Failsafe makes its first move against Batman, and the whole Bat family might not be enough to stop it in Batman #126, written by Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Jorge Jimenez, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles. In the backup, Catwoman’s hunt for the Cobblepot heir reaches a … dead end in a story written by Zdarsky, drawn by Belen Ortega, colored by Luis Guerrero and lettered by Cowles.
Batman learns the secret of how Gotham creates its swords and prepares for the showdown with the sentient city in Batman Beyond: Neo-Year #5, written by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing, drawn by Max Dunbar, colored by Romulo Fajardo Jr. and lettered by Aditya Bidikar.
What happened to Jason Todd after he revealed Batman’s secret to the Joker? Find out in Batman White Knight Presents: Red Hood #1, written by Sean Murphy with Clay McCormack, drawn by Simone Di Meo, colored by Dave Stewart and lettered by AndWorld Design.
Will Nevin: Matt, I think I must have hit my head. I had this vision that we recorded the show together — in person — this week, right? And that was strange. But the truly bizarre thing? I read a comic book with Sean Gordon Murphy’s name on it that wasn’t dogshit awful. I think I need a doctor.
Matt Lazorwitz: Will … I don’t think it’s head trauma. It’s got to be something catching, because I shared both of these visions. Is this the beginning of some new disease? How many more plagues can we have in this world right now?
Will: I blame Barbatos.
Failsafe
Matt: I want to start off addressing the controversy that spread through Bat Twitter this week, and get your take: What do you feel about Batman addressing the family as “soldiers”?
Will: I KNEW THAT WOULD COME UP HERE. I’m not a fan, but I guess I’m not angry about it? At least I give Big Daddy Z the benefit of the doubt on it — if Murphy (of the “I accidentally made Jason Todd the first Robin” ilk) used that, I’d probably be foaming at the mouth. But, yeah, it’s not a good look for Bats because only a monster would use child soldiers. It’s a literal fucking war crime.
Matt: I would have been more mad about it if the narration that followed it hadn’t been him musing about how they can’t live a happy life living like he does. If he is thinking about what his crusade has done to him, and how it will impact those he loves, then I can see him going down that mental road because on some level he is beating himself up about it. It’s not “good soldier” talk, it’s, “They’re soldiers and it’s my fault. Can they ever be happy?” talk. Not a good look regardless, but if it’s him martyring himself a little, it at least has more personal weight.
Will: I think you’re right that the context softens this a bit, but we still don’t have to like it.
Matt: Precisely.
So, as for the rest of this issue, I feel like this was Zdarsky absolutely giving a gift to Jorge Jimenez. This is most of the Bat Family getting to cut completely loose and fight a robot. And a Batman-looking robot at that. Jimenez just gets to go wild and draw some amazing action. And Zdarsky is the first writer on a major Bat title in a while that didn’t forget about Duke Thomas! Good to see you, Signal.
Will: ‘Member when Signal had a specific purpose in that he was the day shift? I ‘member. As for the bulk of this issue, while it was pretty, it didn’t do a lot for me … one or two pages of really cool action is great. Fifteen is overkill.
Matt: It did feel like the climax of a story, not something for near the beginning. It’s a bit of stake setting, I suppose. It’s setting up Failsafe as a major threat. But you know what? Zdarsky didn’t pull any of the major sins of that kind of setup. No one was completely jobbed. No one was fridged (although I am worried about Leslie a little). That could have been a lot worse.
And I am more sure of my “Failsafe is Batman’s failsafe if he really went over the edge” theory than ever, since Failsafe is very obviously not using lethal force against anyone except maybe Bruce. If Batman was going to program a robot to stop him at all costs, he would absolutely make sure there was no collateral damage.
Will: How does The Big Reveal at the End of the Book factor into your analysis?
Matt: OK, so spoilers for the Morrison Batman run and the final page of this issue.
