DC Rebirth – Crossing Back #5 – Red Hood/BoP/Detective

Three years ago, Robert and David thought they had left the DCU behind. But, with the advent of REBIRTH, they’ve returned, to see whether or not the promise of the NEW OLD (or perhaps, the OLD NEW) DC, can make them feel at home once more. They’re sharing those thoughts with you. In their first, subsequent and future installments, they’ll be looking at developments in wider trends of the DCU as they come to hand. This is Crossing Back.

We have circled a few times around Rebirth’s complicated relationship with the tonal shift across comics – and especially the DCU – emerging from the late Eighties. Sitting at the heart of the wave of darker, more explicitly mature comics sweeping the market, the Bat-titles enter their own Dark (Knight) Age arising from the prominence and legacy of Dark Knight Returns, Killing Joke and Death in the Family. This era, stretching across and combining the broader period from (let’s call it) 1986 – 2006 is discernible in everything across Hush, War Games, No Man’s Land, Knightfall, Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive, until their post-scripts in Under the Hood and Gotham Central. It has its supporters and its detractors, of course. We’re agnostic when it comes to whether Batman is better suited for crossing over with Adventure Time or Wallander, and certainly accept he can do both, but the impacts of the choice ripples well outside the pages of Bruce Wayne’s own costumed capers.

For this Crossing Back, we’re looking at three Rebirth titles still addressing the impact of the Nineties Batverse in their different ways, each revising, rejecting or embracing the legacy in their own way.

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey

Is the Killing Joke a classic?

This is the question that is inevitably – if perhaps unfairly – central to any discussion about Batgirl and the Birds of Prey.

For Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Rebirth #1, and in the wake of DC Animated’s latest release with which the comic was intended to coincide (and which we won’t be commenting on directly), the role of The Killing Joke in the future of the post-Rebirth DCU has likely become the field on which the title’s fate will be determined.

The Killing Joke was the Rubicon DC crossed on its way to Death in the Family, and from there, conjured a Batman adrift in a world of sex, violence and brutality. It’s the work of two genre defining creators, during the respective “hot streaks” of their careers. In a single slim volume, it adds pathos and horror to a villain who often seems incapable of one and tired in respect of the other.

On the other hand, as year succeeds to year, its detractors grow. Its author has distanced himself from it, and from the concept of superheroes in general. More importantly, the book’s treatment of its female lead – Barbara Gordon, Batgirl herself, central despite her bare appearance – has been identified as misogynistic, a slap in the face to her fans and to women in general, in the casual sign off of “cripple the bitch”.

In general terms, a work can be both a classic and problematic. In fact, given the age and authorial demographics of most of what has been deemed “the Western Canon”, most readily identifiable ‘classics’ are rife with objectionable elements. Some such objections are powerful enough to push once well-regarded works to the fringes of society as their ostensible quality is necessarily undercut by how poorly they portray an aspect of the human experience (ala those positions within modern critical theory bemoaned by Bloom as the “School of Resentment”). Most works, though, are more commonly understood as a “product of their time”, read in a light that holistically considers their various virtues and failings (see Shakespeare, Heart of Darkness, or near whatever it is you like).

The trick with The Killing Joke is that outside of the comic book industry, classic texts are evaluated for their qualities, not their continuity. Works stand apart in their own context, and thus obtain a degree of detached consideration. Given the very subject of these columns, however, one must acknowledge that in comics the durability and merit of a work are oversized considerations in the role a comic plays in the evolution of a shared universe, in what stories are told thereafter. For a “classic comic book”, the immutable laws of continuity expect genuine integration, repetition, referencing. “Classics” are seen not just as good, or important, but definitive.

So does The Killing Joke define Barbara Gordon?  Should it?

There are genuinely two schools of thought, often influenced by when and how the reader came to read comics. It is easy to dismiss Killing Joke fans as at worst misogynistic and at best woefully ignorant, but regardless of your feelings about the story, it needs to be accepted and acknowledged that for the longest period in the DC Universe, the story became an essential foundation of what came thereafter, colouring everything from how Batman’s no kill rule was interpreted to the ever-growing myth of the Joker as a god-king of psycho-killers. For the purposes of this discussion, suffice to say that in a desire to distance themselves from the camp frothiness of the 1960s, the perceived irrelevance of the distaff Bat-person, it redefined Barbara Gordon’s character as the sufferer of a horrific trauma.

