Who Done It?

Spoiler warning and idle speculation for Batman #667-668.

One of the pleasures of the current Batman storyline is that it invites heavy reader involvement.  Grant Morrison and J.H. Williams III don't just ask us to identify all the art homages, they practically demand that we develop theories and search for clues to the identity of the Black Glove--even though they haven't really written a mystery at all.

So, who is the Black Glove?  Is he part of a Club of Villains, or is he just impersonating the Club of Heroes' foes?  Is he one of the Club of Heroes?  Or is he posing as one of the heroes after killing and replacing them?  That was certainly Wingman's theory, but then Wingman himself made a great red herring because he was such a jerk.  You were probably hoping he turned out to be the killer right up until he turned up as a victim... assuming that really was the Wingman hanging there, his face burned beyond recognition.  Perhaps he just created his own alibi?  But then who did the body belong to?  The great thing about this theory is that it makes Williams' flashback images part of the misdirection--they would be showing us the wrong character!  But why should we assume these extradiegetic images are honest and accurate clues?

The Knight has been behaving oddly--when did he disappear, and why was he waiting around inside the locked library instead of getting help?  But he's being set up too obviously (although, in a better set-up, the red herring wouldn't have that bomb in his belly).  Batman has already discounted the possibility and, stepping outside the text for a minute, it seems unlikely that Morrison would corrupt a character after investing so much work and affection in him.  And where would that leave Beryl?

Suspicious coincidences are settling around the Dark Ranger. He keeps running off on his own, Red Raven disappears (apparently getting captured) after vowing to follow him, and that full-face mask means anybody could be wearing the suit at any point after he wanders off at the end of his initial appearance.  The Ranger could have been the first hero to die; his combat boots do look a lot like the pair we see standing over the fallen Legionary.

Maybe we shouldn't read too much into such incidental details.  Nothing can motivate Morrison to produce a meticulous, detail-oriented script like a top-notch artistic collaborator--Williams is at least the equal of Phil Jimenez and Frank Quitely in this regard--but the parts don't always line up.  At the beginning of #668 the Knight has disappeared and become a prime suspect in the killings, yet at the end of #667 he ran outside with the others and was standing by their side just before the Legionary was killed.  Not visible in that scene:  the Dark Ranger, Wingman, and Man-of-Bats.  But does that mean anything?

The Dark Ranger has some curious absences and reappearances in this issue.  But does that mean anything?  Wingman's body turns up in a room that's already been locked and broken into and re-sealed once before; the house must be so riddled with secret passages that no character movements can be sufficient evidence in and of themselves.  And we know so little about most of these characters that nearly any of them could turn out to be the killer--Morrison has insured we won't learn about the breakup of the Batmen of Many Nations (and hence the likely motive for whatever revenge transpires here) until the final chapter.

From the brief flashback we get this issue, we know that John Mayhew has something to hide, some "grave news" that prompted the Club of Heroes to disband.  But he was killed in the first issue, wasn't he?

Maybe.  We see something that looks like his face, and the Black Glove says he killed Mayhew, but how much should we trust him?  Or does "John's dead" signal the death of an old identity, a discarded personality? A movie director could easily work up (or pay someone to work up) a false face that looks real enough for a short video.  And that body dangling on page 1 of #667--sure, that looks like Mayhew, but is that a moustache or a shadow thrown by the weird lighting?   Other odd details from that issue:  a picture of Mayhew posing in front of a race car, with almost exactly the same uniform and posture as the Dark Ranger on the previous page; and that "Black Glove" poster, of course.  Even if Mayhew is dead it seems likely he had something to do with the Black Glove's creation, making him a victim of his own ennui.

If this were a fair-play locked-room mystery, I'd guess that Mayhew either is the Black Glove himself (possibly posing as the Dark Ranger), or he inadvertently created the Black Glove when he approached someone else to help him set up a murder mystery for the Club of Heroes reunion--possibly either the Dark Ranger or the Wingman, who killed the Ranger and switched costumes with him at some point while the other heroes were preoccupied with the Knight.  (Plus, making the Dark Ranger and/or Wingman the Black Glove's guises/accomplices would be a none-too-subtle way of repudiating the grim and gritty Batman both men have imitated, and Morrison's been all about that lately.)

But the story may not be a fair-play mystery, and the walls of the Mayhew mansion are so porous that "locked-room" is a misnomer. This is a suspense story, set in a private little paradise turned hell where evil becomes so palpable it distorts panel borders, or becomes them, drawing the heroes into its tightening grasp.

We may not be able to figure out the Black Glove's machinations until they're over, but that's all right.  Watching them unfold is half the fun.  Watching Morrison and Williams deliver them, and trying to guess where they're going next, is the rest.

Comments

[Jason Tondro]

Some of the best Fair Play mysteries in comics came out in Mike Barr's much-lamented (well, at least by me) Maze Agency. Originally the book was from Comico, and had art by as-yet-undiscovered Adam Hughes, if you can believe it. Adam went on to stardom, but Barr never really made the majors. Maze Agency recently had another go at IDW, but it was only a few issues and without costumes and two-fisted action a book like that really needs consummate art -- which it hasn't had.

