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Batman #601
Bridget Haines |
| Title: |
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Turning the Town Red |
| Cover Date: |
May 2002 |
| Story: |
Ed Brubaker |
| Pencils: |
Scott McDaniel |
| Inks: |
Andy Owens |
| Colors and Separations: |
Gregory Wright / Wildstorm FX |
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Synopsis: (WARNING! SPOILERS!)
Part three of "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive"
and Part one of the two part "Turning
the Town Red" opens with a scene of
Batman taking out some thugs. A narration
is overlaid, discussing the legend of how
the Bat came to be. The thug scene turns
into a hostage moment, which is never resolved
as the scene shifts to the narrator, and
odd looking bald being with glowing eyes
and the ability to create flame. He has a
man, bleeding from being beaten, bound to
a chair, and hovers menacingly over him,
a gas can beside the chair. He sets the man
on fire, burning him to death with a touch,
and departs the location while the man screams
in agony with the threat that "…soon
all of Gotham will hear nothing but screams."
The scene shifts Batman driving
through Gotham
in the wee hours, heading back
to his hidden
auxiliary cave, pondering on
the quiet and
how there seem to be no lunatics
out. He
attributes it to the word that
Batman has
been back with a vengeance, or
that maybe
he's just getting some much deserved
luck.
Alfred is sitting in the auxiliary
cave,
reading through the journals
of Bruce Wayne.
He finds some inconsistencies
in the writing
style, the voice used. As he
ponders it,
Batman looms up behind him, asking
him what
he is doing. When Alfred calls
him Bruce
he responds with "No, NOT
Master Bruce".
He asks Alfred why he is reading
the journal.
Alfred attests to being worried
about Batman
and hoping to shed some light
on his recent
decisions. He notes that after
what he has
read, he's more worried than
ever. Batman
insists he shouldn't be. As Alfred
begins
to elaborate, Batman insists
he wont discuss
the journals, as they are Bruce's
and not
his. As Alfred persists to point
out that
if he DID write some of the entries,
there
is something not right about
them…btu at
that point Batman has pulled
one of his vanishing
acts on the older man.
Commissioner Akins summons Batman
to the
roof of the GCPD with the signal.
Akins comments
on him looking beat before he
relates the
details of a serial killer vigilante
burning
victims with criminal connections
alive after
holding them captive for a day.
That morning,
two city councilmen had been
reported missing,
Jack McKenna and Thomas Hart.
Akins notes
that corrupt or not, their deaths
have to
be prevented. Batman says he
will find them,
and launches from the roof.
The investigation begins with
looking for
a driver, since abducting the
men should
be more than one person can handle.
Heads
are busted as Batman gets someone
to squeal
on Stump, who has apparently
left town after
a big pay off as if afraid for
his life as
if "he had the devil at
his heels."
Scene shift to Batman chasing
down Stumpy.
Ripping the rear axle off the
car with a
grapnel from the Batmobile, the
vehicle is
sent careening into a ditch,
where Batman
tackles Stumpy and demands to
know where
to find the killer. He fesses
up, but says
the guy is even scarier than
Batman.
As the killer prepares to set
McKenna aflame
in the fashion of the other victims,
Batman
crashes through the window of
the room. The
villain warns the Bat that he
shouldn't do
anything rash, as the house is
doused in
accelerants. Batman tells him
to find another
buff as he can smell the accelerants
on him
too. The killer is unworried,
as he demonstrates
his ability to create fire with
his hands.
As he dives to light the gasoline,
Batman
tackles him, his cowl protecting
him from
the man's flaming hands. He leaves
off the
fight with the villain to put
the flames
out on a burning McKenna, untying
him and
then searching for Hart. Following
the cries
for help, he breaks the man's
chains and
carries McKenna as he and Hart
dive off a
balcony to the street below.
Hart is unharmed,
but McKenna is dead, neither
from the burns
or the smoke.
Back in the Batmobile, records
show that
McKenna had heart problems, and
the Bat deduces
that the killer knew this and
merely had
to deprive him of his medications
and terrorize
him to guarantee a terminal heart
attack.
As the Batmobile zooms past a
large news
feed on a Times Square-ish giant
screen,
Nicodemus, the killer, addresses
Gotham,
and advises those who wish to
survive his
destruction of the city to run
for their
lives, and that those choosing
to stay should
consider themselves already dead.
Batman
looks on with a grim expression.
Analysis:
Cover:  (3of 5 cowls)
Remember when I said McDaniel's covers were
hit or miss? This is one of the misses. Though
it is by no means a BAD cover, it isn't up
to the high caliber of some of his better
ones. Is this his fault? In this case, only
partially. I think the failure is more to
do with his inking and the colorist, Patrick
Martin. Although the graduated purple background
color is interesting as a technique, it does
not set the title apart from the image whatsoever,
making it all sort of blend. McDaniel's figures
are very good, I like the image of the bat
shielding himself with his cap, the grim
look works very well. The looming Nicodemus
is interesting, though his hand should be
almost completely in shadow, as the light
of the flames on the inside of his palm would
be the light source, and what is visible
and facing us would be almost entirely in
shadow. Note to comic cover artists, if you
are going to use spiffy computer effects
for color, use them on the WHOLE image, not
just the fire in a guy's hand. It makes the
image look partially finished. With the nice
solid blacks going in, why is the Bat's shadow
stippled? That is just silly and again looks
unfinished.
Story: (4 of 5 cowls)
Ed is one of my favorite storytellers in
the Bat-verse, and he does another fine job
here. Managing to tie in the fugitive storyline
through Alfred, it is not forced upon us,
and it does not interfere with the other
storyline. Chuck Dixon should take lessons
from this man. The crossover is incorporated,
without drawing overmuch focus, but we still
feel the main focus of the book, the Nicodemus
story, as existing WITHIN the greater crossover
story. Not as if one is interrupting the
other. So why isn't this a 5? Because the
story, although well written, simply doesn't
grip me that much. Some demonic or metahuman
comes to Gotham and all he can thing to do
is torture and burn dirty business and government
folks alive? Come on. If he's that bent on
cleaning Gotham by fire, lets seem him try
to knock off Riddler or Cluemaster who are
loose and active in Gotham at the moment,
or burn down Arkham. But I did very much
enjoy Alfred's investigation into the journals,
and that has my curiosity very piqued. Still
waiting for some kind of word on Sasha's
situation. She seems to have dropped off
the planet in the eyes of the Bat Writers
it seems. Hope that is corrected soon, her
fans miss her.
Artwork: (3 of 5 cowls)
Yeowtch. It isn't often you'll see me dip
this low on a McDaniel book, but the score
is not any indication of his work within
this issue. His pencils, as always, are brilliant.
His grim and aggressive Bat is every bit
as scary as he should be. His concerned Alfred
is moving. His fearful victims are appropriate.
The inking too is crisp and up to standards
as per usual. Here the problem is with the
coloration again. I cant put my finger on
what is wrong with it, other than each panel
seems to go almost monochrome, and it just
muddies the art, making it non-descript and
indistinctive. This sort of technique works
great with simple, bold, line work, like
Martinborough's work on 'Tec, but McDaniel
is a detail man, and we WANT to see all the
detail he invests in the pages.
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