Batman Incorporated #3 Annotations
BATMAN INCORPORATED #3
Scorpion Tango
DC Comics, March 2011, Color, 32pgs, $2.99
Written by GRANT MORRISON ; Art by YANICK PAQUETTE; Cover by J.H. WILLIAMS III; 1:25 Variant cover by DAVID FINCH
Batman and Catwoman travel to South America to reunite with Gaucho, Argentina's Batman Incorporated representative. But their trip may be cut short when an unexpected adversary sends things spiraling downward!
Commentary
As rapidly becomes the norm from this issue onwards, the solicitation text mentions something that doesn't actually happen in the comic, i.e. Catwoman teaming up with Batman and Gaucho. On the one hand its a shame as Morrison wrote her so well in the opening arc, but on the other hand from here on out the guest star roll call increases dramatically with every issue and one more body would only serve to unneccesarily crowd things.
Another trend started by this issue was Batman Incorporated's chronic lateness. This one was overdue by a month and shunted the following issues down the schedules accordingly. Still, I'd much rather get them a bit late than not get them at all, Everyone will have forgotten in a year or so anyway. Does anyone care now that Seven Soldiers #1 was six months late? Didn't think so, but it sure seemed like an agonising wait at the time.
After the Bat-Manga! homage of the last two issues, this issue kicks off a three issue Batman-as-James-Bond arc set primarily in Argentina and the Falkland Islands. Throwing more disparate elements into the Leviathan pot, we're introduced here to Doctor Dedalus and Spyral, and both will have important roles to play as the series progresses. Simultaneously action-packed and extraordinarily dense, this issue, at 20 pages the shortest installment so far, manages to pack in Jorge Luis Borges, plenty of untranslated Spanish and a man being punched in the face by a motorcycle. Great stuff...
Annotations
Cover - David Finch's variant was originally solicited as the standard cover for the issue, in keeping with DC's 'iconic' logo-less cover theme for January 2011. When the book slipped back into February, it was recoloured (the white background swapped for black) and the logo reinstated. J.H. Williams' regular cover was originally solicited as the cover for issue five. Williams sticks with the style he used in the 'Club of Heroes' arc of drawing each of the international Batmen in the style of an artist who might have been well suited to draw their own title, in this case Howard Chaykin for Gaucho.
Page 1 - The alien Metalek, a cross between Doctor Who's Daleks and Scoop from the children's TV series Bob The Builder, was previously seen (and first appeared) in the Tower of London super-prison in Batman and Robin #7. Greeting it upon its arrival (presumably whilst still working for the British government) is Doctor Dedalus, aka Nazi war criminal Otto Netz, aka Agent Zero, making his first appearance here. We'll learn a lot more about him over the course of the next couple of issues.
51.9823 S, 58.6062 W is a real life map reference to RAF Mount Pleasant on the Falkland Islands, a UK territory (though that's more than a little contentious, but we'll get to that) 100 miles off the coast of Argentina.
"In time of war", puts us in 1982, or the DC Universe equivalent, when the UK and Argentina were engaged in a 'conflict' over the sovreignty of the Falklands.
We're looking through the eyes of Percival Sheldrake, the original Knight and father of the current Knight, Cyril, who first appeared in 1950's Batman #62. The crashed jet and the Iron Lady's body are still here when we return to the lighthouse in the present day in issue five.
The Knight's cryptic comments regarding Dedalus' Oroboros weapon suggest it might have something to do with time, or indeed conciousness displacement. Just like Darksied's Omega Effect that sent Bruce Wayne back in time in Final Crisis. Darksied calls the Omega Effect 'The Death That Is Life'. Hmm... that sounds a little 'serpent-eating-its-own-tail'-ish too...
Page 2 - The Victory V's, a 1980's British super-team , make their debut just in time to be offed by the mysterious Doctor Dedalus. All are Morrison/Paquette creations making their first appearance apart from the original Knight who debuted in 1950's Batman #62, a Batman of England created by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang. His remote controlled toys, gizmos given to the character when Morrison re-invented him in JLA, are an homage to General Jumbo from popular Scottish kid's comic The Beano. The rest of the line up, from left to right is The Iron Lady, apparently some sort of mystical robot whose name comes from the popular epithet of Her Satanic Majesty Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time of the Falklands conflict and a deeply, deeply unpopular figurehead for everything that was wrong with 1980's Britain; Fadar, a fey hero who could be a nod towards Morrison's own Zenith from 2000 A.D.; Mr. Albion, a right-wing, intolerant super-soldier torn straight from the opinion columns of Britain's most popular tabloid newspaper for idiots The Sun; and Captain Carnation, a cross between Michael Moorcock's dimension hopping dandy Jerry Cornelius and 80's pop star Adam Ant, who hails from other-dimensional Alter-England (the good Captain, not Adam Ant).
"Micro 633-Squadron" is a reference to the classic World War II movie 633 Squadron starring Cliff Robertson.
