Year One Two: Batman #21 Review

I bought Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, back when it was just Batman #404 through #407, from the spinner rack at my local supermarket for 75 cents a piece.

That story was a stone classic from the word go, right from the first issue, which opened with James Gordon telling us what a hell on Earth Gotham City was, and ending with Bruce Wayne not only bleeding out, but willing to bleed out unless he found some inspiration to make his war on crime more sustainable and effective than just trying to stomp out local goons. You know the images; we all know the images: the giant bat crashing violently through the window, the smile on Bruce’s face, and the bloody hand on the bell to call Alfred, with the caption, “Yes, Father… I shall become a bat…”

I can spin that sequence of panels off from memory because Batman: Year One is Frank Miller, in 88 tight pages, telling one of the greatest Batman stories ever told (on the tails of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which is the greatest Batman story ever told, and I’ll fight any man what says different), and cementing his position as one of the greatest comic storytellers ever, regardless of any future paranoid writings or rantings.

That was in 1987. It is now 2013, and we have the first issue of Zero Year, written by Scott Snyder, on the tails of Death of The Family, one of the best Batman / Joker stories in recent memory. Just based on the title, Zero Year is meant to elicit in us memories of Year One. And based on the events of this first issue of Zero Year, it covers some, if not all, of the same period of Batman’s career that Year One did.

Look, don’t get your hopes up here. Zero Year #1 / Batman #21 isn’t on the same level as Batman: Year One #1 / Batman #404, and I think we all knew that it wasn’t gonna be. After all, there is only one first love of your life, and when it comes to Batman stories, Frank Miller and Batman: Year One got to anyone old enough to buy comic books with their own money long before Scott Snyder ever put a word in Batman’s mouth. So I could sit here all day and compare the new book – or pretty much any other modern comic book – negatively to the old one, but that really doesn’t matter.

What matters is: does Zero Year #1 hold up on its own as a good Batman story?

It is six years ago, and Gotham looks like the last half hour of Logan’s Run: almost in ruins, with the subways full of water, and overrun by weird fucking goons terrorizing what populace is still willing to leave the house. Enter The Batman: riding back into town on a Bat-Dirtbike, with Ash’s arsenal from Army of Darkness on his back, ready to take whoever did this to Gotham by surprise. Smash cut to: six years and five months ago, and Bruce Wayne is taking on The Red Hood Gang in his normal costume: a rubber mask of what seems to be Chief O’Brien from Star Trek: The Next Generation. After barely escaping the Hoods, we see Bruce came back to town without telling anyone other than Alfred that he is alive, and learn that the Red Hoods are businessmen and women being blackmailed into becoming criminals, when Bruce’s uncle comes-a-calling with a proposition: take over the family business in medical enhancements, non-lethal weapons and Batman masks (okay, I made that last one up, but it’s the only thing that would make the family business perfect for Bruce). Bruce, however, is more interested in wearing latex masks of the remainder of the cast of Star Trek, forcing Uncle Douchey to confer with his top strategist, who is strategizing that the best move to consolidate power would be to kill Bruce…

I’ve gotta admit that the first thing that struck me a few pages into this story – and this isn’t necessarily good or bad, just an observation – was that it opened with a flash-forward to a future, presumably caused by the events of the greater story, of a flooded city in ruins. A flooded city that implies the hero’s at least partial failure is to blame is a great, intriguing visual that hooks the reader into the greater tale… and I thought so when Snyder did almost exactly the same thing in the first issue of The Wake two weeks ago. Again, the parallel isn’t inherently bad – it worked for me in The Wake, and it worked for me here – but seeing the same plot device twice in two weeks is a little jarring.

Most of this issue is setup. Unlike Batman: Year One, which wrapped itself up in four quick issues, Snyder has given himself 11 issues to tell his Batman origin story, and that means things are, by nature, gonna unfold more languorously. We get the introduction to the Red Hood Gang and their M. O. of being comprised of upper-class Gothamites secretly committing crimes… and even here, I had to pause and think about the parallels with the Court of Owls – a groups of criminals comprised of upper-class Gothamites. The Red Hood Gang isn’t the same as the Owls – apparently the Hoods are blackmailed by the leader into participating as opposed to being a voluntary secret society – but the similarities were close enough to give me some pause as I read.

But it wasn’t the plot or the similarities to other things Snyder has done elsewhere that will hook you into this story. It’s the characterizations. Which Snyder just nails.