We personally agree with the argument that that Barbara-as-Oracle is to the credit of John Ostrander and Kim Yale (and thereafter, Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone and others) rather than to Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. Nonetheless, in a purely ipso facto sense, the severity of the trauma is founded on a specific story, and those subsequent stories – often noted as sources of inspiration and inclusion for the DCU’s diverse fanbase – created the ability to discuss how she survived the specific trauma inherited from TKJ, and how she came back stronger from it. This doesn’t just confine itself to her physical impairment, but rather formed a foundational pillar for character work: whom she trusted, whom she resented, how she operated, what she fought for. It informed her modus operandi, her romantic life, her familial connections. This is how continuity is meant to work at its best – gold spun from (what may be perceived as) straw – and this is why any sort of broad tent or connective fandom community is much more easily built on incremental progression rather than bold retcon.

From a thematic perspective, the particular response to The Killing Joke – the response that was sui generis to Birds of Prey existing – ensured Barbara Gordon’s durability through the ’86-’06 period. Under various hands, the Bat-titles often had a complicated struggle with integrating female protagonists into the mix (and more on that below, with Detective) and an even greater struggle, perhaps, with retaining characters who were simply fun. In an alternate timeline without authors responding to TKJ, one can easily imagine Batgirl continuing to drift conceptually, ever more forgotten, ever more peripheral, until getting a four-issue miniseries as part of DCYou. Instead, by a deeply definitive traumatic event becoming central to her superheroic identity, Barbara became more like the Batman that Batman was himself now becoming. Barbara, as Oracle, became reserved, manipulative, paranoid, brilliant, tricky and mission-orientated. And in doing so, Barbara became a woman with a disability that for decades was not and perhaps could not be sidelined or ignored because she embodied so much of what Gotham stories wanted to be about.

Gail Simone was initially given the task of restoring Batgirl in the New 52, but it’s widely known that she was initially reluctant to see Oracle resume the Batgirl role. Simply “wiping away” her trauma and her physical challenges has been a legitimate concern as a mark of disrespect to the many survivors who found Oracle’s story an identifiable one, and returning her to the sunny optimist felt out of place given how critically her hope and love was re-earned and re-established in the wake of her losses. Reversing the trauma in such a hurry, unmoored from a broader context, necessarily felt like a cheat but glossing over the trauma felt like a dissonant note. For those who considered it foundational, the character became lost.

The other school of thought is that the need to carefully manage the problematic trauma discussed above is a sign of a poisoned well, of the grim, joyless misogyny that led to the sexual assault and murder of Sue Dibny and Stephanie Brown, of countless women stuffed into a whitegoods store’s worth of refrigerators. By these lights, The Killing Joke is where things went wrong, and only once it was ignored did Barbara get back on track. In the period immediately following the translation of Yvonne Craig to the comic page, and more recently in the “Batgirl of Burnside” era, she has been more fundamentally defined by her own independence and optimism. The key component of both of these eras is that despite admiration for Batman, Batgirl has been young, energetic and doing what she thinks is best. No sullen, surly Jason Todd anti-hero, this Barbara has always practiced strongly relational ethics, and a remit for kindness, compassion, optimism and humour regularly distance her – in the best possible way – from the harsher methods and sturm-und-drang attitudes of her distaff counterparts. Where Oracle was built on trauma, Batgirl was defined by hope, by the sense that a girl as smart and talented and caring as she was, doing it her own way, had an opportunity to build a better world. Whether a spunky 60s women’s libber, or a have-it-all-millennial, Batgirl represented a future that wasn’t just coming, but had already arrived.

Doubling down on this, one of Batgirl of Burnside’s last stories was to in fact suggest the possibility that the Killing Joke had never happened. Although both the original Killing Joke was non-canonical, and the Joker himself in that story was permitted to hold a similar “multiple choice” past, for many fans of Batgirl, this was an opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief. She was Batgirl again, whole, hale and hearty.

