Comic Conversations — Batman: Earth One

A few years ago, DC Comics announced the "Earth One" books, a new line of graphic novels about their superheroes which would be designed so that anybody could pick them up and read them without needing to know the years of back story that the characters have accrued over the years.

The first book was Superman Earth One by J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis, which came out in 2012 and it was awful. Straczynski, who created Babylon 5 and had a cameo in "Thor" where he was also credited for the story, seemed to miss out on the whole point of who Superman is. Seriously, just thinking about it makes me angry in a way I don't like so let's just move on.

Batman: Earth One by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank

I've been looking forward to this one since the creative team was announced. I absolutely loved Johns and Frank's work together on Action Comics from a few years ago and I was interested in seeing Geoff Johns' take on Batman.

Some of this will seem familiar if you've seen Batman Begins or know anything about Batman but there are some new things in there that I thought were neat. Thomas and Martha Wayne are murdered on the eve of Thomas' election to be mayor against Oswald Cobblepot, better known as The Penguin. There are many flashbacks between the present with Bruce on his first mission as Batman and then to his youth both before and after his parents died.

In the run up to the book's release there was a lot said about this new Alfred. He's still Bruce Wayne's legal guardian after Thomas and Martha died but he wasn't the Wayne's butler. Instead, Alfred was a member of the Royal Marines and a security consultant who owed the use of his leg to Thomas Wayne so he arrived before the mayoral election to do something about the death threats. He ends up training Bruce to fight and ends up helping in other ways that I'll get to.

The character change I ended up liking a lot was with Harvey Bullock. In the comics and the nineties Batman cartoon Bullock was a Gotham City Police detective and a fat slob who didn't like Batman. In Earth One, Bullock was a detective in LA who had his own reality show and transferred to Gotham City in order to get some new fame. He's a straight arrow who slams right up against Gotham's underbelly, thinking that with a bright smile and a right hook he can clean up the streets. His naivety ends up working against him and James Gordon when he goes poking around in the Wayne murders, thinking that solving them will make him famous. Then, finally, the evil in Gotham City breaks him and you can see where he might end up becoming the old Harvey Bullock.

Then there's Gordon who has been broken down by Gotham after the death of his wife and who just wants to keep his daughter safe. Barbara Gordon, the future Batgirl, remains cheery despite Gotham City and the terrible things that happen both to her and around her.

I liked Batman Earth One a lot. Like I said, a lot of it did seem a lot like the movie Batman Begins but that does seem a bit inevitable if you're trying to make a modern Batman story that's supposed to be 'realistic' but that isn't really a bad thing. Batman starts off on a mission of vengeance which later turns into one of justice when he chooses to go out to help all of Gotham and not just seeking revenge for his parents. That's why I like the character of Joe Chill in the comics instead of the Wayne murdered being some faceless thug who is never seen again. Batman needs to find his parents' killer then choose to keep being Batman.

There is one thing near the end of the book that has kept me from really loving it so this is your...

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SPOILER WARNING

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so skip ahead to the end if you don't want to know how it all ends.

Throughout the book Alfred admonishes Bruce for going out and fighting the criminals of Gotham without a gun and Bruce tells him 'no guns.' This is a vital part of who Batman is. Batman doesn't use a gun and he doesn't kill people. So at the end of the book when he confronts Mayor Cobblepot about the death of his parents, Batman is surprised and stabbed by the Penguin's knife-umbrella. Cobblepot tells him that he planned on killing all the Waynes but some mugger beat him to the punch right as he's about to kill Bruce.

Then Alfred shows up in the mayor's office with a shotgun and kills the Penguin. Just blows him away with a pithy comment and Mayor Cobblepot is thrown out a window with the blast.

And this solves everything.

Seriously, once the Penguin is dead everybody decides that this is great and maybe they can make Gotham a better place now. The news stations find out about, or at least finally report on, all of the mayor's corruption and the serial killer he kept in his employ. Gordon decides to be a good cop again and Barbara Gordon starts sketching out a Batgirl costume.

This is wrong. There's no other way past it. It pretty much ruins the book for me. Batman doesn't kill and Alfred would probably be given to the police by Batman if he did that in any other Batman story. There was a story in Detective Comics a few years back called "City of Crime" where things were also solved by somebody killing the bad guy.

That just isn't how stories should be resolved in a Batman comic. Everything leading up to that was good and I liked it a lot but that really killed it for me (no pun intended).

NO MORE SPOILERS

I have reservations about recommending this book to anyone. While there was much that I liked, the ending left me cold. If you're interested in Batman Earth One, DC will be giving away previews of the comic at comic book stores on July 19th, the day before Dark Knight Rises comes out. You can see more about that here

As far as Dark Knight Rises goes, I am looking forward to it in a big way and I already have my ticket for the Dark Knight Marathon in Plainville where I'll be seeing Batman Begins, Dark Knight, and Dark Knight Rises in IMAX.