Tony Daniel has the next two issues of
BATMAN off as we head into a mini-crossover with David Hine’s newest story, “Judgment on Gotham.” We see here the return of Michael Washington Lane’s Azrael and the emergence of an apparent disciple of his, who take it upon themselves to be extensions of God’s judgment on the beleaguered city of Gotham. Guillem March has come over to illustrate this first part of the story before it heads into the next part in
RED ROBIN.
The predominant theme in this first issue seems to be relating Gotham to the biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. Azrael and his disciple see Gotham as a giant den of iniquity, and are apparently moving a plan forward to cleanse the city of evil as they see it. Apparently, children aren’t even safe from their cleansing spree, and in a moment that makes the supposed parallel with the biblical story extraordinarily obvious, Azrael’s disciple, the Crusader as he’s called, even flat-out states that children were not safe from God’s wrath against the two cities.
While in some places the drawing of analogy is a bit uninspired, Hine manages to create an interesting question Dick Grayson has to wrestle with: “Am I a good man?” He asks himself this because previously, Dick was attacked by Azrael ‘s Sword of Sin, which should only harm the wicked. So, why is Dick experiencing memories of an evil act he never committed, and why is the wound from the sword burning with terrible pain when it’s touched? That’s a question that will lure me at least to the next part of the crossover.
Setting up the stretch to their own titles, Hine brings in Red Robin and Catwoman apparently out of coincidence, but Azrael and the Crusader firmly believe that it is the plan of God for the heroes to come together. Even as Dick, Tim, and Selina try to reason with the theologically guided vigilantes, there’s apparently no way they can reason with Azrael and his friend because they apparently do not represent the will of God. This is somewhat interesting to me, because I know firsthand how difficult it is to appeal to reason with fundamentalists of any religion, and while in comics this has been explored allegorically through the use of alien races or fictitious affiliations, it doesn’t seem to be common that writers choose to use the very real Christian origin of certain fanatics, as Hine is doing here. While he’s not illustrating any real groups of people in the fanaticism, he’s at least exploring a real source of it, and this both surprised and intrigued me.
I have to say that some of these events lost me, because I chose not to follow the newest AZRAEL series when it began. I was satisfied with Grant Morrison’s exploitation of Michael Lane as the “Third Batman” back when he and Andy Kubert handled this title, and wasn’t particularly enticed with the character’s graduation of sorts to the role of Azrael, especially when BLACKEST NIGHT revealed that Jean-Paul Valley had in fact been killed (it was debated among fans for years since a body was never seen).
However, credit is given where credit is due, and David Hine has weaved a story that I’ll at least follow. A lot of the instances in this first issue seemed highly coincidental and convenient, which is a little sloppy, but the concept has me intrigued. Guillem March’s work is still very, very interesting to look out. While his proportions aren’t exactly realistic, that’s part of his style. There’s emphasis in particular areas that make the characters fun to look at, and his background and coloring work all make for an out-of-the-ordinary and peculiar approach make his art oddly fascinating.
While Hine’s story could use some tweaks on both the coincidence and clunkiness factors, I’ll at least be interested to see where this story goes, especially with a revelation of a character’s involvement by the last page.
Be sure to check out Ryan Hoss’ reviews on the RED ROBIN and GOTHAM CITY SIRENS issues of this story before coming back here next month to check out my take on the story’s conclusion in BATMAN #709!
