Terry Austin

Another one of those rare finds at the public library. I was glad to find it.

Here is what I wrote about it in my blog back in March, 2007:

"This is a collection of graphic adaptations of classic monster movies. It features The Mummy, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Creature from the Black Lagoon. If you have seen the movies, you will appreciate reading these. If not, it may be a good introduction, and it may make you want to seek out the movies. Overall, it was a pleasant and entertaining read that I would definitely recommend. Different artists worked on each story, so just for the art this would be a good selection."… (more)

There are a few story lines going on in this TPB. The Joker wants to run for governor. His slogan is vote for him or he'll kill you.

The Scarecrow is also running around planting fear capsules willy nilly and trying to scare Batman to death or something. Two-Face is also in this TPB, he has a clone made of himself and they have a little bit of a story with Batman.

Then there's Silver St. Cloud. She's back as the fiancee of the other man rnning for Governor, Evan. But, she knows Bruce Wayne's secret and so she and Bruce re-enter each others orbit and things get complicated.

With every TPB that I read with with Silver St. Cloud in it I get to like her more and more. (Although no one will ever be as right for Bruce/Batman as Catwoman/Selina is in my mind.)… (more)

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

I'm reading this because it's a sequel to Strange Apparitions, reuniting the all-star team of Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin, and bringing back Silver St. Cloud, one of the great loves of Batman's life, now engaged to Senator Evan Gregory, now running for governor. Strange Apparitions wove a thread about Boss Thorne through its various issues; Dark Detective weaves in Gregory's bid for office, especially the Joker's declaration that he'll also be running. Meanwhile, Bruce's meeting with Silver rekindles old feelings, and Two-Face and the Scarecrow both put in appearances.

Sometime when you get the band back together, they don't play as well: Dark Detective is not quite as grabbing as Strange Apparitions, but it's still very good. Rogers and Austin are still an unbeatable Batman art team, capturing the twisted gloom of Gotham in all its splendor. They're slightly let down by Chris Chuckry on colors, who makes Silver St. Cloud's hair white instead of, well, silver, which I found very distracting.

What really makes Englehart a great Batman writer is his grasp on the villains: his Joker is not the motiveless terrorist of A Death in the Family, but rather follows a twisted logic all his own. In a weird way, he really does want to be governor, and he follows the logic through to its conclusion, including his magnificent slogan "VOTE FOR ME OR I'LL KILL YOU." At first he won't kill Gregory because he wants to win "fairly" (as he defines it). But soon he gets bored and decides to kill Gregory anyway; something about the whole process makes a weird sort of sense, which makes it perfect for the Joker.

The story also captures Two-Face very well. I really dislike it when writers depict him as a generic criminal, given his motives were much more complex than that. Here, Two-Face is a tragic figure, torn between his original belief in justice and law, and his new belief in random fate as the ultimate arbiter. As a result, he has a nice little side role, telling the Joker he can't subvert the democratic process, and later commissioning a supervillain named Doctor Double X to create an unscarred duplicate of himself. Watching Two-Face watch this normal Harvey makes you sad for what could have been. (And the cloner, Doctor Double X, is a pretty fun character on his own.)

The beats of the main plot are a bit generic: Bruce and Silver fall back in love, Bruce is terrorized by some memories of his past, Silver is captured by the Joker. This is all very well executed, but you've seen a lot of it before. Alas, the ending seems to set you up for a third story that could have built on this generic foundation in new ways, and indeed one was planned but never published. Given that Rogers is dead now, one supposes it never will happen, even though Englehart scripted the whole thing. Which is a shame, as Englehart/Rogers/Austin remains one of the best Batman teams despite only doing twelve issues together across thirty years!

Batman "Year One" Stories: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »… (more)