Battle for the Cowl: Batman is Now a Big Dick

It's been the talk of comics this Spring -- or at least DC hopes it's been the talk of comis this Spring.  At the end of the stunning (and horribly confusing) crossover extravanaza called Final Crisis, Batman -- the original Batman, the one and only Bruce Wayne -- was fried in his suit like a lobster in its shell, right there in front of Superman and everybody.  He is presumed dead , once and for all ...

...and yet the world still needs a Batman.  As does the Trademark and Licensing Division of Time Warner, owner of DC Comics. 

Over the last three months, a host of interconnected series and one-shots have followed the "Battle for the Cowl.," as various characters in the DC Universe contemplated taking on the Bat-identity"  For all the hoopla, however, the serious list of major contenders was pretty short: the three Robins and a couple of dead guys:

Tim Drake, the current Robin, #3 in a series (collect 'em all!) seemed a little too young and, well, short, to put on the suit (he's just about to graduate from high school, and smart and determined as he may be, he's still just a Robin, y'know? 

Jason Todd, the fully grown #2 Robin, seemed equally unlikely.  He was infamously killed a few years ago -- blowed up real good by the Joker -- and then brought back to life in a complicated parallel-world-Ra's A Ghul resurrection process, sometimes playing the diabolical villain in a red hood, sometimes the reluctant hero in a leather jacket, and sometimes acting like a flat-out psycho, as in the Battle for the Cowl series where we wears a kind of BDSM incarnation of the Batman suit and shoots people alot (this descent into pure psychosis comes after his lengthy and far less nutso portrayal in the previous big crossover.  Talk about being ill-served.) 

Other likely candidates, like the grimly homicidal Jean Paul Valley, who put on a high-tech version of the suit a few years ago when Bruce broke his back (man, that guy has had it rough!), is also dead and not resurrected, and the new Azrael -- the subject of one of the more interesting series out of "Battle" -- is a newbie in the DC Universe.  The Powers that Be are certainly not going to turn over the company's #1 icon to an unknown -- especially a (gasp!) black man, since that open-bottomed cowl would make it a little tough to carry one without questions.  And all the other contenders presented during the "Battle" -- Hush, Catman, Bane -- don't ask unless you want a five-hour dissertation on recent Bat-History -- just didn't make sense.

No, from the very beginning there's been only two real possibilities: ( 1 ) Bruce himself would come back from the dead, like Superman did after his "death" a few years ago, or ( 2 ) Robin #1, now known as Nightwing, good ol' Dick Grayson, would finally assume the position (so to speak).

One Dead Bruce to Go.  It's generally believed that Bruce is not, in fact, dead; the last couple panels of Final Crisis make is clear (as clear as anything in that series) that some version of Bruce does, in fact, persist -- though how much he's like 'our' Bruce is uncertain.  And he's clearly out of reach at the moment.  At last report no one in the DC Universe knows he exists, and he's stuck in the distant prehistoric past.  And only Tim Drake, now in the guise of an 'adult' Red Robin, is even looking for him.

At last: Bat-Dick?  Dick-Man?  Bat-Boy?  In retrospect, it was pretty obvious from the outset.  Everybody kept saying, "Do it, Dick, DO IT!" and though he refused at the beginning -- after all, he'd worked pretty hard on the whole "Nightwing" persona for a number of years -- it wasn't clear why he was so dead set against carrying on the tradition, especially in view of the other pathetic alternatives.  Ultimately, he mumbled something about a promise that Bruce himself had extracted, that he wouldn't take up the cowl ... but ultimately, he decided, the hell with that.  Gotham's falling apart, despite the best efforts of about twenty other superheroes.  And the only available Bat is Dick Grayson.  Thus, at the end of the third and final issue of the "Battle for the Cowl" series: Dick does it.

The Bat is Dead, Long Life the Bat.  What this will mean for the Nightwing persona is unclear.  Though never as popular as the "A" list heroes, he has a long and well-respected tradition, and no one likely to pick up the Nightmask.   

So who's going to be Dick's Robin? Bruce Wayne's biological son Damien, fathered during his seduction by Ra's al Gul's daughter Thalia, has become Robin#4 while #3 gets the hell outta town. Which, considering he's a spoiled brat and a bit of a violence-prone nut job himself, makes for an  'interesting' duo ... at least until Bruce comes home to claim his birthright and kick some ass.

We're guessing...March 2010 latest: Bruce Wayne reappears and the real battle begins!

Best Horror Comic You Never Heard Of: Joe Hill's Locke & Key from IDW

Horror comics have had a hard time finding a foothold in America, especially since the fall of EC some 25 years ago. DC had a short-lived revival of interest with Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing; Marvel made a small splash with Marv Wolfman's Tomb of Dracula, which actually begat Blade, but both of those were a long time ago.

And though the majors have made many attempts since then, from Ghost Rider to The Creeper to Simon Dark to Shadowpact, nothing has really taken hold for the big boys.

The format in general seemed doomed to the "C" list, until Steve Niles and IDW (now the fourth largest comics publisher, after Dark  Horse) came out of nowhere with the remarkable, bloody and mesmerizing 30 Days of Night.  (Yes, the one that was made into that underwhelming film a couple of years ago.)  Since then, the smaller independents, with original material and apatations, have had much success with the spooky stuff. 

One of the best of the "new horror" comics by far is an original series written by Joe Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez: Locke and Key.  It's a complex and enthralling story of the surviving members of a young family stalked by a high-school-age killer, who flee across country to the mysterious family manse Back East -- a funky old house that has nightmares -- and magic -- all its own. 

Giving many details wouldn't be fair; it’s much more interesting to discover them as you go.  Suffice to say that Hill is turning some very rich earth here, a kind of eerie daylight horror that can get violent and bloody in the blink of an eye, and then return to an almost whimsical character-level just as quickly.  Just as interesting, Rodriguez' artwork owes nothing to the old look-and-feel of the EC Comics / Bill Gaines traditions, nor to the more recent and popular splotch-and-splatter look of the Bill Siencewicz-inspired 30 Days tradition.  There is a clarity of line, an attention to detail, and almost sunny aspect to his line that makes the whole thing that much more realistic and chilling when the weird stuff starts to happen. 

Hill, a Bram Stoker Award winner who wrote the well-received novel Heart-Shaped Box and is author of a number of really strong short stories collected in 20th Century Ghosts, is at his best here, both charming and creepy at the same time.  Even top-drawer thriller author Robert Crais thinks so; he likes this stuff so much he supplied a forward for the collection of the first story arc, Welcome to Lovecraft.  It's available in hardcover now.  Meanwhile the second arc, Head Games, is currently into its third monthly issue, and it just keeps getting better and better.