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BATMAN INCORPORATED #1
Mr Unknown Is Dead
Written by GRANT MORRISON ; Art by YANICK PAQUETTE; Cover by J.H. WILLIAMS III; 1:25 Variant cover by YANICK PAQUETTE; 1:200 Sketch variant cover by YANICK PAQUETTE
DC Comics, January 2011, Color, 32pgs, $3.99
Grant Morrison continues his earth-shattering run on the Batman titles with this exciting, new ongoing series! Featuring art by the remarkable Yanick Paquette (SEVEN SOLDIERS: BULLETEER), BATMAN, INC. marks the next stage of evolution for The Dark Knight. This can’t-miss series will star not just Bruce Wayne as Batman, but also a huge number of guest-stars! Don’t miss out on this all-new start to a stunning direction for Batman!
Commentary
Commentary
As one stage of Morrison's Batman run draws to a a pretty decisive close, another begins. Bruce is back in the Bat-suit after his time-hopping jaunt and dedicating himself to travelling the world recruiting like-minded souls to assist in his battle against shady terrorist organization Leviathan. After the 'Batman R.I.P. as farce' closing arc of Batman and Robin, Morrison amps up the lightening of tone again with Batman Incorporated, essentially a double-header revival of two terminally uncool Batman titles from years gone by. Firstly, and most prominently in these opening issues, we have a re-imagining of Bob Haney's The Brave and the Bold, a Batman team-up book from the sixties and seventies where Batman was joined by a series of unlikely compadres for done-in-one adventures that often threw all established continuity out of the window in service to a monthly slice of 22-carat gold insanity. Though Haney's work is a favourite amongst the internet's comic critics, a revival of his... unique take on Batman wasn't something that anyone expected to see. Comic books are a different animal these days and done-in-one team-ups seemed, before Batman, Incorporated's announcement, as dead a duck as commercially viable ongoing titles starring brand new characters.
The second book that lives again in Batman Incorporated is Batman Family, an anthology title from the Seventies whose first issue featured a team-up between Robin and Batgirl against the combined forces of the ghost of Benedict Arnold and Satan. Again, the anthology title featuring extended cast members of popular books is not a format that appears often these days. Fortunately Grant Morrison's pull at DC is sufficient that he is permitted to dust-off these long neglected concepts and run with them, resulting in the twenty two pages of pure joy that is Batman Incorporated #1.
The first couple of issues of Batman Incorporated are taken up by what amounts to an extended love letter to the licenced Batman comics produced for the Japanese market by Jiro Kuwata in the wake of sixties Batmania. Collected in spectacular style by Chip Kidd in Bat-Manga! - The Secret History of Batman in Japan, Kuwata's stories are a mixture of adaptions of American works (like the Lord Death Man story that is heaviy referenced this issue) and original stories featuring the likes of Professor Gorilla. The Bat-Manga book is a treat to look at and to delve into and if you don't already own it, you should.
Annotations
Annotations
Cover - As this is the first issue of course we get iconic Batman, with J.H. Williams III choosing to play up the international Batman theme, whilst Yanick Paquette chooses to showcase the new tweaked costume design.
Page 1 - And we're off. After the central plot strand of the series was set up in Batman: The Return (Batman and his international allies engage in a global battle against super-villainous Al Qaeda analogue Leviathan), Morrison makes the unusual authorial choice of all but abandoning it until issue six. Instead we get five issues of Batman enlisting recruits for the freshly minted Batman Incorporated, beginning here in Japan.
A suitably grisly beginning for this, the first story to bring the Japanese version of the Death Man character, Lord Death Man from Jiro Kuwata and Chip Kidd's Bat-Manga! book, into mainstream DC continuity. The original Death Man appeared in 1966's Batman #180 by Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff, but its Kuwata's skewed version from his own adaption some months later in the Japanese Shonen Ace magazine that's undoubtedly the star here. Incidentally, Joe Casey also tried to resurect Death Man in 2010's Superman/Batman #68, but as it was a tie-in to the then five years old 'Our Worlds At War' event, I'm pretty sure not too many folk read it.