And hence the crossroads. Make no mistake, a Batgirl whole means no Oracle. It’s not just the issue of wheelchair or hacking ability, not just the things you can sweep away with authorial godlike powers. The Birds of Prey’s close sisterhood is (or was) defined in many respects by how they healed together. In Oracle’s world, the Birds of Prey were all running from something, struggling with something, and held together by their strong connections with each other even as they sometimes repeated their cycles of damage. In Batgirl’s world, her friends were held together by common cause and demographic experience. Batgirl of Burnside held healthier friendships, and the primary-coloured sisterhood of her immediate pre-Rebirth storytelling was in stark contrast to the pre-New 52’s rainswept clocktower and existential angst. Batgirl Rebirth #1, in fact, awash in primary colours and vivacious energy in art by Raphael Alberquerque, replete with fun friendships and world-travelling hijinks, carries forward the most recent Batgirl dynamic without the shadow of Oracle in sight. Indeed, no mention of her time is made by Hope Larson in her solo title.

Can these characterisations co-exist? To a large degree, continuity can be flexible, even if that is to the frustration of long-term fans. But if continuity can be ambiguous or indeterminate, character cannot. Barbara cannot at once be a happy, hale, healthy and innocent extrovert and a grim manipulative principled avenger defined by her ability to internalise and weaponise tragedy. Barbara Gordon represents, perhaps moreso than any other DC character, the horns of a dilemma as to how to integrate and whom to privilege.

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, therefore, explicitly represents a seemingly doomed attempt to fuse the Oracle years with the recent Batgirl years. In a mirror of our real experiences as a reading community, it casts one as an escaped past and the other as an enjoyed present. Is it any wonder, then, that in detailing her history, the issue fell back on the traditional definitive event of Barbara’s trauma and rebuilding? Is it a surprise that the relationships are seen as those of ultimately kindred spirits, but underpinned by a degree of tension and trust-building in a world where trust comes with difficulty? Does that winding back fundamentally destroy the popular DC You incarnation who found a strong appeal with a new audience?

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey is a well written, well-characterised book that promises a straightforward, yet intriguing premise of Barbara having turned her back on one identity only to have it stolen out from under her. How you feel about it, though, is likely to depend on your view on if Barbara is defined by her past, or if she should be finally moving on from it.

Red Hood and the Outlaws

Hero, anti-hero, villain?
The challenge with Jason Todd as a DCU protagonist is that his modern interpretation has largely been as a failed state. Where Batman struggles with his darkness, Dick leaps over it, and Barbara – as discussed above – ends up as one or another, depending on taste. Jason is the member of the Bat-family who fails to overcome his trauma (trauma represented and embodied – as with Barbara – by the Joker of the late 1980s).

This is the essence of Under the Hood, what has become the definitive Jason Todd story post-Death in the Family, but what is fascinating about this story is that Jason is an archetype built in reverse. Jason started off as another Robin, Dick Grayson with the serial numbers filed off, and was given some depth post-Crisis the first as a reckless and impulsive streetwise kid. Killed in a publishing stunt, turning Dark Knight Returns into iconography-as-prophecy, Jason’s death was central to one of the weirdest and most dated stories of its time.

Jason’s death at the hands of the Joker was recast and retconned countless times even while the body was still warm, iterating from a brave young man dying to save his mother into a reckless act and proof of Jason’s failure to absorb his Bat-training. It is perhaps unjust that Jason Todd, murdered by the fans of the franchise as much as the crowbar-wielding Iranian Ambassador (damn it, ’80s comics) was forced to bear this burden, but as much as the long shadow of his post-death memorial became the darkness of Batman’s greatest failure, the “has he, hasn’t he?” teasing approach to his return ensured he returned not as a restored champion or rescued scion but as a near-supernatural toxin, the most prodigal of sons. Once his return was truly confirmed, he still nonetheless failed to come back to the fold, lost his status as martyr and gained the role of another violent public danger that Batman had failed to save.

Because nobody stays dead, back in a new vigilante identity (the Red Hood, borrowed from the Joker), Jason was a villain for a time, working hand-in-glove with an array of crooks before being nudged to the side into the slot for “anti-heroic Batman-type vigilante killer”. Without getting into the morass of time-punching, Lazarus Pits, Bludhaven goop or the other weirdness surrounding Jason’s history, the real thematic question left at the end of Jason’s return to continuity is whether DC should use him as an anti-hero or a villain.