Snyder paints Bruce Wayne as, for all intents and purposes, an adolescent. He takes ridiculous chances in cars. He flips criminals off as a victory salute, even though in reality he only won and escaped by the skin of his teeth. He not only avoids responsibility, he actively rejects it, and acts impudently to adults who try to get him to accept his responsibilities. He operates on emotion, barely able to articulate the things that motivate him, and he tries desperately to get his father figure to treat him as an adult peer. In short, Bruce Wayne in Zero Year is the reason I continue to use condoms. He is a young adult with a dream but only the vaguest of directions, who is selfish and mopey while simultaneously brash and impulsive, with a plan seemingly straight from the Internet:

1. Fight crime
2. Avenge parents’ deaths
3. ??????
4. Sleep well at night!

In short: Snyder writes Bruce as every early 20-something that I have ever known in my life, myself included… and it makes a lot of sense. And while it is a characterization that is utterly different than Frank Miller’s disciplined, relentless monomaniac who needs only a gimmick to tie the whole thing together (and is willing to die if he can’t find one), it feels realistic.

Further, Snyder shows a lot of clever restraint in Alfred’s characterization. Alfred is, both in the present and in this story’s past, an adult, meaning he should have consistent and fully-formed personality, which Snyder seems to understand. This is recognizably Alfred… but it’s Alfred watching his eldest son drive off in a new Ferrari on the first day he got his driver’s license. There are times when Alfred – staunch, loyal, unflappable Alfred – is damn near panicky when Bruce is in action. Alfred shouts good, sound advice that Bruce promptly sneers at and ignores, because hey! Early 20’s. And Snyder gives a clever reason for why Alfred calls him “Master Bruce” even well into adulthood: he thinks that Bruce is acting like a child. Alfred is there to try to talk some Goddamned sense into Bruce, and if Bruce is insistent upon acting like a child, then Alfred will by-God address him as a child.

These characterizations are smart and well-thought, and they just feel right, like real people. And that is something that Batman: Year One never really concerned itself about too much. In that story, Bruce Wayne was clearly already Batman; he just needed to find a mask. Here, Bruce Wayne is a kid with a ridiculous dream and the means and time to take a shot at it. It is a very different take on the early days of Batman, but one that feels no less valid.

When it comes to the art, Greg Capullo faced a very different challenge in this issue than he normally does: there are exactly three panels featuring Batman in costume, and they all take place in broad daylight with no opportunities for cool poses, nifty shadow work or flowing cape effects – after all, it’s hard to rock a flowing Dracula cape when you’ve got a fucking crossbow strapped across your back. So Capullo’s job was to give us real people with real clothes in real vehicles, all in broad daylight, with no real opportunity to show his Miller and Todd McFarlane influences. And he does a fine job of it; his storytelling is clear, particularly in the single action sequence at the front of the book, and his pacing is even throughout the rest of the issue, which is appropriate for what amounts to a bunch of conversations. And, as is necessary in a book where its mostly people talking, Capullo’s facial expressions and depictions are clear and easy to read. In particular, his Bruce looks younger, and particularly in Bruce’s conversation with his Uncle Philip, he looks like a barely post-adolescent guy: obstinate, petulant, unwilling to make eye contact… basically young, dumb and full of come. It’s solid, appropriate art for this kind of story.

This issue also contains a nifty little backup story written by Snyder and James Tynion IV, with art by Rafael Albuquerque (type that five times fast) that basically explains the reason behind the Batmobile – in a nutshell, cops like to chase a hot car with a lunatic behind the wheel, but not catch it, because they’re secretly rooting for the hot car to win – but Batman #21 isn’t a story about the toys. It is a story about Bruce Wayne learning to be Batman, and for good or ill, it is going to be held directly up to Batman: Year One for comparison. And based on just the first issue, it is simply not going to be close. Batman: Year One is an epic story featuring an archetype; it only feels somewhat small because it is a bookend to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which is the final tale of a gigantic legend.

The opening salvo of Zero Year features no legendary or iconic moments. However, it features the beginning of what looks to be a very human story, about recognizable people with human failings, faults and desires. And while no one might write an epic poem about this version of Batman, you might recognize and empathize with him and the people around him.

Look: Batman: Year One is sitting there right on the shelf. Zero Year doesn’t affect it at all. It is, however, a promising, personal start to what looks to be a human story about Bruce Wayne. And that’s enough to make it worth checking out.