Batman: A Catalogue of Overlooked Gems #1

    Recently, a website, Games Radar compiled a list of 'the Best Batman Stories of all time', a claim I find dubious as said list didn't include anything by Denny O'Neill, Neal Adams, Steve Englehart, or Marshall Rogers... and I got to thinking...

    One of the things that kinda bugs me about comics is how tangled up 'good' has got with 'important'. Back in the day, most funnybook stories were cheap and disposable. At the beginning of the story, the status quo would be upset, and by the end, the status quo would be restored - The murderer would be caught, the world would be saved, the peril averted. 

    But occasionally, big things would happen that'd shake stuff up. 'The Flash of Two Worlds' in 'Flash' #123, where Barry Allen discovers a parallel world existing invisibly beside our own where the superheroes of his youth, including the Original Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, re-shaped the DC Universe. The death of Gwen Stacy at the hands of the Green Goblin in 'The Amazing Spider-Man' #125 (1973) was a milestone in Spider-Man's history. Similarly, you had the original X-Men go missing while on a mission and Charles Xavier recruits a team of international mutant heroes, the all-new, all-different X-Men, to discover what happened to them in 'Giant Sized X-Men' (1975). 

    All three of these comics would go on to be major milestones in the histories of the various characters and the interlocking 'universes' that they live in, with the result that the issues would become highly sought-after 'collector's items'. 

    Soon, the big companies started manufacturing these milestones to order in what have become known as 'events' - big, 'important' stories which promise to "change everything as you know it"... 

    The problem is, as I said earlier, that 'important' has got all tangled up in 'good'. 

    Sometimes, good stories aren't important. Sometimes they feature a status quo being upset and by the end, it's restored, just in time for the next adventure. Sometimes, a story about blowing up the world isn't as big a deal as one where someone makes sure they're on time for an appointment... because the latter story has been invested with emotional weight and meaning by talented creators using their abilities to tell a great story. 

    And at the end, whether everything you think you know is wrong or not, sometimes, a good story is all you really want.

    So, with that in mind, here's the first in an occasional series where I talk about some great Batman stories which may not have set the world on fire, but make for damn good reading nonetheless. 

    The first is 'The Monstrosity Chase' from 'Batman Family' #18. Written by Denny O'Neill with art by Michael Golden (Pencils) and P.Craig Russell (Inks).

Bam! How's that for an opening page? I tell you, when tiny little me first saw this image, there was no way he was gonna put that funnybook down until he'd read the rest. 

    Lemme say from the get-go... for mine, Michael Golden is one of the unheralded top Batman artists of all time. He never had a run on either of the big titles 'Batman' or 'Detective Comics', being largely relegated to second-tier titles like 'Batman Family', but his work has this slightly unsettling vibe. 

    His characters occasionally have an almost subliminal twinge of the grotesque about them, like a candid shot where you haven't had the chance to get your face into exactly the right position. I mean... look at those bulletholes there... they're not just poking holes in that familiar cape, they're tearing through the form at gruesome, ragged angles. Look at the twisted angles those limbs are falling in, and that look of stupified pain on the face. It's a lot of subtle little touches, but taken in their entirety, combined with those lush, liquid Craig Russell black inks, give the whole thing a weird, slightly off-kilter, uncomfortable feel, like maybe this isn't something you should be looking at.

    After this explosive initial impact, the story proper opens with Gotham City sweltering under an oppressive heatwave as late-night radio DJ Barry Dark makes his way to work. Meanwhile, across town, a movie-star (a Bette Davis lookalike in full 'Dragon Lady' mode) is showing off a priceless Golden Mask sculpted to resemble Quasimodo to promote her upcoming film version of 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' to the press, when a band of outlaws in grotesque gargoyle masks steal the mask and abduct a young woman before fleeing the scene and vanishing into the city's sewers, with the Dark Knight in hot pursuit.

    With the tension already at a high point, the writing switches scenes to the radio DJ's booth where he's handed a report that the heatwave has broken, and a torrential downpour is due at any moment and is threatening to burst the Gotham Dam, flooding the sewers! 

    Denny O'Neill's script is beautifully taut as Batman and the criminals play cat and mouse through the maze of the city's sewers and, as the waters begin to rise, the criminals begin to get increasingly nervous and high-strung. 

    As I implied above, this story isn't any kind of historical milestone. It's just Batman tracking down a small group of violent criminals, but the creators have done such a great job of playing each element - the frightened hostage, the increasingly panicked criminals, the dark, twisting maze of rapidly flooding tunnels, the DJ on the surface who keeps getting more and more bad news, amping up the tension further... all of it's milked for as much emotional impact as its worth. 

    Sometimes, you don't need to re-write the rulebook... you just need to work hard and create great work with what you've already got, and this is a phenomenal example of that.