Given that Death Man's longevity is due to mastery of yogic techniques, yoga is generally associated with south Asian religions like Buddhism and Leviathan has been thus far described (in the script extracts for Batman: The Return and in Batman Incorporated #6) in terms relating to south Asian religions like Buddhism, there will be no prizes for guessing that we will see him again at some point in the run. Zen fascism as super-villainy anyone?
This issue marks the first appearance of the original Mr. Unknown, a Japanese costumed vigilante in the Batman vein, whom we later learn is now an old man who leaves the heavy lifting of superheroics to his young apprentice, Jiro Osamu. Jiro's name is a double homage to author of the original Batman manga comics from the sixties, Jiro Kuwata, and the 'Godfather of Anime' and creator of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka.
Page 2 - The outrageously sadistic Lord Death Man is probably inspired by Morrison's acknowledged love for video games like the Grand Theft Auto series, and the maniacal behavior we all demonstrate when given a sandbox world to play in with no consequences for our actions and no fear of a lasting death. Lord Death Man is the bored urge to shoot up a shopping mall full of innocent bystanders or flip your car off a mountain top for an Insane Stunt Bonus made comic book flesh. Death Man's psychotic glee at his actions both reflects our own video gaming cheap thrills and totally rings true to the character, as originally presented in Bat-Manga!
These first two grisly pages, unsurprisingly, did not appear in the preview art for the book. Can anyone confirm if its in the Batman Incorporated/Dark Knight ashcan?
Page 3 - Mr Unknown and Jiro run a comic book store, fitting for such a self-referential story. Given the colossal effort Morrison put in to fleshing out the super-heroic history of DC Universe Japan during the writing of Final Crisis (as evidenced in the Final Crisis Sketchbook), it seem peculiar that he makes no reference to it at all during these first two issues beyond a brief cameo for the Super Young Team's Shiny Happy Aquazon. Here's hoping for a Most Excellent Superbat/Batman Japan World's Finest style team-up later in the run.
Page 4 - Just like in R.I.P. Mr Unknown's own Batcave has been over run by the enemy.
Lord Death Man's Men of Death wear skeleton suits, of course. Their bargain basement look only serves to accentuate Death Man's creepy visage. They wear cheap skull masks, his face is actually a skull!
Page 5 - Jiro demonstrates why Batman is so keen to recruit him, taking out Death Man's goons with a cup of coffee and a bottle of saki before escaping while Lord Death Man sloganeers.
Page 6-7 - Taking a big old leaf from J H Williams III's playbook and his pioneering work in the 'Club of Heroes' arc from Batman #667-669, Yanick Paquette chooses to draw many of the central characters in Batman Incorporated in the style of other artists. Its a clever technique, giving the reader an immediate visual shorthand to the personality of the characters, or even the 'version' of the character that we're seeing.
Batman is a pitch perfect Kevin Nowlan, Catwoman clearly based on the work of King of Cheescake Adam Hughes.
Page 8 - The conclusion of The Return of Bruce Wayne mini-series and Bruce's subsequent re-adoption of the cowl has allowed Morrison's Batman run to transcend the street level, psychology-heavy antagonists that have been the character's bread and butter for the past forty years and fully embrace the whacked out "sci-fi closet" Batman that we saw in Morrison's JLA. A Batman who'll break into the secret lair of Shazam Family villain Doctor Sivana and battle an invisible monster to steal a mysterious super-invention...
Speaking of which, what is it that Batman takes from Sivana's lab? The true nature of Batman's target isn't revealed before we're whisked off to Japan and into the story proper. As with the Zen-Ur-Arrh graffiti in the first issue of his Batman run, I'm willing to bet Morrison is planting a seed here that's going to pay off way down the line.
Page 9-10 - Shades of TV's Lost here as the invisible monster is bathed in smoke.
