Here comes a new challenger! After the break, get ready for your favorite surprise, which has gotten even favorite-er!
Get ready to dive straight towards your nearest 90s longbox! Matt and Tucker are taking the reins of Burning In Hell this week and talking Batman. In this installment of our Very Special Takeover Cast, the tale on offer is "Prey", from Paul Gulacy & Doug Moench. Below, you'll find extensive show notes and images from the work in question from Matt Seneca. Keep your ears peeled, right down to the blood splattered bone, for more BatCasts To Come. And thanks to Miss Nina Stone for the new theme songs!
0:01:51 - In addition to the very good Outlaws (2000), frequent collaborators Moench and Gulacy have teamed up on a few other Batman stories. Batman vs. Predator II: Bloodmatch (1994) is nice stuff, if limited by its crossover premise and outshined by Dave Gibbons and the Kubert brothers' genuinely thrilling original Batman vs.Predator book. Terror (2001), published in Legends of the Dark Knight #137-141, is a sequel to Prey, but contains barely a whisper of the original's meticulously sleazy glory. Better pickings for the discerning connoisseur's cheeto-dusted fingers is a two-part story in Batman #393-394 (referred to later in the episode by Tucker as Black Rider; 1986), which sees Batman and Robin teaming up with the CIA and KGB to stop the triggering of a dirty nuke in Gotham by a terrorist whose political takes would meet with much approval in the woke-ish discourse of today. Reading these stories in chronological order allows one to track the evolution of Gulacy's art from heavily photorealistic Jim Steranko pastiche to broad cartooning with an almost Cubist approach to flattened perspective; your own favorite of these particular flavors is a matter of taste, but I feel safe in saying Prey hits the sweet spot for the two of us.
0:04:24 - Legends of the Dark Knight's first issue was released November 1989, by a DC Comics eager to capitalize on the popularity of that summer's Tim Burton Batman movie. Unlike most cash-in comics, Legends was high quality stuff from the start, tapping a deep and varied well of top-flight creators happy to work on a Batman comic that wasn't beholden to the main series' master continuity... at least for a few years there. The series staggered to a long-past-due conclusion with March 2007's issue #214, a Christos Gage/Phil Winslade joint. Remember those guys? A clear indication that the series was reaching a terminus can be seen in its last three issues, all one-shot stories. This was unusual for Legends, which was an early adopter of discreet, episodic multi-part storyarcs - usually five-parters, though as the book's run wore on things loosened up a little.
0:06:43 - The "official" sequels to Batman: Year One are Mike Barr and Alan Davis's nigh-unreadable Year Two (whose subtitle Fear The Reaper proves its creative team's unsuitability with its absurd implication that Batman is a bigger coward than the members of Blue Öyster Cult; 1987), and Marv Wolfman and Pat Broderick's decent-to-meh Year Three (1989).
0:11:07 - Moench and Gulacy's 1986 Black Rider is a prime example of the kind of story Tucker refers to here, with contemporary geopolitics and of-the-moment gadgetry "trying to '80s up Batman" while lacking Frank Miller's grounded, real-world feel. Year One's first issue appeared less than a year later.
0:16:16 - Batman's first encounter with Dr. Death in Detective Comics #29 (July 1939) is indeed his first clash with anything resembling a supervillain. Hugo Strange wouldn't appear until the following year, in February's Detective #36. Strange did become the first recurring Batman villain with his bow in the first issue of Batman's self-titled solo comic (April 1940).
0:24:42 - Just to name one example among many, Tucker hits on why Moench and Gulacy's Legends follow-up to Prey, Terror, is a vastly inferior work. Without the psychological underpinnings laid out by Prey - a far denser work than the average superhero comic - what readers get is a regular-type Batman vs. Scarecrow story with a lack of levity or self-awareness that just feels curdled. In this it's typical of a welter of post-Prey Batmans, as Tucker mentions here.
