I have basically decided to take a break from reviewing the DKIII saga until it gets . . . somewhere. Unintentionally, I had kind of taken a break from comics as a whole, until this long-delayed title came out on Wednesday.
Miller and Azzarello, in the midst of their DKIII efforts, at some point sat down to pen a prequel to the original series, detailing the last case of the Dynamic Duo in the DKR-universe. Add to that artwork by John Romita JR and Bill Sienkiewicz, and you have a pretty damn impressive solicit. In February. Then April . . . June. But that may not have been such a bad thing, as compared to the somewhat non-engaging plot and finished art of the big sequel, this felt a lot more familiar and welcome, and a lot more original DKR.
This story is naturally set in the decade prior to Bruce’s retirement. Bruce is graying at the temples, aching and miserable, and he’s not sure that his very aggressive protege, the infamous Jason Todd, is ready to go it alone. The art and the tone alone put you right back into the original series, and that is no mean feat. In fact, I found myself reminded a lot of another 1980’s Batman classic The Cult, and again, that’s a welcome place to be.
I’m going to avoid spoilers here, even though we all ultimately know how this story ends anyway, but I think this one may surprise people, for less obvious reasons. Essentially, while it may seem a little dull on the surface, most of this book is about the final regular case of Batman and Robin before the cataclysmic events of the original series. There is not a lot of shocking revelations, there’s no deliberate “smoking guns” that take away the mysteries of Batman’s penultimate confrontation with the Joker. Instead, it’s a story about an aging Batman chasing a couple of his regular foes. Batman increasingly has to depend on Jason to cover his back, and while Jason does the dutifully, it’s clear he feels like he’s capable of much more than backup. Unfortunately, like in the the regular DC universe, Jason’s impulsiveness and lack or restraint force Bruce to sideline him in chasing down the Joker, a decision that seems to end badly regardless of the continuity. But where this had many places to go wrong, this feels right. Jason is respectful but frustrated. Batman talks of Dick Grayson with respect, something that DK2 screwed up so badly. And Batman thinks and talks like the Batman of DKR, not the parody of that character that Miller has done pretty much ever since.
For being such an unassuming story, there is an unmistakable feeling of impending doom throughout the book, and that’s impressive, for this story’s ending has been written for decades. Even more so, I actually found myself wishing as Bruce did, that maybe somehow it wouldn’t have to end in a tragedy that would drag him out of retirement a decade later.
Getting some of the classic Batman staples of the time frame — the Blue and Gray costume, the Bat-narration, Robin’s pixie boots, the interactions with Alfred and Selina, and the ever-important talking heads newscasters — combined with a proper tone in art and writing, make this book a wonderful nostalgia shot in the arm. It’s not remarkable, but it was engrossing and entertaining, just like so many of my forgotten favorite Bat-books of the 1980s. And that makes it, well, somewhat remarkable. Had this been a less restrained Frank Miller Batman — like All-Star or DK2 — it wouldn’t work. Had it been Azzarello doing his Frank Miller imitation like DK3, it wouldn’t fare much better. But being a fairly straightforward Batman and Robin story, and letting it dovetail (and pick up all the dread) of The Dark Knight Returns, well, it actually made me a little homesick for that era of Batman that I was so fond of.