According to the crumbs of Dedalus' back story we get over this and the following two issues, as the Victory V's arrive to imprison him here at the lighthouse former Nazi scientist Otto Netz is heading the United Nations super-spy ageny Spyral under the code-name Agent Zero. Fleeing Germany after the war, he went to work for the British before betraying them and going to ground in South America. Sometime after this he emerges under the new identity of Doctor Dedalus and is recruited by the UN to lead Spyral. Presumably his mysterious past association with the British is why the Victory V's have been sent to contain him rather than a U.N. strikeforce, as Captain Carnation points out.
Page 3 - "By Bloopeeta, Crikey and Thatcha!" Bloopeeta is a reference to British kid's TV show Blue Peter. Crikey is an exclamation popular in British kid's comics like the afformentioned Beano and The Dandy; Thatcha is another reference to Margaret Thatcher. Her name could and probably should become a curse word at some point in the future.
Page 4-5 - Cimarron of the Super Malon, whose name translates from the Spanish as "feral or "fugitive", was created by Chuck Dixon and Enrique Alcatena and first appeared in 2000's Flash Annual #13, part of the Planet DC event running in that year's annuals. An attempt to expand the horizons of the DC Universe by introducing more non-American heroes and villains, like its much-derided spirtual predecessor Bloodlines, most of the characters never made another appearance. The Super Malon, confusingly inspired by the old-time Silver Age heroics of the Gaucho before the character's revitalization and updating under Morrison, did better than most, appearing in two issues of World's #1 Global Guardians fan Phil Jiminez's run on Wonder Woman. The Mexican Iman, another hero introduced in Planet DC, played a small but significant role in Morrison's Final Crisis.
El Papagayo originally appeared in 1949's Batman #56, the notorious Bat-Hombre issue. He also inspired a Jonah Hex villain of the same name. His name translates from Spanish as 'The Parrot'. He is presumably responsible for manufacturing the explosive robot scorpions used by Scorpiana (the "blue lady" mentioned here). The kids Cimarron mentions are the three blind orphans who turn up later in the issue.
Page 6-7 - We've already seen Gaucho twice in Morrison's run, once in 'The Island of Mister Mayhew' arc and briefly in 'R.I.P.'. He was created by Edmond Hamiton and Sheldon Moldoff and first appeared in Detective Comics #215 from 1955. Here he punches a bad guy in the face with the front wheel of his motorcycle. Awesome.
David Macho, who recieves special thanks for this issue, translated The Invisibles into Spanish for Planeta DeAgostini and presumably helped with the Spanish dialogue throughout this issue.
The Federico Garcia Lorca quote translates as -
The duende, by contrast, won’t appear if he can’t see the possibility of death, if he doesn’t know he can haunt death’s house, if he’s not certain to shake those branches we all carry, that do not bring, can never bring, consolation. (from Lorca's Theory and Play of the Duende, translated by A. S. Kline and available online here)
Horrendously over-simplifying in a ham-fisted fashion, duende is the Latin (as in Spain/Latin America rather then Roman Latin) concept that life, and more specifically art, music and philosophy, life's ultimate expressions, are nothing without the specter of death and mortality that all of us can hear in a performance of true passion. Think this clip of Ian Curtis of Joy Division versus, say, some no-mark from American Idol or the X-Factor. Or go and read the Lorca piece linked above. It really is rather good.
Page 8 - We last saw the blue scorpions in 'R.I.P.' when Scorpiana visited Gotham as part of the Club of Villains.
The escape by hot-air balloon is a nice touch.
Page 11 - The first mention of Doctor Dedalus' super-weapon Oroboro, from the archetypal snake eating its own tail. The symbol of Oroboro (or more traditionally Ouroboros) is thought to symbolize death and rebirth and appears in the art of many disparate ancient cultures, as well as being associated with Gnosticism (an old favourite of Morrison's, from his earliest stories in Near Myths and Starblazer right through The Invisibles and Seven Soldiers) and Alchemy (ditto, but think specifically Rebis's origin from Doom Patrol #48, with its final full page splash of... a snake eating its own tail).
Page 12 - Courtesy of David Uzumeri (sorry Dave, I couldn't be bothered typing it all into Google Translate!), the dialogue on this page translates as -
In Buenos Aires in the spring the place to be is the private race track in the splendid villa of Don Santiago Vargas.
Provider of miraculous racehorses to princes, sheikhs and potentates, the most eligible bachelor in Buenos Aires plays host to a who's who of beautiful supermillionaires!
Don Santiago Vargas! Extravagant! Irresponsible! Enigmatic!
Vargas, alias Gaucho, is a regular Latin Bruce Wayne. I don't know if the Don Santiago Vargas identity is from the original Gaucho story or a tip of the hat to Zorro's Don Diego de la Vega, but maybe Bruno Diaz would have been more appropriate?
Tristessa Delicia means 'delightful sadness', fitting given that she is a 'disguised' Scorpiana, though both Batman and Gaucho seem fully aware of her deception.
Page 13 - Bruce and 'Tristessa's tango is mirrored in issue four with Bruce and Kathy Kane. Batman is, of course, an excellent dancer...
Page 14 - ...even able to spot the specific tango Tristessa is engaging him in. I don't think the 'Tango of Death' is a real dance but its a convenient excuse for Tristessa to give us her reading of the duende.