Before one can assess that, it is interesting to note just how far Jason Todd is from being the first embodiment of that story. Deadshot, in his first appearance, ticks nearly all the Red Hood boxes, as does Deathstroke in his more anti-heroic pose. Anti-heroic killers like Wolverine and the Punisher have long been popular, but they have also frankly worked better for Marvel than DC. While there is room for all sorts of variance in the margins, DC’s bright line “no killing” rule surrounding its central heroes creates a strict demarcation between those who could join the JLA and those who could not, in a way that doesn’t apply to the Avengers. Where Deathstroke lived long enough to become a villain and Deadshot only found his groove once he lost his “mission” and found a role as the foil in team books, for characters like Jason Todd, who exist very much in the shadow of Batman, this antihero vs. villain tension is never all that stable while they kill. Batman is not about to be presented as generally morally wrong. Mistaken, certainly, sometimes irrational, frequently a jerk, but usually on morally sound foundations (despite the criticisms that could be leveled at the character’s overall moral decision-making). Batman is the character to whom the “no killing” rule is arguably most integral, and once Jason picked up a gun and decided to permanently end problems, he fell afoul of that moral authority.

Lobdell’s Jason Todd stories, and indeed his runs on Superman and Teen Titans, have been plagued with controversy and confusion. Much of these criticisms have centered around the treatment of female characters, and the perceived prevalence of casually violent “dudebro” attitudes. But the specifics of those criticisms aside, it seems inevitable that something akin to this attitude would extend across stories starring an anti-heroic Jason Todd. It has edged into Suicide Squad stories post-Ostrander; it was a big part of what Ennis brought to Hitman; it is there in the Red Lanterns; it is the downfall (in our opinions, of course) to pretty much every Liefeld New 52 contribution. While, clearly, it is not exactly hard to find a place in the DCU for stories that revel in anti-heroic killer escapades, they exist – as a rule – in the gaps and the chaos, where titles stand alone and unintegrated, or serve even as satire or commentary on the wider super-heroic story. What they don’t do is star someone in Batman’s immediate orbit.

Perhaps because of the singular focus on Jason and his internal narrative, regardless of what’s happened in the past or the future, Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth steps away from the casually violent bromance and seems to explicitly aiming for an arc of redemption, or at least reevaluation. If Batman stands in as the moral order of the universe, he is shown to be mistaken in his estimation, if not his principles, and Jason openly asks for “another chance”.

The Rebirth issue is sumptuous and intelligent, Veronica Gandini delivering a fascinating flashback colour scheme makes something resonant out of what could have been an artistic overreach. Jason is clearly painted – literally, given the colour scheme – as a child vessel, defined by Batman and the Joker.

Taylor Esposito’s lettering deserves special mention, his ability to make legible and credible red-on-black lettering an essential support to the artistic effect. Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 continues its vibrant, clean look and bold colours, and maintains crisp internal moral self-accounting. Jason, in his head, is less cocky than his outward appearances often portrayed, he is trying to live up to something greater than himself.

Though there is ambivalence to whether or not he has the opportunity to be successful and return to a distant, but morally acceptable, heroic mould, the set-up promises a live tension along that moral line, without abnegating or rejecting it. That being said, criticism of Lobdell has rarely arisen from his conception of Jason’s tone and character, but for how the role of violence, the role of teamwork, and how other, diverse, voices have sounded in the larger world. With this week’s introduction of Artemis, we’ll have to see if this incarnation of Red Hood and the Outlaws maintains this level of emotional depth across the board as new players are introduced. This is one where, for now, we are crossing back, stepping in to see how this works once the wider cast and broader narrative are in play, and explore what this might mean for tomorrow’s Bat-family.

Detective Comics

Who is your family? 

If Batgirl and the Birds of Prey must come to terms with Barbara’s dichotomous past, and Red Hood takes positive steps to finally find a space for Jason Todd out from Under the Hood, then Detective has set itself perhaps the hardest task – performing this feat of resolution and progression, not for a single complicated Bat-figure, but for an entire team of them, at once, while telling a fresh, fast-paced story.