The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh is a backup persona, a failsafe Batman built into his own subconscious if his conscious mind was ever broken in a way that left him unable to function as Batman. The problem, as we see in “Batman R.I.P.,” is that Batman without Bruce is far too close to crossing the line that he normally won’t.
I think that there is a possibility Bruce built Failsafe to counteract Zur-En-Arrh if he was ever unable to wrest control back from the more unhinged persona, or maybe Zur-En-Arrh built Failsafe because he himself knew he might need to be stopped. And if it’s the former, I’d wager he either did something to himself, or had a psychic or mage do it, to make him forget, so Zur-En-Arrh couldn’t counteract Failsafe before he was activated.
That’s a lot of Bat history and Bat speculation there.
Will: But it all seems to track, right? And maybe next issue at least some of that will unfold, since 1) We can’t have *that* much more action, and 2) Zdarsky will have to explain something about Zur-En-Arrh for the legions of fans who aren’t as knowledgeable as you are.
Matt: We also get a continuation of the Catwoman backup, which I really enjoyed. Selina being thrown into this mystery is great fun, and isn’t this just a classic? The heirs scrambling for the fortune and killing for it, only to find out there’s far less money.
And how much do you want to bet Penguin faked his own death and that charity is a way for him to launder his money? He’s a major rogue, there is no way they’re killing him, but this being the test to find his true heir and get Batman off his back.? That’s very much the Penguin I would like to read more of.
Will: If there’s one thing we know, it’s that Pengy is 100% not dead forever. Scamming his way into some sort of better financial position would be great.
There Must Be Something in the Water
Matt: So, before jumping into this issue, you did read that short from Batman: Urban Legends #7 that set up this whole miniseries, yes?
Will: That I did! I made a promise, and I kept it. Although if I’m being honest, I found it to be a much tighter tie-in to the Batman Beyond pilot (which, of course, we just covered as a Patreon bonus) rather than to the series.
Matt: It did give you at least some of what you needed to know about Gotham, though.
This issue felt like a penultimate chapter, an issue where our hero is preparing everything for his final showdown with the villain. And thus, as was your complaint with the above issue of Batman, not much happened plotwise. We do get the reveal of what Gotham is doing to create its Swords, and we establish it can be cured, but aside from that it’s all setup.
Will: Eh, now, don’t go off misconstruin’ mah complaints! The problem with Batman was that it’s all action aside from the last three pages. I thought plenty happened in this issue, including that nifty little time jump.
Matt: See, here’s my thing. I feel like this series has been alternating issues of too much and too little. Last issue was an issue-long fight scene. This issue, while there was a lot that happened, it was a lot of telling. We had time jumps and we had narration, but we didn’t see a lot of it.
There are some nice character beats, especially Terry’s talks with Beam, but if we had cut out some of the fight in the previous issue and ended with the time jump, we might have gotten more action. And I don’t mean combat action. I mean something that felt like more than just setup for next issue. We live in an age of fully serialized comics in many places, but an issue that doesn’t work at all without context will always leave me a bit flat.
Will: Admittedly, that time jump was awkwardly placed — not to mention hard to read. (By the way, why did we need a whole page to say “Three months later”?)
Matt: I was reading this without my glasses on, and I was truly worried I was losing what vision I have left when I looked at that page. I would have liked to use that real estate, or some from the previous issues, to better fill out Lumos as a character. He strikes me as Derek Powers light (no pun intended); just another corporate raider. I’d like to have more of a feeling for his personality other than flashy huckster at this point.
Will: He’s all flash (again, not to make a pun — we’re Bat-ter than that, certainly) and no substance, but he’s got to figure into this somehow, right?
Matt: Absolutely, because otherwise what’s the point of all these pages with him? I just don’t think we’ve been given enough to know what it is. I guess the nanites being derived from Wayne/Powers tech might have something to do with it, but we’ll have to wait til next month to find out.
Will: To be continued! In the future!
Beer Guy and Robin
Will: So let’s be honest: This book wasn’t a revelation. It wasn’t amazing. It was competent. But for the Murphyverse, “competent” is the equivalent of sweeping the Eisners, getting a Pulitzer and somehow curing cancer.
