Personality Crisis, or: Skype Is Free: Batman #20 Review

Dear creators working in DC’s Batman office: there is a product available on the Internet called Skype. It is free. And it allows you create a virtual conference room, where you can invite any number of people to join, and then, you know, talk to each other.

I say this because there is obviously no communication happening about how Bruce Wayne is handling the death of his son. The writer of that death, Grant Morrison, has Bruce sucking down Man-Bat serum and going on a revenge rampage over in Batman Incorporated. Peter Tomasi has Batman scouring the world looking for a way to bring Damian back to life, including the psychological torture of the last Robin to get killed on his watch this month, and making an attack on fucking Frankenstein for answers last month.

And Scott Snyder, the writer of the main Batman title? Well, as a guy who has to turn in a comic book during this whole, sudden, “Damian’s-Dead” shitstorm, he has Batman affected by the event in the margins, while making the meat of the story a decent, if workmanlike, two-and-done featuring an antagonist no one really cares about, and a big Easter Egg in this week’s Batman #20 to delight the rubes (I was certainly delighted). However, as a guy who has reached A-List status at DC in the past year and a half, with arguably as much pull as Morrison, Snyder has clearly said, “Um, yeah: I’ll give you a couple issues mentioning this death, but this is Grant’s problem. I think I’m gonna scrap my Riddler plans and do a year-long story set in the past while you guys deal with the fallout from the whims of that crazy Scottish fucker.”

So if it seems every Batman writer has picked a different stage of grief to stick Bruce Wayne into over the death of his son, Snyder has clearly chosen “Acceptance.” Which means, at the very least, that it is the less histrionic of the two Batman titles on the stands this week. But the question is: is that enough to make it any good?

Clayface has Bruce Wayne trapped in the Applied Sciences division of WayneTech, chucking cars at Bruce and ranting about what he’s gonna do now that he’s absorbed Bruce’s DNA and appearance, before finally chucking Bruce into a trash compactor straight out of Star Wars. Trapped in there with Lucius Fox (who Clayface has also “sampled”, they use a new and experimental, yet thrillingly familiar, combat suit to escape, while Clayface leads the cops on a merry chase while wearing Bruce’s face. Bruce, now armed with a state-of-the-art combat suit that is completely sealed against the outside world, making him impervious to Clayface’s sampling (which would confirm that Batman is Bruce Wayne), does the obvious thing: he chucks the suit and instead attacks in a ginned-up radiation suit. He uses all the old tricks that worked on Clayface – freezing, chemicals, electricity – to no avail, and winds up being sampled in front of the cops… before Clayface learns that he is fighting Batman. And Batman always has a plan. Sometimes even two or three of them.

Notice that nowhere in that plot summary did I mention how Batman is crippled by guilt over Damian’s death, or how he is driven to extra violence, or inaction, or hysterical fits of weeping or incontinence over the event. And that is because it isn’t that big a part of the main story. In the main storyline, Damian’s death is only addressed in the last couple of pages, where Batman tells Alfred that it is affecting him, but then specifically says that he isn’t letting it drive him nuts the way Jason Todd’s did back in the 80s. Even in James Tynion IV’s backup story (a kinda silly thing where Batman and Superman battle demons and ghosts for some reason), Batman tells Superman that he just doesn’t want to talk about Damian’s death. Contrast that with this week’s Batman And Red Hood #20, where Bruce is looking for trouble on the other side of the world and betraying his friends for tidbits of information on how to bring Damian back from the dead, and it is just frustrating how little consistency there is between books in the aftermath of this event. It’s like having a friend who’s a binge drinker: when he shows up, you never know if he’s gonna tell jokes and be charming or drink your Aqua Velva and shit in your washing machine. Yeah, I don’t get a lot of dinner party invitations, but I’m digressing.

So at least we have an issue where Batman isn’t defined by the events of Batman Incorporated #8. But unfortunately, what we do have, for the first time I can remember in a Scott Snyder Batman comic, is some filler. There’s a page where Clayface is chasing Bruce around the lab that is just packed with dialogue of Clayface explaining his dastardly plan. And while it’s good to get the skinny on just why the hell all this is happening, it is the opposite of “show don’t tell,” and it feels like Snyder said, “I better explain this and wrap it the hell up so I can move to my Zero Year story and get the hell out of this Dead Damian mess.”

And then there’s the three pages of Bruce and Fox trapped in the garbage masher, all setting up the combat suit reveal. And while it was cool to see it (I won’t spoil what it is, but if you have half a brain, you’ll be able to figure it out), it was a lot of page real estate to set up what amounts to a cameo – a cameo that is then discarded for no reason at all. Hell, Snyder even has Fox tell Bruce, “I’ll fill you in sometime,” in response to questions about why he shouldn’t use the suit. If I’m Batman, and I’m about to face a shapeshifter with superstrength, and I have access to a suit that allows me to punch through what appears to be foot-thick solid steel? It’s gonna take a hell of a lot better explanation than, “I’ll fill you in later,” to make me take it off for any reason, including sex. Especially including sex. The bottom line is, while it was cool to see the suit, it felt like Snyder saying, “Eh, I’ve got pages to fill. I’ll chuck this in as an Easter Egg for the sheer, lunatic thrill of it, and then skate past it to the end.” The suit’s there, and then it’s gone, and it feels like it was only there for the sake of existing.

Greg Capullo’s art continues to be a great look for Batman. As usual, there’s a nice mix of Todd McFarlane and Frank Miller influence to his pencils – hell, that cover is one hell of an homage to Batman fighting the Mutant Leader in The Dark Knight Returns – which is just the look this 80s comic fan wants from his Batman. This is an interesting issue in that we never see Batman in just his regular costume, but his depiction of the cameo suit is a great interpretation, and even the ginned-up radiation suit looks functional. Capullo’s line is fine, but his pencils and Danny Miki’s inks keep the fineness without adding a bunch of extraneous detail lines busying things up. His pacing is generally good, although sometimes driven by dialogue needs – when Clayface is yammering about his plans like a Republic Serial villain, there need to be a bunch of panels to fit the words more than to speed the action pacing – and his storytelling is clear and easy to follow. Look: at this point, we all know that Capullo is one hell of a Batman artist. This issue follows that trend.

In looking back at the last couple of issues of Batman, I really feel that Snyder heard about the death of Damian, decided he didn’t want any part of it and started plotting his epic Batman origin story… but still had a couple of issues to put out before he was ready to start the big story. So what we wound up with was a pretty slight story about a second tier villain with a jacked-up plan revolving around identity theft and petty blackmail, skirting as much as possible around the Damian issue. For the first time, it feels like the issues were here because there was a deadline, and not much more. It looks great, and it has a few cool cameo moments, but it also feels like marking time. However, Snyder has proven over the past year and a half that he’s hell on wheels with a long-form, more epic storyline. So let’s settle in, put Clayface behind us, and look forward to Zero Year.

At least then Snyder will have an excuse for not talking to the writers of the other Batman titles to keep their characterizations at least a little fucking consistent.