artist: Patrick Gleason
Perhaps you remember me praising this series to the nines in the past. Don't get me wrong: I'm not about to do something else this time. It's just, after the first year or so I didn't have the chance to read it regularly anymore, what with new budgeting techniques and the zombie apocalypse (brain and brain, what is brain?). My wild appreciation has certainly been helped by the issues I have caught since that original period, which have blown me out of the water. I think the team of Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason is genius, and that there is no finer one, or either separately, working on Batman today.
Since the, ah, death of Robin last year, the title of the series has undergone a metamorphosis. Officially it's still Batman and Robin, but unofficially it changes from issue to issue, depending on who is guest-starring. Some recent issues have had a string of Batman and Two-Face on the cover, and I'd been itching to at least sample the arc, since the previous prominent continued story of the series, brought together in the debut collection entitled Born to Kill (after the first issue of the series) was what originally convinced me of the great worth of all involved.
In the New 52, what's old is new again. Two-Face is one of those reliable characters, thanks in part to the particularly bittersweet nature of his origin (which you might see best represented in Batman: The Long Halloween, or The Dark Knight), a good guy named Harvey Dent who was once one of Gotham's greatest citizens turned into a schizophrenic mess of a man. The best Two-Face stories call to mind both facets of the character (naturally), and Tomasi, of course, completed understood that. So it might not be too much of a stretch to call this arc one of the new essential Two-Face stories.
This concluding issue ends with an apparently definitive decision on Harvey's part as to how he can resolve his dilemma. Me, I think I'd keep it like that, and leave the character on that note. But this being comics, where no story ever really ends, maybe I'll just have to settle on this being a particularly good version of how it might go. And as such, not only great for Two-Face, but another ace in the cap of Tomasi and Gleason.
You have to wonder how long they can keep this series going without a Robin. Although recent issues seem to suggest that Damien's body is missing, which could lead to his return. Or would it just be a clone who thinks he's Damien? Or an impostor? Hurm...
ReplyDeleteBTW, I saw this comment today about my novel Girl Power: "Midnight Spectre's characterization is teethgrindingly awful, straight out of Frank Miller to the point where it's impossible to imagine he'd even be on a team."
ReplyDeleteI find that humorous as I hate Frank Miller's Batman and yet apparently I can do a dead-on impersonation of it. I think I need to send a copy to DC to see if they'd give me a job.
As far as I'm concerned, that's actually an endorsement.
DeleteLong Halloween is a great Harvey Dent story, so this book is probably awesome if it's similar.
ReplyDeleteKeeping in mind I haven't read the whole arc, but I do think the presentation is comparable.
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