It might be weird to some, but comic books do tend to run well with a soundtrack. When the writers themselves give you the soundtrack, it can be a pretty wild ride.
I read Benty’s loving send-up to the definitive soundtrack to the definitive Transformers movie, and it instantly made me start running though my favorite soundtracks from my favorite childhood films. And then I had an odd memory stick out — I remembered a Batman comic or two from the late ’80s that had very distinctive track list. Luckily, this story was recently collected in Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle, so it was an easy one to refresh.
The story begins under one of the sexiest comic covers in history. “Night People,” written by John Wagner, Alan Grant, and drawn by the aforementioned great Norm B, is a brisk three-parter that introduces some of the run’s more wild villains, and does so set to the late-shift rock DJ’s fun and wide-reaching playlist. So, should you want to ride along on Batman’s night shift, you’ll obviously need these three issues, or you can get this excellent hardcover here, and you’ll need DJ Dark’s playlist:
1. Rolling Stones: Street Fightin’ Man
2. Laura Brannigan: Self Control
3. New York Dolls: Trash
4. Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall (This is listed as a cover, but I couldn’t find this mystery cover band)
5. Sid Vicious: My Way (Sinatra Cover)
6. David Johansen: Big Trouble
7. Captain Beefheart: Electricity
8. Arthur Brown: Fire
9. Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell
10. Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
11. Flamin’ Groovies: Teenage Head
Some of those are some deep damn cuts, even for 1988. Luckily, we now live in the age of streaming music, so it can be done a helluva lot easier than you could’ve done it 26 years ago. Some tracks obviously punctuate certain story moments, but it works pretty good as a listen through at your own pace deal. In my case, I just had to get past that God-awful Sex Pistols [Sid Vicious] cover. I never liked that damn song.
Anyway, “Night People” winds it’s way through street crime, drug busts, and introduces the Corrosive Man as well as Cadaver, both guys that would come up again in Grant’s run. It’s a great read, maybe a little fast for 11 songs, but it keeps a solid pace, and it’s gorgeous in ways modern comics just plain ain’t. And to have DJ Dark’s playlist running in the background as you flip through is about as close to a time machine as I’ve come across yet.
So next time you’ve got a rainy afternoon and craving for some classic ’80s Batman, give this one a shot. DJ Dark’s got your nostalgia fix. Just don’t ask him how he stays up all night.
