He probably knows his secret identity and why he stalks the night. Batman vanishes when Gordon turns his back for the joke, and though Batman has a very good reason to keep Gordon blind to his "batcave," anybody who thinks that's the only reason, hasn't been paying attention. Gordon gets the joke, and the joke is such a release: "This place...! Amazing. Splendid....Sarah--? I'll be home soon."
Batman on one level--a level that even he will not admit--does enjoy being Batman. He would do anything not to exist. He would do anything to change that dark night that took away the lives of his parents, but Mr. Priest and Sean Martinborough who renders some witty, yet characteristic body language ala Zorro for the bat beautifully captures a feeling of grim ebullience throughout a tale that inclines away from our Batman-deprived reality and does so under the impetus of a turbo charge.
Mr. Priest with a crystal-clear insight into all the aspects of this multidimensional hero shows how the only thing that makes Batman feel good, the only way he can face the dawn is to destroy crime. If that is the only way Batman copes, then surely manifesting a realistic, crime-ridden ghetto will torture him as much as did the quake that ravaged Gotham, but you see, that's just it. Batman is a deterrent, and Christopher Priest understands this. The quake should have been a JLA problem. Not solely a Batman problem. The quake made absolutely no sense. The Hill makes sense. If you transplant a section of our problems to the fictional world of Gotham, it becomes Batman's problem, and Batman solves problems. It's what he does best.
To criminals Batman is a symbol of terror. To their victims, Batman is an icon of optimism, and Mr. Priest shows how his shadow affects other citizens of Gotham--especially one, in a Benet touch, denizen of the Hill. The upper echelons of Gotham seem brighter and more concerned because they live in a city protected by a giant bat, and this fits with what Batman did early in his career. Even if you dismiss the minutiae of Year One as a bad dream--Selina's prostitution history for instance (its retcon I applauded), Batman was supposed to clean up Gotham. From the lowliest drug pusher to the Mayor who grew fat on the corruption, Batman swept them aside as certain as Elliot Ness and the Untouchables brought down Al Capone. A crooked government simply should not be able to survive in Gotham.
Mr. Priest brilliantly supports the cleaner Gotham with a sympathetic intelligent Mayor working with Commissioner Gordon within the law to stop a crimelord who owns the Hill through a facade of afrocentrism, but the law is limited. That's why a Batman is needed even if he is not fully accepted as real--one of the most effective examples of Batman being seen as an urban legend ever in a Batman title.
Batman does not seem at first concerned with the Hill, but the reason becomes clear. Mr. Priest takes advantage of the cynicism that kept some Batman fans away from No Man's Land. He knows what you expect to happen, but he isn't trying to convey a message. He's doing something completely novel by relating a story in the only way it could have unfolded while in the confines of Gotham. With Mr. Priest's superb dialogue and fast pace, with his resurrection of talents we haven't recently seen in Batman's stealthy ways and Shawn Martinborough's evocative artwork, you too will once again "believe in Batman."