Matt: I put this down and was shocked by how not offended I was in any particular way. No over-the-top stereotypes. No character assassination. Nothing that made me feel dumb for having read it. It’s a freakin’ miracle.
Will: I don’t think this does anything super well — Jason as mentor is probably done better by his association with Clownhunter — but, again, it’s shockingly solid. When my biggest complaint with a Murphyverse book is, “maybe the art was a little vanilla,” there’s something very strange going on. I’d even hazard to say that parts of this book were … cute.
Matt: Our new Robin, Gan, is cute. She balances overeager with genuine in a way that could easily be grating if not done just right. And she is a shockingly (for the Murphyverse) uncynical character. She is doing the right thing and wants to be a hero to do good, not due to some deep trauma. That’s … surprisingly noble for a comic universe that is so often plagued by cynicism.
Will: I think we can agree McCormack does a good job with the tools and materials he’s given, so let’s talk about the original sin here: When Todd is abducted by the Joker, he’s tortured into giving up Batman’s secret identity, after which Joker lets him go … but then also does nothing with that information for 15 or 20 years? And Todd is just … in the wind after that? Like so many things in that world of storytelling, we might have some cogent ideas here, but they don’t line up or make sense once you say them all out loud.
Matt: Yes, a lot of that is what I like to call “Because the story demanded it” logic.
Also, maybe this is a Murphyverse Batman thing, since that Batman is a bit more Zur-En-Arrh than main Prime Earth Batman, but why, if you lost the first Robin, would you ever take on another? After losing Jason, you can see taking on Tim in the prime reality because you have Dick as the example of doing this right. If the first example ends in the death of a child? Only a monster tries that again. I know we don’t have any of the context from Bruce’s perspective, but a character who is so cavalier with the lives of others is not one I particularly like.
Will: I still don’t understand how Murphy made Jason the first Robin by “accident.” How does someone writing a Bat-fucking-man comic book do that?
Matt: Gross ignorance. And how an editor didn’t pick it up and correct it is beyond me as well. But we can make these general rants about the Murphyverse whenever (We’ll have plenty of time when the regular book is back). I won’t say I’m looking forward to the next issue here, but I’m not dreading it, which might seem like damning with faint praise, but for a book associated with White Knight? It’s a high compliment.
Will: Again, we’re in groundbreaking territory here. Strange. Scary. But I guess it shouldn’t be surprising? McCormack is an artist who’s been involved with some good books (See e.g. Oni’s Redline), so you’d think he’d at least know how to put together a competent book. And the Harley Quinn mini — for all its inherited faults — was better than any of the main books.
Matt: True. I think one of the things that makes these side stories better is the lack of Batman and Joker, two characters who Murphy fundamentally (at times, possibly, willfully) misunderstands. While the Neo-Joker/faux-Harley is a miserable character, there is something good about his “real” Harley, and a drunken, beaten down Jason seems a better protagonist for the bitter world these books inhabit. A guy who is being dragged, nearly kicking and screaming, back into the world he left behind is a good trope, and it’s handled, as you have said, competently here.
Will: And this is a Jason who understands he can’t do it Batman’s way — he can only do it his way. And that means that there’s a better life possible for all of the Bat family.
Matt: And not Batman’s way doesn’t mean kill happy, which would be an easy way to go; the main DCU has done that enough, but with Jason as antagonist or foil, rather than lead. I could see that book, and it would be more in line with what I expect from a White Knight comic.
Will: Which is the lowest of the low.
Bat-miscellany
- Batman is an urban vigilante, hunting criminals and madmen right? Then why does he, on multiple occasions, wind up wielding the most powerful weapon in the galaxy, a Green Lantern ring? That’s what we’re looking at this week with three stories of Batman with a power ring on the BatChat podcast.
- The Executor just sitting at his desk, a robot with fancy faux facial hair? That’s pure comics right there.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