Page 16 - The art on this page and the next is by top fill-in man Pere Perez, who also pitch hit for Ryan Sook on Return of Bruce Wayne #5.
Just like Mr Unknown, Gaucho has his own subterranean Batcave, complete with framed photos of the Club of Heroes and the Super Malon, and the inevitable costume in a glass display case.
Batman, now "some sort of Bat-God" as described in issue six, is so in control he can drop the Bruce Wayne body language and even a veteran crime-fighter like El Gaucho doesn't put two and two together.
Venom is the super-steroid that turns Bane into a hulking muscle man. It was first introduced in the Legends of the Dark Knight arc of the same name (issues #16-20) by Denny O'Neil and Trevor Von Eeden. It has cropped up a couple of times in the run so far, turning Branca into the monstrous Second Ghost of Batman in the 'Three Ghosts...' arc, and in the Batman 666 chapter of Batman #700
Argentina did indeed have five presidents in twelve days, during the tumultous days of 2002.
Page 17 - Just what Scorpiana/Tristessa was going to do to Bruce with the Oroboro ring isn't clear. Beyond the significance of Dedalus attempting to load the trail leading to him with as much overtly symbolic content as possible in order to convince the heroes that he's mad (yeah, complicated master plan much?), the three blind children don't seem to signify anything explicitly. Weirdly, while reading about Three Blind Mice to try and squeeze some significance out of it I came across this Wikipedia article about a Agatha Christie radio play based on a real life case involving one Dennis O'Neill, namesake of the longtime Batman svengali. Apophenia you say? ...
Espartaco Extrano translates as the frankly amazing sounding Spartacus Strange, a fictional writer who 'wrote' a book about the assassination of a fictional Doctor Dedalus, an elaborate literary hoax as Gaucho puts it. Echoing his own magical realist stories, the DC Universe version of real-life avant garde Argentinian short story writer Jose Luis Borges is added in to the mix as part of the (also real-life) Florida Group, the authors of the elaborate Extrano deception. There's so many levels of real and unreal here that accusations Morrison has, post-Final Crisis, left stylistic innovation behind to content himself with writing 'straight' super-heroics seem outrageously off the mark.
Incidentally, some of Borges' fiction compliments this arc nicely and is well worth a look, especially if you haven't read it before. Morrison has mined Borges' work for inspiration before, in the opening arc of his Doom Patrol run, 'Crawling From the Wreckage'. Here in Batman Incorporated, Morrison seems to be refrencing Borges' Death and the Compass, an existential murder mystery with a finale set in a labyrinthine house that represents the whole of time and the universe (also an excellent film by Alex Cox starring Peter Boyle and Christopher Ecclestone); and The House of Asterion, a retelling of the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur from the Minotaur's perspective.
'Chatterton' and 'Rowley' are both Thomas Chatterton, an 18th century forger of psuedo-medieval poetry, written under the nom-de-plume Thomas Rowley. Though little known in his own lifetime his forgeries briefly caused a stir over their authenticity some years after his death, and eventually went on to become well regarded works in their own right, despite their counterfeit heritage.
The text page, presumably from Extrano's Oroboros is maddeningly obscured by Gaucho's word balloon. The only complete readable fragment, the last line of "So it was to begin but the end came first" brings back nothing but hits about this issue of Batman Incorporated on Google...
Casa D'Oro = House of Gold. The three kids we know about; the three assassins refer to the book they've just been talking about; the three letters are O-R-O, found in Casa D'Oro and Oroboro, and also shot in a braille pattern into three dead marines back in Gotham... but more about that next time.
Page 18 - The Villas Miserias is a type of shanty town or slum found in and around most Argentinian cities. There are 640 (!) of them in Beunos Aires alone.
Inspector Bruno presumably is Commisioner Gordon to Gaucho's Batman.
The graffiti on Casa D'Oro reads El Odio Cosmic, the Cosmic Hatred, also the title of a recent sequel to H.G Oesterheld and F. Solano Lopez's classic Argentine sci-fi strip El Eternauta. This whole entering the House of Gold scene is very remeniscent of Borges' Death and the Compass.
The eagerly anticipated (by me anyway) return of El Sombrero, Scorpiana's fellow alumnus in the Club of Villains and one of Morrison's most engaging new Bat-villains. We last saw him in R.I.P. too, left to fend for himself against the Joker as things started to go badly wrong for the Black Glove. Though I'm sure El Sombrero's dialogue is lettered that way to suggest he's speaking through some sort of voice box, I can't help but be reminded of the Steel Claw whenever I see it.
Page 19 - El Sombrero's return ties in neatly with the duende theme of this issue, the diabolical savant to whom the inescapabe deathtrap is the highest form of art. Sombrero forcing Gaucho and Batman to fight also neatly echoes the 'dance of death' from earlier in the issue. "A patron and a commision like no other" is a reference to the "real" Doctor Dedalus whom we met briefly at the beginning of this issue, named for the mythical designer of the Minotaur's Labyrinth, El Sombrero squared, booby trapping the whole world to ensnare The Batman.
And the William Dozier Batman '66 voice-over returns...
