Batman Gotham Knights #13--Another Viewpoint

Posted: Sunday, February 4
By: Ray Tate

"The End"


"Funny Money"

Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Rick Burchett(p), John Lowe(i), Pamela Rambo(c)
Publisher: DC

Plot: I want my damn multiple earths back!

It's been brought to my attention that I don't openly compliment enough. So, here we go. "Funny Money" by Harlan Ellison, yes, that Harlan Ellison, and Gene Ha is without a doubt one of the best Batman stories of the year.

Mr. Ellison's Batman is brilliant. His knowledge is vast as he souses out the correct answer to a Treasury Agent's test question in less time it takes for a heart to beat.

What many authors and fans fail to see is that Batman does have a sense of humor. It's simply twisted. Mr. Ellison gets him. He knows how that sense of humor works within the Batman's grand illusion of terror. Terror. Mr. Ellison's Batman is a creature of terror. He does not need to throw a single punch to tease an answer from a felon.

Another element Mr. Ellison recognizes is Batman's multidimensional thinking. Think back to nineteen-eighty-nine. You are in Bat-Nirvana watching Jack Napier's men scurry in the maze of Axis Chemicals. Think back on how Batman takes out the rats one by one. He glides along catwalks. He takes advantage of the police's interference to wait for the boys in blue to herd the thugs into his fist. Batman traps criminals, and "Funny Money" is one of the finest of the Dark Knight's snares.

Mr. Ellison's partner in crime, Gene Ha envisions a singular and valid interpretation of the Detective. His Batman is clearly just a man in a costume, but his scaling--along with the thick long ears of a fox bat--gives Batman height and muscular girth. He towers over practically everybody in the story, and when playing creature of the dark he becomes the costume. The leathery cape casts shadows which conceal his body-suit and utility belt. The edges of the cape taper like tentacles.

In a mere eight pages, Harlan Ellison and Gene Ha craft a sorely needed gust of fresh night air, but the main story is just more flatulence.

Let me get this straight. In The Killing Joke, The Joker raps on Commissioner Gordon's door. He shoots Barbara Gordon once, and she never walks again. The framed photograph of Batwoman, Bat-Girl and Bat-Mite near the Bat Computer not to mention Babs and Batman knowing each other's secret identity clues in the reader that this is an imaginary story by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland dealing with the iconography of the Batman and the Joker. DC would never do something so insane as to have a crippled hero in a universe with three consecutive versions of Doctor Fate--Kent Nelson, Inza Nelson, Hector Hall. "Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"

Babs to this day is confined unnecessarily to a wheelchair even though she is a member of the JLA which has a two aliens who have access to alien technology, an Amazon who can order her to be spirited away to Paradise Island and bathed in the Purple Ray and a genius biochemist who has implemented that which was considered theoretical in his crusade against crime. Meanwhile some leather effigy attempts to take Babs' rightful place as Batgirl. Batwoman never existed. Bat-Girl never existed. Instead, Bette Kane becomes Flamebird. I'm actually cool with that because it makes her less likely to be shot and crippled unnecessarily. Most preposterous of all, Bat-mite is a bona fide resident in what DC laughingly calls continuity. This also means, that if Batman is nice to the little Muppet, he just may convince him to use his "magic" to repair the damage to Babs' spine.

Now....Count to ten Ray....Okay. James Gordon is shot three times in what is laughingly called continuity at close range in the back, yet this Gordon can still tap dance!! Is this fair? Is this justice? Is this even reasonable to a five-year-old? Apart from the nonsensical subjective higgledy-piggledy, Greg Rucka drops the bombshell that Gordon is retiring. It fizzles like a dud. Let me explain something.

ALL OF THIS HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE!

In an issue of Brave and Bold, the new Mayor decides to retire both Batman and Commissioner Gordon. Yes, retiring a vigilante in itself is a ludicrous concept as is replacing Batman with the Metal Men. The absurdity lasts one issue. A more serious treatment occurs in a thread of Pre-Crisis Detective Comics and Batman when Commissioner Gordon is smeared politically. He is forcibly retired, and he becomes a partner to Jason Bard P.I. In The Dark Knight Returns, Gordon gracefully bows out. Do you see a pattern?

Gordon being shot is nothing new. My former colleague Loren DiLorio already beat me with the mention of the ever superior Batman: Animated Series, but let's also look at Batman: Cult where sonuvagun Commissioner Gordon is shot. What makes the storyarc of Officer Down any different from Batman: Cult? A good question. Perhaps, the difference lies with Gordon's ordeal and retirement having lasting effects on the Batman titles. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-!

The moment a new serious Batman film comes out with Commissioner Gordon, the moment a new serious television show like the one recently proposed for the WB featuring James Gordon airs is the moment Jim Gordon will again be sitting behind his desk: his back probably not even aching while his daughter is still confined to a wheelchair. After four years when our technology once again approaches the ideas of science fiction, in the comics, Barbara Gordon will still be confined to a wheelchair. This is ridiculous.

"Officer Down" is nothing more than stunt writing, and I expected better from Greg Rucka. I do acknowledge this. At least he suggests Batman and Commissioner Gordon shared a genuine friendship. Characterizing Batman as somebody who can make and cultivate friends is far healthier than the Bat-Bastard treatment going on in JLA or implying that the Robins, Nightwing, Batgirl and Sado the Leather Wonder are all expendable soldiers in his oh-so-macho, tortured War Against Crime. Rucka however could have reinforced Batman's classic characterization without the fleeting shock value of retiring and shooting Gordon. I have to ask what next? How about a serial killer who preys on English butlers? We can call it "Beef-eater Butler Butchered." Wait. No. Alfred was dead.

In the eighties, Archie Goodwin, Denny O' Neil and Steve Engelheart teamed with Michael Golden, Don Newton and Marshall Rogers to forge stories that worked without shock. The machinations of Rupert Thorne and Silver St. Cloud's suspicions, the escape from a frozen deathtrap and Batman's driven quest to avenge Kathy Kane's death engrossed readers without gimmicks. In the early nineties--after the Crisis, mind you--Alan Grant, Alan Brennert, Peter Milligan combined forces with Jim Aparo and Norm Breyfogle to visualize stories that pitted Batman against Scarface, Clayface, the Joker, the Queen of Hearts and the Scarecrow. Greg Rucka can write. So why doesn't he? So far, all we have received is three really good issues that anybody can understand without having to piece together what counts and what doesn't from the crazy quilt. Three good issues displaying The World's Greatest Detective. Three good issues that relied on solid plotting, strong characterization and expertly voiced dialogue. Absolutely no stunts. Three good issues out of the drawn-out, depressing debacle christened "No Man's Land" and now a miniature pretentious attempt at creating a milestone called "Officer Down." This must stop. The audience hasn't changed, and when DC starts talking down to their core customers, they only hurt themselves.