0:25:30 - The Clayface arc of Legends, Alan Grant and Enrique Alcatena's Clay in #89-90 (1996-7) totally kicks ass though. We might even record an episode about it one of these uhhh decades! Had to throw that out there!
0:30:19 - Note Gulacy's neat understatement of this hyperbolic scene.
0:36:06 - For readers truly willing to go to the ends of the earth for Batman-esque stories, Derek Raymond's British noir novel How the Dead Live is the best Batman vs. Mr. Freeze story never told, really rhyming with the classic animated feature Batman: Subzero.
0:39:38 - Peter Milligan and Jim Aparo's And the Executioner Wore Stiletto Heels appeared in June 1991's Detective Comics #630, the crown jewel of a stellar run of mainly one-shot issues by that creative team. We might do a show about this one too!
0:52:13 - Gulacy first teamed with Moench for a 1974-77 run on Marvel's Master of Kung Fu (lately filmed as Shang-Chi) - a true cult classic of action comics combining Bruce Lee, James Bond, and the Mighty Marvel Manner to knockout effect. Out of print for the decades since its original issues' release, the run has recently been made easily available in book form as Master of Kung Fu Epic Collection: Fight Without Pity. Listeners disappointed that the Prey trade paperback, which also conveniently included Terror, is out of print and fetching collector's prices, are advised to check this one out instead - though Slash Maraud back issues tend to be pretty affordable as well.
0:52.28 - A good primer on Gulacy's, ahem, approach to the human form, as well as the slightly awkward, stiff physicality of his fight scenes in Prey, can be seen in this sequence.
0:54:38 - Strange Apparitions, by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, ran in Detective Comics #471-476 (1977-78). Widely acknowledged as the basis for much of the Tim Burton Batman movie that in turn provided the impetus for launching Legends, it's as close to the platonic ideal of a "classic Batman story" as you can get. Unavailable as its own book for years, it can currently be found in theTales of the Batman: Steve Englehart omnibus hardcover, alongside much work of lesser interest. Here I will go on the record to say that DC Comics' usually excellent trade paperback program has roundly failed this, one of the company's cornerstone stories. Along with all the other books we're talking about this episode, I guess!
0:55:56 - Frank Santoro's essential interview with Steve Oliff, covering much comics history that's barely been nodded at elsewhere, is here.
1:06:23 - The spread in question, which goes from something that looks a ton like Watchmen to something that, regardless of this book and that book's relative merits, looks way more badass than anything in Watchmen.
1:15:35 - Bernard Krigstein's 1955 chef d'oeuvre, Master Race, a first-ballot hall of fame comic book story featuring many of the "subdivided" panels (Krigstein biographer Greg Sadowski's term) that Gulacy employs in Prey, can be read here.
1:22:56 - "That comic Scott Snyder did with Jock" is Detective Comics #879-881 (2011), the final bow for DC's most venerable series in its original numbering. A true piece of shit, this story is collected with a few other Snyder joints as The Black Mirror (lol).
1:24:45 - Peter Milligan and Kieron Dwyer's Dark Knight, Dark City ran in Batman #452-454 (1990). It's another great comic that's out of print and fetching sky high prices, just so this little sortie into Gotham City doesn't make you feel too much like you're not listening to a regular episode of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell. See you same bat place, same bat time for our next ep!
Well I'm interested in having another look at it. I always saw that comic as a parallel to those Clive Barker Hellraiser cardboard cover comics. Far as the 90's go the best representation of a Batman world existing as detective stories is the tv series Seinfeld. Which is simply the four most popular Batman villain characters. In a behind the scenes out of costume mass hysteria. Mass culture doesn't fathom this as it's more like Oprah saying George is the most famous loser. Totally missing the point George is not a loser but a slimy New Yorker. Very much Penguin. These days the only creative thing of interest is the big thick now reissued parody Batman book. As to ignore the interaction between product and consumer misses the curve's power.... In regard to Moore mowing the lawn. I just assumed he was from the same school as H.R. Giger, letting the weeds grow to enjoy the randomness. But who knows, his missus does have style so she probably gets him to pay some local kid to do it.