"Lay your pillow down amongst the pussy willow" is presumably a song lyric, though if it is it's a lyric that nobody has ever written down on the internet. One of Grant's maybe?
Page 11 - A human cat (woman) versus robot mice.
The mysterious Project X looks like an enormous diamond, but as Catwoman says on page 13,
"I know diamonds, Bruce Wayne. Whatever that was I stole for you, it wasn't a diamond." Yes, but what was it?!
Page 12 - Narita is a city in Chiba, Japan. It is home to the main international airport servicing Tokyo.
Elva Barr was an alias first used by Catwoman in 1940's Batman #15, though in that story she was the owner of a beauty salon rather than a cosmetics heiress.
Shiny Happy Aquazon is a member of Japan's premier super team the Super Young Team, who debuted in Morrison's Final Crisis. "The Posiedon Crown Jewels" is a typo, it should read "Posiedonis", a long estabished city state in the DC Universe Atlantis.
Much has been made by internet critics of whether Paquette's art in this sequence overtly objectifies Catwoman (it does), and whether the same is true of his iron-pumping Bruce Wayne (it is, but whether that's apprecated by the largely male audience of the comic is a matter for debate).
Page 13 - What's rarer than diamonds? Quite a lot actually; diamonds are fairly common as minerals go. Their price and 'rarity' is a tightly controlled fabrication brought to you by the diamond industry. What is the mysterious Project X though?
I love that Selina's so blase about Bruce's 'death' and return.
A throwaway line from Bruce is the first mention of his portentous vision of the future whilst lost in time that will play an important role in the series as it progresses
Morrison pretty blatantly (or as much as the mainstream comics medium today will allow) has Selina and Bruce just out and out and have sex after this last panel. It's about time...
Page 14 - ... And of course, post-coitus, they're straight out on patrol.
Page 15 - You really don't need me to go into the whole manga-schoolgirls-tentacles fetish thing here. I'm sure there are plenty of sites out there on the internet that can tell you all about it. Catwoman, like all women everywhere, doesn't share the enthusiasm.
Page 16 - Three unidentified John Does, like the three blind children and the three Marines in issues three and four. Is Lord Death Man playing a part in Doctor Dedalus' plot? (More on that in a couple of issues time if you're reading as you go along)
Nitro-hydrochloric acid is also know as Aqua Regia, or 'royal water', so named because its so potent it can dissolve the noble or 'royal' metals gold and platinum. Lord Death Man's use of it here is an obscure Batman TV series-esque clue to the next target in his insane rampage around Japan, as we'll see next issue.
Page 18 - Paquette really gets to showcase the codpiece he's added to the Batman costume here,,,
Page 19 - Someone (Morrison? Editorial?) has decided that the typical representation of non-English speech in comic books, enclosing the text in brackets, is no longer sufficient and that it should be changed to italic text instead. Whether that's a good, bad or indifferent decision I'll leave up to the individual reader; but get used to it, it's here to stay.
Page 20 - And we're back with Jiro Osamu, Mr Unknown's body double. With girl troubles, builders messing up the apartment block (converting apartments into airtight aquariums for giant octopi) and a landlord whining about late rent, Jiro is a regular Japanese Peter Parker. I wonder if next time we see him he'll have a head cold that badly affects his ability to crime-fight?
The carpet is mined? Seriously?!
Page 20 - The outrageously theatrical Lord Death Man throws a few shapes while monologuing.
Page 21-22 - After gently bringing in elements of the Batman TV show in his Batman and Robin run, Morrison lets rip with a vintage Adam West-style deathtrap cliffhanger and narration written to be read by original Bat-announcer William Dozier.
Page 23 - Catwoman's complaint about water earlier in the issue, along with her bemusement at tentacle porn, get the gag ending with a full page splash you can only imagine the script description for.
Tune in soon (or click the link below), same Bat-time, same Bat-webpage for more annotations for Batman Incorporated #2...
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