Legends #35-36
Return of Batman
For only the second time since starting BatWatch, I've managed to get over a week behind on reviews. I'm sorry about that. I had an illness that took me out of commission for most of this week, so I was unable to get caught up.
To see this review with image, Click Here.
Honestly, I don't remember in the slightest what was going on in the last issue, so let me read my own review on it real quick to get caught up. It seems I generally liked it. Oh wait, it's come to me without having to look it up.
Last week, we had the first story of a four part arc which appears as if it will be focused on the threats of Ra's Al Ghul and Batman's own decaying technology. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Bruce always has all this fancy tech which was taken to an extreme in the last issue, but due to Wayne Enterprises' hard fiscal times, Bruce was skimping out on the maintaining his gear, and that cost him when equipment failure (if I am remembering correctly) caused him to crash his latest transport. Now, suffering potentially serious injuries and broken tech, Bruce will presumably have to take on Ra's.
In this issue, Batman learns that he no longer has what it takes to wage his war on crime without all his fancy toys.
Well, This Is Gratifying
I guess it would be presumptuous of me to say I know exactly what writer Peter Milligan is thinking by writing this story, so I'll refrain from making that claim, but I can say that it seems as if his feelings mirror my own regarding Batman's recent reliance on technology. I hate how Snyder's Batman, fun though it is, frequently has exactly the right tool in his utility belt for every occasion. Prep and tech is certainly a part of the Batman mythos, but when you run into a lava monster and just so happen to have a lava monster cooling gel in your left pocket, that's a bit too convenient. Now that might sound ridiculous, but Batman was shown just in his latest issue to have the perfect water absorbing pellets to thwart a Joker deathtrap that he could not have possibly have predicted. Also, when Batman got backed into a corner by talons during the Night of the Owls, Bruce strapped on a super mega Iron Man Megazord to kick their tails. At least that case makes sense since Bruce was in the cave where he had access to most of his tech, but it still means that Bruce the man could not win. Bruce the guy with billions of dollars to spend won.
Other Batman writers are guilty of the same thing, and it undermines the lore of Batman in my view. Bruce can have toys, but the focus should be on the man, and sometimes, I think that gets lost.
This arc is very much focused on that issue. In this alternate reality, (and I'm grateful Legends is finally taking advantage of its non-cannon status) Bruce is no longer a warrior but a technician. He has a gallery of toys to save the day, and without them, he feels useless. It's a very cool idea which is explored well in this issue, and there is something poetic about the way Bruce's search for perfection led him to be more vulnerable than ever.
Also in this arc, there is a little manic depressive streak we briefly see which sadly cannot get enough development based on the short nature of the story. Still, it's nice to see a different take on Bruce.
We All Got Problems
There were a few problems with this issue. First up, there is an action scene at the beginning of issue 35 which is not well conveyed. The actions themselves are okay, but the movement of characters in the room is not clear. Ra's is immediately upon Bats, yet I don't recall him being in Bruce's immediate vicinity at the end of the last issue. That could be explained as a time lapse, but then in the middle of this fight, another thug pops up from nowhere. Then, Bruce appears to get the upper hand, but Ra's is talking about letting Batman escape which makes no sense until you realize that Bruce apparently used his moment of advantage to hide or retreat. That's fine from a scripting standpoint, but it wasn't made clear in the panels. Then Bruce appears to be switching between standing and laying on the ground between panels. Its very awkward, and I think part of the confusion was that there was not any background through much of this scene. Perhaps background would have made people's movements in through this scene clear.
The art is something I can take or leave in this book. It's not bad, and I can see how many might like it, but it doesn't always sit right with me. In particular, there is one panel where Alfred squints with one eye which looks a little too exaggerated for my taste. However, it's not bad; it's just a style of which I'm not overly keen.
The dialogue also feels off at times, and at first I thought this was a problem, but then I remembered that we are seeing a different universe since the main universe Batman, though still over reliant on technology, is still well, well capable of taking care of himself. In fact, his fighting abilities are really too developed, but that's a different discussion. Anyway, its fair game to give characters a slightly different vernacular and dynamic when dealing with a tweaked universe.
Outside of Comics
I think another reason I enjoyed this issue was that it made me think a lot about problems our nation faces in real life. The nation is living well. Poor people in our country have clean water, plumbing, air conditioning, televisions, (wealth unheard of a lifetime ago) and usually a car or two, video game systems, and a smart phone. (which ranks the poor of the United States well above the majority of the world) We, as a people, have it really nice.
Yet we want more, and there is nothing wrong with wanting more as long as you are willing to pay for it, but most people feel that they should have all their desires met as soon as they desire rather than having to wait, save or sacrifice to buy something even better in the future, so most people charge the payment to the future. They get a loan, a cash advance or even a credit card to buy those things that they cannot afford. Then when hard times come, they fall on their face broke or look for somebody else to bail them out of trouble, or at best, they end up paying for it down the road depriving them selves of future larger benefits for current smaller benefit.
To make matters worse, many people think that the government exists to fulfill their desires rather than to protect their freedoms, so they want more and more “free” programs to help them with their day to day life. There are a lot of problems with that, but one of them is that the United States simply does not have the money for the programs it has already built. However, people scream, “We're in trouble. We need help!” so the government spends more money it does not have. (17 trillion plus to date) We have now spent more money as a nation than we could realistically expect to pay back in thirty years if we stopped overspending today, but just like the shortsighted people with their credit car, the country continues to go further into debt. Greece did the same thing; it spent money it did not have to provide programs for “the public good,” and now their nation is going bankrupt, yet many seem to think it cannot happen to the United States. Sure. The rules do not apply to us.
Anyway, this story reminded me of that. Bruce Wayne is trying to spend money on things that he wants. Some of it might be extravagant, but the vast majority of it is for the common good. He hears that he is in financial trouble, but he ignores Alfred and continues to spend until the breaking point comes, and then all of a sudden, he realizes he has nothing left, and he, as a person, finds out he no longer has the strength to stand without all his toys.
Conclusion 9/10
These issues have a few problems, but the strengths greatly outweigh the weaknesses for me. I greatly enjoyed it.