“The television——still hasn’t hit the street——”

1. Batman does not believe that people give up their rights. That is what makes him different from The Punisher, Wolverine, Bloodfucker, Kickblade, whoever. At the character’s core is a belief in justice and due process. This is why The Joker goes to Arkham or Harvey Dent gets to defend himself in court and could theoretically walk free. This is, of course, purely a storytelling mechanic that’s been fleshed out as a core component to a character over the years, but that’s how it is and that’s how Batman should be written. Batman’s open to a huge variety of interpretations and that’s one of the reasons that the character works for me: Batman is still Batman as long as he adheres to certain tenets, and one of them is that the justice system applies to everything he does, even if he works outside of it.

   (And yes, Frank Miller’s snappy line about rights from The Dark Knight Returns is a great bit of black comedy in the middle of a raucous satire. It is not a basis for How Batman Is.)

2. Batman does not torture lightly, if at all. He will terrify, he will defend himself, he will subdue, he will not just slam someone’s head against a table and demand answers, especially if there’s a chance the suspect is innocent. In The Dark Knight Batman goes to pretty extraordinary measures to try to get answers out of The Joker, a man he knows to have committed several murders. It’s an unpleasant, tense scene that’s heightened by the fact that Batman is at the absolute limits of self-control. Gordon even notes that “He’s in control” at one point just before it goes wrong and Batman blocks the door and things get hairy.

   It’s important to note that the differences between that scene and this one are myriad: The Joker is an intelligent, cunning psychopath and Roland Davis is a bog-standard Gotham City heavy on which they have no evidence at all. Batman’s actions against The Joker are a last-ditch effort in The Dark Knight whereas torture is presented here as the first option. Gordon’s complicity in a warehouse interrogation in which a suspect is beaten is just as wildly out-of-character for him as Batman’s brutality against a man they’ve not even properly questioned is for the Dark Knight.

3. The man is proven innocent at the end of this whole story and not the slightest thought is given to this interrogation and how both the Gotham Police and Batman ran roughshod over someone who had not committed a crime. Benson’s scripting is fairly rough throughout the issue, but to ignore this entirely strikes me as a nearly intentional obtuseness about what is right and what is wrong. Readers accept a certain amount of legal flexibility in Batman comic books, but to out-and-out drop an innocent man’s beating at the hands of a costumed vigilante is sloppy and counter to the themes that have been an established part of superhero comics for years.

Maybe DC has something like this in its future, but that feels kind of doubtful right now.

(Also, yes, I know that’s Dick Grayson as Batman. The guy raised by Bruce Wayne is certainly going to follow in Bruce Wayne’s shoes when it comes to these things, isn’t he?)

While I really don’t care about the direct-to-DVD DC animated movies, the opening credits of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies are pretty gorgeous.

1.
The new edition of Avengers Forever is a beautiful thing with larger trimsize giving Carlos Pacheco’s artwork the room it needs to really hit you. There’s a lot of cute throwaway details, but unless you’re a massive fan of The Avengers and excited about Kurt Busiek’s sometimes-too-neat superhero storytelling being wrapped around a near-incoherent plot involving time travel, Kang vs Immortus (who is also Kang) and something called the destiny force, I don’t actually recommend it.

2.
The praise I’d heard for Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka is very justified. While the quick-and-dirty pitch is “Watchmen for Astro Boy,” Urasawa’s storytelling (which has grown by leaps since Monster, another series I’m catching up on) is nuanced and willing to let the reader work a bit and the emotional beats he hits are a bit stunning, especially considering how much of this work revolves around robots.

3.
Yotsuba&! #6 is likely the comic I’ve looked forward to the most this year, and yes, I know how creepy that makes me sound. Still, despite my inherent cynicism, there’s something so refreshingly irony-free about observing life with Yotsuba and I can’t help but get sucked in and laughing and worrying and cheering for her. It’s a bit like the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer that way — kid-friendly material that works on every level because it’s not aiming at anyone in particular.

4.
Boy, Philip Tan is not the artist I would have followed Frank Quitely with on Morrison’s Batman and Robin fourth issue. He certainly makes some game attempts to match Morrison’s scripting, but they come off as forced versus the effortless way that Quitely packs creatively-laid-out panels with detail and still manages to be readable. There’s a scene where a card is falling from the air and the camera tracks it into Batman’s hands and it lacked a certain kind of alchemy that Morrison manages to do with his best collaborators.

All of this aside, I absolutely love how these comics are scripted and how they play with conventions like titles and credits. It’s sort of the less-formalized version of All Star Superman and it makes each chapter’s inertia play out a certain way.

5.
I’m just going to presume Jeff Parker writes Agents Of Atlas for me and Chris Sims and the rest of you are lucky enough to be along for the ride. The latest issue has a terrific gag centering around a personality implant for M11 just identified as “The Greatest.” I won’t spoil it, but I’ll say it’s a perfect example of how to slip neat asides into your superhero comics without getting bogged down in the too-cute-oh-hey-here’s-a-meme syndrome that some writers fall into.

6.
You’re reading my new comic, right? OK, good.

I have looked on Wikipedia, scoured Google and even pawed through these strange objects called “library books” to find out if this is in any way, shape, form or fashion an authentic fact used to edify young minds who might be reading Batman Annual #3. It is not. Unless this story took place on Earth-2, then it’s totally OK because I got no idea what the hell Aborigines did with their headgear there.

2.
One of the main reasons I love reading Jeff Parker’s Agents Of Atlas month to month is how it is that rarest of things: the single issue that feels like a proper dose of story. Combined with Parker’s whip-smart dialogue and way it effectively makes use of the Marvel Universe’s history without requiring a degree in Continuitology, this is easily my favorite ongoing Marvel title of the moment.

3.
I really did enjoy Fing Fang 4 Return, but that’s a comic that you were either already looking forward to or that you shoved aside in your haste to pick up whatever Marvel’s telling you is important this week, so there’s not much to add. It’s great that Langridge is getting so much well-deserved attention lately.

4.
The scene in which burglars are exiting police headquarters carrying the Batsignal is not the stupidest moment in the latest DC Comics Classics Library installment, The Batman Annuals, but it may be the funniest. I understand the rending of cloth that has accompanied the $40 price point on these, but if you’re paying that much you’re not much of a shopper, are you?