Posted by: Glenn Pearce | 2021.09.28 at 15:02
Kramer’s Two-Face…?
Posted by: Matt Seneca | 2021.09.28 at 15:55
When Tucker says some of the most interesting Batman comics are from the pre-Miller years, is he talking about that whole era that was written by Doug Moench, that went back and forth between Batman and Detective Comics, and had (seemingly) pretty solid art, by Gene Colan, Don Newton, Alfredo Alcala, etc? I haven't read any of that stuff but was interested in them recently, having seen scans of some Newton/Alcala pages I thought looked great, and knowing the printed versions would have Adrienne Roy colors. I don't think any of that time period is reprinted but it's probably all available digitally. But I'm unsure if that's specifically what he's talking about, or if the interest he's talking about is more historical than as a reading experience. The annotations highlight the Gulacy two-parter towards the end of that era which is probably more of a stand-alone story than the rest of it.
Posted by: Brian Nicholson | 2021.09.28 at 18:01
Hope you guys do get around to the Grant/Alcatena Clayface two-parter. I remember that as a pair of comics where Alan Grant tries to sell, as hard as he possibly can, the idea that meeting Clayface for the first time would really fuck you up for a while.
Posted by: Greg Hunter | 2021.09.28 at 21:19
"Kramer’s Two-Face…?" Yeah Mat if you want, there's no strict rules to it. Everyone is against them like it's a purgatory before Hell. A fever dream in the Asylum. I'd go Newman as Two-Face and Kramer as Joker. Elaine as Catwoman and Jerry the Riddler. I'm only going on those four as most well known from my limited exposure to the franchise, as a kid in Australia. Dunno why but not till I got older did Two-Face even register to me. I mostly just say this as the Jim Aparo drawings felt like they could be drawn covering a Seinfeld episode. Great corridors and especially doorways.
Posted by: Glenn Pearce | 2021.09.29 at 05:45
Glenn - alright, gotcha. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic, I think you have an intriguing idea and I'd be interested to watch a couple episodes with it in mind.
Brian - a lot of those Colan/Moench comics were reprinted in a "Tales of the Batman" hardcover a while ago. Those have super glossy paper and generally feature pretty bad remastered colors... but there you go.
Greg - I want to do an ep on the clayface LOTDK for sure. You're dead on, it's off-putting in a way no other Clayface comics really are, and Alcatena's rendering of the character is just so ridiculously far beyond anything anyone else has done in both solidity and grotesquerie. Really terrific stuff. Now we just gotta think of a good guest star to talk about it!
Posted by: Matt Seneca | 2021.09.29 at 12:12
Mat-Yeah I got that I didn't think you were being a jerk. They do tend to switch around and Kramer is that. I wouldn't comment otherwise being this the horseman media outlet actually worth listening to. Hence I'd wanna try and join in to be funny. Nothing more stupid to be a foreigner and pick at another countries culture, even if that culture spreads Lovecraftian ( such things are best left exploring in one's art ).Especially the asylum's name being such a clear Lovecraftian reference. The Riddler's obsession with Superman. The New Yorker cartoons etc. If anything it's just a familiarity to the West tv show. What Seinfeld does ( I'm sorry nothing worse than yakking about that show anywhere ) is progress from Brady Bunch first showing a married couple in bed. To Jerry and co using the toilet and talking about still then 'groundbreaking' subjects such as masturbation. All that is really just a stepping stone to the big money extravaganza which is ( especially in the social consent vehicle of American tv ) The Big Band Theory sit com. That show is full of references to Jack Parsons on a much larger scale than Seinfeld as humanizing Batman's villains.
Posted by: Glenn Pearce | 2021.09.29 at 14:15