All of which is my long way of saying, "Aren't mysteries fun, even if you get it wrong?"

JT

[John]

Mike Barr not in the majors? Mike Barr, author of Camelot 3000? Creator (with Jim Aparo) of Batman and the Outsiders? That Mike Barr?

[ADD]

I'm more baffled by the idea that Adam Hughes IS in the majors.

[Marc]

Creator (with Jim Aparo) of Batman and the Outsiders? That Mike Barr?

Bear in mind that "let's team up Batman with a bunch of second and third-stringers" is not exactly GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, and Geo-Force may be the most boring superhero ever written.

[ATOM HOTEP]

Oh man, serendipity. Morrison himself has said in an interview that Mike W. Barr's Batman was a huge influence on his understanding of the character.

[Marc]

Mike W. Barr is a misunderstood outsider artist genius and none of you peons can appreciate the brilliance that is Geo-Force.

...I was going to link that last bit to a "Geo-Force is awesome!!!" fan page but I COULDN'T FIND ONE.

[Jason Tondro]

Don't get me wrong; I have written serious papers on Camelot 3000 and while I was not reading DC at the time of the original Outsiders, there's no question that Barr did something exceptional: create a team in the DC universe that outlived its initial story arc. Admittedly, he also did it by pioneering the "Let's slap a Bat symbol on it..." marketing approach.

I just mean that Barr has slid into obscurity while Hughes is making $3000 per page on eBay.

[Matthew Rossi]

At some point I will review Batman #666, or as I call it, "The worst Batman story Morrison has ever written."

[Marc]

It was the Yeats quote, wasn't it?

I thought the comic had a few cute ideas and some great interpolations of Damian's past/foreshadowings of future stories, and Jog came up with a nice reading (linked in my last post) that, like some literary-critical Lebowski rug, really tied the series together. (I guess that makes you a rug-peer.) But nineties nostalgia isn't anything I need to see right now, especially since so many superhero comics still have yet to grow out of the nineties.

It was a pretty subpar issue of Batman (in a run that varies so wildly in tone and quality that setting a par is almost impossible) but an above-average one of Aztek. Make of that what you will.

[Matthew Rossi]

No, it wasn't the Yeats quote.

Someone once accused Morrison of loving his own weird creations more than he has any right to: putting Aztek and Zauriel in the JLA is often seen as pandering to his babies, as was his attempt to raise Prometheus (who basically had the same origin story as a Mike Barr Batman villain named Wrath) to a Justice League defeating villain by means of his digital helmet, but none of that every seemed justified to me like the claim that Daimian Wayne has utterly failed to be an interesting character.

He should be one. He's the son of the greatest heroes in the world and the grandson of one of the most interesting villains, whose mother vacillates between her own brand of evil and attempting to be what she thinks her erstwhile lover wants her to be. But he's not. The idea that he's basically vat-grown, all his organs constantly being replaced as he nearly dies trying to live up to his mother's expectations (and, possibly his own) is a good one but it doesn't seem to go anywhere.

I think that's the biggest problem with Morrison's run on Batman. For every good, well executed issue like the ones you're reviewing there's a Joker issue that falls flat or a Damian story that seems to just sit there, inert, waiting for Morrison to get around to doing something with it. Batman #666 failed to be interesting, engaging or even exhilarating to read. It felt like a sub-par Goth reinterpretation of a Batman Beyond cartoon.

[ATOM HOTEP]

Even as an interesting failure, the Joker issue was GREAT. I will brook no sass.

[Matthew Rossi]

I'm sorry, but 'The Joker shows how evil he is by killing his own henchmen' has been done and done and done. Grant can do better, and has done better.

[Jason Tondro]

I dare say that once you've seen, "Bob? Gun. >BLAM<" the gag has about run its course.

Though, to be fair, we have had a whole generation of Batman readers grow up since then.

[Marc]

I found Damian much more interesting as an adult paying down the mistakes of his youth than I do as the callow, homicidal youth who's making those mistakes. Part of the problem may be the erratic jumps in subject matter and tone that have characterized Morrison's run--we keep leaping from hairy-chested lovegods to gritty streets to apocalyptic futures, and just when one of them gets interesting, we're on to something else. I like Morrison's combination of historical antecedents, but I'm not sure he can reference all of them at once--at least not until J.H. Williams III comes along to help the art shoulder the burden, which may be why this story has been the high point of the run.

To return to the idle speculation that started this post, I just noticed something odd about the Club of Heroes. Everybody who's been attacked or killed has been attacked by methods cribbed from their greatest foes, with two exceptions: the Wingman is burned and hanged with no mention of any villains (although next issue might well reveal that he had an archenemy who committed crimes based on Norse myths or Bergman films or something) and the Musketeer is menaced by a robot scorpion that comes from one of El Gaucho's foes.

Are these details supposed to be clues, or are they just incidental features that don't quite fit the pattern? With Morrison, it could go either way. He's capable of setting up elaborate patterns but just as willing to ignore them.