The Virgin Read: If You Think About It, He's Actually Packing Three Guns

Each week, the non-comics reading Nina Stone picks out one random comic book based off her own made up criteria, reads it, and then writes about that experience. While she's been doing these columns for awhile, she's only successfully managed to enjoy, remember, and keep up with one series. This week, she picked the Batman/Doc Savage Special.

Batman/Doc Savage Special
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Phil Noto
Published by DC Comics

I was walking to the counter with an entirely different choice when I heard a voice say, "I thought you were excited about the Batman/Doc Savage Special?" I looked quizzically and somewhat pertubed at the man questioning my choice. What the hell was he talking about? And when I flipped open the comic I realized that the Batman comic was the one I'd seen a sneak peak of in the back of Gotham City Sirens. He was right, this good natured nerd. So I took Batman Doc Savage in my grubby little paws and brought it up to the counter. 

The art in here is delicious. I know I usually just talk about the story forever, but these are comic books, after all. It would seem to me that having glorious, page-turning art is probably just as worthy as a goal. Or maybe it's the whole point! And this comic--it has such clean art, constructed out of all these clean lines. Every frame seems perfectly framed. There's a soft color palate that's just right, with the nights in these purpled shadows leading up to a poppy, sun-drenched morning breakfast scene. The entire story has this whole 1940's-noir type of thing going, as if it was the Batman radio show. I think this book's art would be the pictures I'd imagine while listening to something like that.

I had a tiny bit of confusion, but it seems almost by design. For the first few pages, the illustration is all Batman and there's a "voiceover" that I read as I perused the panels. I just assumed that it was the voice of Batman--firm, direct, smart. When it changed into dialog, I figured that the person speaking was Batman, out of his uniform. And while didn't really look like any Batman I've ever seen, I figured...and maybe this is kind of funny - I thought that, well, Batman's dead, right?  And so I read this and kept thinking this must be the new Batman, this is what he looks like now. When I saw the panel of Doc Savage (who I didn't yet know was Doc) looking out the window, and I saw his reflection - which is drawn really well, I started trying to figure it out again, tried to remember the random things that I'd heard about Batman dying, and I ended up thinking that, since Batman is dead, this must be some kind of future-to-the-past space-time-continuum- ghost-Batman? I would've asked for clarification, even though I try to keep these little "responses" from becoming a google & question hour, but I was alone and figured it could wait.

Obviously, my silly explanation isn't correct. And despite my temporary confusion, I think that response was by design. No, I don't think anyone else in the world would think that ridiculous thing that I was thinking. But I do believe the point was being made that Batman and Doc Savage are quite similar in sensibility, and I think part of the fake-out at the beginning was there because Batman acts differently than I know him to act--shooting guns, smiling, robbing somebody. Who is he? He's like Savage, but younger, and although they seem to be going to war initially, I eventually saw that they are pretty equally matched and would make a great team.

Is this the beginning of a new and beautiful friendship? Or was it just a one shot? Initially, I thought it was simply a one-time story done for fun, I asked, and it seems that I am wrong. I was pointed to the back of the comic--which I skipped, sorry--and upon investigation of the notes from Brian Azzarello on all of the characters, and I can't imagine all that back story, development and point-of-view was developed for one story alone. Hopefully there is much, much more to come, and hopefully, they're a lot like this.

-Nina Stone, 2009

Comments

[Jacob]

It's a new universe being designed by Brian Azzarello. It's called "First Wave", and a miniseries will be coming out in 2010 by Azzarello and Rags Morales (the sketches in the back were by him). From there, two ongoing series will be launched - one for the Spirit and one for Doc Savage. The Spirit will be written by Mark Schultz (of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs fame). The rest of the creative teams haven't been revealed yet.

I'm not sure if you even care about all of this, I'm just rambling because I'm looking forward to this very much. If Azzarello gets full rein of this universe, then I expect it to be pretty good comic books.

However, I did find this issue to be somewhat formulaic. I agree with Graeme McMillan's review on Savage Critics. Still, I'm pretty optimistic.

[Bill Reed]

They couldn't get the Shadow, so they used 1939 gun-totin' Batman instead. Plus, well, Batman = Sales.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Hey, Nina's spent enough time in comics circles that she learned the term "one-shot"! Ha ha, we'll make a nerd out of her yet!

[Guy Smiley]

Never mind that, she's throwin' around "space-time continuum." She's either a comics geek or she's Stephen Hawking.

[Tim O'Neil]

They couldn't get the Shadow? Boo-urns.

Of course, they're probably still pissed about the whole Helfer / Baker thing.

[bad wolf]

Pissed about the greatest thing ever?

[Tim O'Neil]

Well, yeah - it was awesome, but so far off-model they were traumatized.

[Tucker Stone]

I wonder if they'd ever publish something like the Helfer Shadow now. Looking back on some of that period of comics-80's DC-I think that might be my favorite period of Big Two stuff. Wasteland, Justice Inc, Thriller, 5YL Legion, Shadow...Swamp Thing? Piranha stuff was somewhere around there too. Except for 5YL and Swamp Thing, I didn't read any of that stuff until very recently, so it may just be the sense of newness that it all has. But god, some of those comics are just insanely ambitious, and so many read like hot-blooded artists throwing out the best shit they could come up with.

[AERose]

Oooh, Wasteland, I really liked that.

[Brian Nicholson]

Thriller was a little earlier- 1983. This is a distinction I make not to nitpick, but because the difference between '83 and '87 is pretty big in terms of what happened between them. The letter columns talk about Thriller in the context of Ronin. The other comics (along with V For Vendetta being printed by DC) coincide more with all the British stuff that would form Vertigo. A really interesting time. It also coincides with Chaykin as a big name.

(I just sort of recently heard about a comic called The Nazz from 1990 Bryan Talbot drew)

Of course, the weird stuff happened parallel to things that are well-remembered for different reasons that seem pretty well-crafted. Ostrander was doing Wasteland at the same time as he was doing Suicide Squad, I think. This was around the time of Gerard Jones and Mike Parobeck doing El Diablo. It's easy to go down this tunnel of nostalgia and give to much praise to a journeyman like Gerard Jones, whose Mosaic could be viewed as the tail-end of this period of interest, but who wrote far more dull stuff that doesn't give the impression of care.

[Brian Nicholson]

Like, uh, DC's attempt to get The Shadow back on-model after Kyle Baker, The Shadow Strikes! (Which I haven't actually read, I'm just assuming it's dull.)

Part of what makes all this stuff read so well to modern eyes is how much slower it is to read than modern comics- Those Giffen Legion comics are in a post-Watchmen nine-panel grid. (Giffen is also notable as a superstar of the day, what with the Justice League comics, which- again, are easy to overpraise, and are well-remembered, but are pretty fun.) In addition to creators going for broke, it feels like the vocabulary to make good comics was just THERE in a way it wasn't a few years before, and wouldn't be after the Image dudes muddied the waters.