How many Batman books is too many Batman books? Depending on who you ask there ain’t no such thing! We try to stay up on what’s going on at DC, but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of DC Comics. Today, we’re discussing Green Lantern 44, Detective Comics 44, Bat-Mite 4, and  Batman Beyond 4.

 Green Lantern 44

Mark: What a weirdo book Green Lantern has been since the start of DC YOU. With Hal Jordan no longer a member of the Green Lantern Corps he doesn’t really have a reason for being, in the world of the comics and outside of it. For that reason, Green Lantern 44 is probably the most successful issue since the relaunch. There are cursory mentions to the lost Lantern Corps, but it’s really a self-contained story about Hal and Trapper taking a pit stop on an alien planet to get Virgo medical attention and having to fend off Thanagarian Reavers—oops I mean marauders.

I feel like Green Lantern‘s Firefly influences have been pretty explicit, but this is the best it’s worked. Hal Jordan as Space Cowboy means we don’t get to see him use his Lantern powers all that often, but setting him down on a planet (if even for a moment), instead of having him float seemingly aimlessly in space, is a nice change of pace.

Detective Comics 44

Michael: And so ends Brian Buccellato’s stint as Detective Comics writer. This also means that it is potentially also Harvey Bullock’s final moment in the spotlight for the time being. Since Gordon has put on the cowl (and robot on top of the cowl), Buccellato has tried to veer Detective Comics into the realm of the GCPD. We finally see how Bullock “kills” his crooked partner Nancy Yip, but it’s less of a killing and more of shuffling the dirty cop off into witness protection. Since we are in the realm of superhero books, it is in no way shocking that the “fake dying” solution would occur. The execution (yeah, that’s a double entendre) of the whole thing made for some uninteresting and backwards storytelling however. Here are the facts: 1) Renee Montoya is back with the GCPD to smoke out a rat on the force. 2) The rat is none other than Bullock’s partner/lover Nancy Yip. 3) Bullock has let both Montoya and Gordon in on Yip’s dirty little secret. With all of that in mind why, oh why does lead Montoya to believe that instead of turning in Yip (Montoya’s job) he murders her? And why does Gordon tip off Montoya to all of this? And how do they all walk away unscathed, despite the fact that each one of them lied and had their own agenda? Whaaat? Maybe Buccellato was under the gun to wrap up the storyline he had set up before he left Detective Comics but yeesh, what a mess.

There of course was also the B story of Bat-Gordon fighting The Joker’s Daughter in a big Joker robot. In my opinion the inclusion of Joker’s Daughter brings the quality level of any given book down a few notches, almost immediately. No one takes Joker’s Daughter seriously, especially the characters who encounter her. I suppose you could make the argument that since Gordon is not the real Batman that Joker’s Daughter is the appropriate fill-in for the Clown Prince of Crime; but I feel like that’s an unnecessary low blow to the respectable Jim Gordon. Oh Detective Comics, when will you truly find yourself?

Bat-Mite 4

Ryan: 

Should you choose to engage with the issue on a deeper level, Dan Jurgens offers more complex thematic content. The issue deals with nostalgia in a variety of ways, some quite explicit. The bag guy of the issue is Gridlock, a villain who collects relics from his past and intends to stop time so that these mementos will never age. The first item Booster Gold examines in Gridlock’s lair is a comic book. This is not a subtle hint at meta commentary. When facing down Gridlock, Booster tells him “you don’t get to force your culture down the throats of the young,” an interesting sentiment for a character first introduced 29 years ago. Jurgens presents a dichotomy between Gridlock’s philosophy and Bat-Mite’s gritty new look for Booster. Bat-Mite’s redesign of Booster Gold is at once a rejection of Gridlock’s preference for an unchanging world and a reinforcement of his own hero worship. Either way, it proves to be a failure when the new costume lacks the force-field to protect them all. Jurgens also gives us the bookend scenes to unpack. Bat-Mite’s wanton destruction causes his housemate and patron to lose an irreplaceable photo album and the value of the album’s resurrection in the final scene can’t be denied. The relics of our past will always hold power over us.  Whether they are photographs in an album, figurines of our childhood heroes, or a weird Magnum PI tiki doll that our grandmother kept in the den. Well, maybe I’m the only one with the last one, but either way, I appreciate that Bat-Mite gives you the option to reexamine the meaning of these objects in your life or simply enjoy a goofy story about a tiny alien in a cowl.

Batman Beyond 4

Patrick: There’s a joke in the second season of BoJack Horseman where BoJack’s agent, Princess Caroline, calls him up and asks what kind of pants he’s wearing. Bojack stumbles his way through an answer about them being the “regular kind of pants” – because honestly, how are you supposed to answer that question? Eventually, Princess Caroline says that she was just trying to get a feel for how much of loss he was in for when “the studio sues the pants of [him].” To which BoJack replies “What kind of shoes are you wearing? Because that was a pretty long walk for that punch line.” That’s exactly how I feel about Batman Beyond 4 (and possibly the sum total of these first four issues): a long walk for one punch line.

And that punch line is kinda neat. Back in Bruce Wayne’s original Batcave, Barbara and Tim are hoping to find a replacement suit so Batman Beyond can continue to lose to Brother Eye. Tim is hoping for the Batsuit 2.0 — which I believe is what the original Terry McGinnis rig was called — but we’ve got an even bigger down-grade in store: the Batsuit 1.0.

Hey look! It’s the version of Batman we’re reading about right now! There’s finally some connective tissue back to the “modern day” DC Universe, and therefore some kind of tether back to rest of the stories we are reading. There’s also kind of a running theme of characters not being who everyone expects them to be that connects Batman Beyond to the concept of Jim-Bats. The Atom isn’t Ray Palmer and Batman isn’t Terry.

That’d be a lot more satisfying of a connection if Jurgens writing were more organic. His characters erupt with totally unmotivated and unacknowledged pieces of dialogue throughout the issue. Even the moments that should land — like Atom saying “You called me Palmer? Nuh-uh. I’m better. Way better.” feels completely hollow because no one did call him Palmer in this issue. Maybe it happened in the last issue, but come on: you don’t split up rhetorical devices between issues. It’s the same sort of thing when Babs and Tim get back to the cave. Here’s the exchange:

Tim: The place has changed.
Barbara: One would hope it’s been thirty-plus years, Tim. Like they say… change is the only constant.
Tim: No kidding.
Barbara: It was an honor to wear those masks, you know. Though my dad totally freaked when he found out I was Batgirl.
Tim: Okay, enough reminiscing.

It starts out okay — like two people having a conversation — but then goes off into crazy-land territory. Babs introduces two separate non-sequiturs and then Tim shuts down the conversation. It’s like the scene got a away from Jurgens.

 The conversation doesn’t stop there, because you certainly read something that we didn’t. What do you wanna talk about from this week?