Jason Todd is Batman with Guns!
There is a reference to his death through the wielding of a crowbar!! (WOW! How did they even remember that one?)
Mmm…Indirect references to INFINITE CRISIS and Superboy-Prime's altering of the fabric of reality!
BATTLE FOR THE COWL continues on with its second of three parts and gets more personal and less broad in the process. As a single issue, this is more successful at creating something dramatic and entertaining. As a much vaunted, IMPORTANT, DiDio says open your wallet and close it when I tell you, Pay Attention and Shut Your Mouth Cross-Over with literally multiple (!) effects on the way we feel about Batman Today Mini-Series, it is still without any discernible artistic purpose.
Tony Daniel has placed characters beside each other and in situations which are designed to provoke some kind of feeling or empathy. We are meant to see great depth no doubt in the battle between one previously dead (a word that means absolutely nothing anymore in the Batman world) DCU StarChild and one currently mortal Robin/Batman and see the attention to detail in Drake utilizing a crowbar in his beat-down of Meta-Todd and muse on the wondrous depth of such an encounter.
There is a vacuum of meaning in BFTC and it is nowhere more apparent than when Daniel attempts to pluck your heartstrings. Damian takes a bullet and we wonder why we should care. Drake takes a Batarang to the chest from his undead predecessor and we know that we would just have to wait until the next inter-dimensional Wet Dream should DC actually have the decency to kill a character without aliens and gods and time traveling meta-physics.
Alfred and Nightwing share a moment which comes across as tautology, rather than some new found insight. "Buy issue 2 of BATTLE FOR THE COWL and you can read about how Nightwing is stiiiiiiiiiillllllllll struggling with living up to Batman! Cower before the questions which FINAL CRISIS has allowed us to answer, such as…Is Batman a force for good or evil? Is Batman too easy on the criminals of Gotham? And will Gordon ever step up and be able to shoulder the burden all on his own?? What's more invest emotionally now and be screwed around later when Bruce Wayne The Caveman's eventual return renders all of these dilemmas completely moot! That will teach you to care about a character!"
Enough of this outright negativity. Let's get down to some objectivity here. Obviously I'm not being fair to all those fans out there who love this title. So here we go. One of the very nice things about this issue is the use of the villains. Black Mask in particular leads the reader to degree of humanizing famous individuals in biographical films such as this is somewhat inevitable. AMADEUS written by and based on the play by Peter Shaffer took similar liberties with factual correctness in order to provide a more direct link between the audience and the human beings depicted. MARIE ANTOINETTE is intent on personalizing the stories of these individuals and removing any of the detachment that is so frequently present in period pieces. It is also undoubtedly in every way a progression of Coppola's previous work. From the sense of isolation and detachment to the oddly appropriate use of modern music, there is far more in common with LOST IN TRANSLATION than many critics gave this film credit for.
Kaufman was involved in the wrestling world up until his death in 1983, the year he made the wonderful (and bizarre) film MY BREAKFAST WITH BLASSIE, a faux-documentary with wrestling legend Classie Freddie Blassie which contains some seriously weird moments, including Kaufman's friend Bob Zmuda doing rude things towards the TAXI star. This is a unique creation which examines the notion of fame as seen through Andy Kaufman's eyes more than anything.
FROM DC COMICS: "With the destruction of Arkham Asylum and dozens of Gotham City's most lethal villains rioting through the streets, it would seem that Nightwing, Robin and their allies have their hands full. But they hadn't counted on the return of Batman himself! But is it really The Dark Knight? If so, why is he acting so strangely? And if not, is this a threat that could mean the destruction of Gotham?