Gathered by Batman to form a new team, Detective stars a storied list of DC’s perhaps most misused and forgotten:

• Stephanie Brown, created in ’92, Robin in ’04, brutally and gratuitously killed in the same year, denied a Robin memorial thereafter, retcon resurrected in ’07 and given a 24-issue run as Batgirl until the New 52 wiped her again, vanishing ingloriously from mid-Batman Inc before being rebooted in the New 52 as a minor entry to the rolls of Batman Eternal.

• Cassandra Cain, the second Batgirl, a mute martial prodigy penitent over a Dark Past, was in One Year Later turned into a distaff Ra’s Al’Ghul to Tim Drake’s detective, given the ability to speak freely – if only in villainous monologues – and then having her heel-turn retconned quietly before fading into obscurity. Her brief resurrection in Future’s End and Batman and Robin Eternal was bittersweet, at once restoring the character and confirming her shtick mostly given over to Damian Wayne, a later retelling of the same basic narrative down to the use of the League of Assassins, her defining arc (and her relationship with her mother Shiva) stripped out in exchange for a more peripheral demi-existence as Orphan.
• Tim Drake has courted little of the controversy of the others, as a beloved (and notably male) member of Batman’s supporting cast, but he has still managed to fall far from his seemingly most secure position as the third Robin. The Batman of tomorrow also had his whole milkshake drank by Damian Wayne, Harper Row and Duke Thomas, becoming the Robin too many in the Too Many Robins dance. From omni-competent heir apparent to mere apprentice “tactical genius”, from the boy who solved the world’s great mystery (“Who is Batman?”) to insouciant latchkey hacker that probably-maybe-essentially never was Robin.
• Batwoman, the Kate Kane iteration issuing out of 52 rather than the earlier character now returned to continuity within Spyral, emerged as a prominent and well-received character, but suffered creative losses, first of her original writer, Greg Rucka, and then in 2013, her co-creator (and sometime writer/artist) J.H. Williams III along with his collaborator W H Blackman (and their sometime fellow artistic participant Amy Reeder). These departures were engendered by editorial creative differences, with Williams III and Blackman departing in the wake of DC quashing Kate’s marriage to her then-fiancée, Maggie Sawyer, under an umbrella policy of the DCU being a nuptial-free zone. A year later, Batwoman was compelled into sex with a supernatural villain. Aghast, from there all conversation about Batwoman seems to have ceased. Seemingly swept under Doctor Manhattan’s big blue rug until unveiled for Detective (the excellent, but essentially isolated, efforts on DC Bombshells aside), Batwoman has been one of comics’ greatest exercises in squandered potential.

Detective’s overarching philosophy feels like an extension and exaltation of the approach Scott Snyder has been subtly taking over his several years at the Bat-helm, restoring these characters as they were before the terribleness and confusion that DC inflicted on each of them, but also before their defining runs and without many of the features than made them popular or controversial. Snyder’s five-year Batman run (as long a turn on the title as can be expected these days) felt therefore like a series of introductions and beginnings, characters appearing in larval stages: perhaps rightly culminating in a Bruce Wayne who is literally and figuratively reborn as a stripped-down, scar-free, ultra version of his former self. To be clear, this was explicitly the New 52’s mandate – find or create the essentials, discard mythology and file off rough edges. Snyder did his job and did it well, at the same time creating his own Bat-narrative through the lens of a psychoactive horror landscape.

Perhaps a difference in quantity more than quality or kind, there is nonetheless something about taking these quietly reintegrated characters and placing them together in one title, especially where that title is Detective restored to its historic numbering, an issue guaranteed to be important for comics history regardless of content. It feels striking. Important. The critical issue is that the relationships in the title are not treated as being wholly newly established – rather, in accordance with Rebirth’s focus, they draw on the long arc of history to ensure that even characters who have ostensibly spent little time together have the easy shared reference points of years of “missed connections” .

Detective delivers one of the strongest team books in recent years, showcasing characters in quick moments that offer definition and differentiation while still progressing the story along. Lacking much of the navel-gazing “team for the sake of letting these characters hang out” storytelling that have become perennial threats to momentum in team books everywhere, showcasing relationships as they relate to the action on hand, pressure escalating from the opening pages.

Part of what makes Detective so strong is that Tynion is clearly aware of the wider conversation he is entering into, and without threatening the story’s stand-alone functionality, shows a willingness to enter that discussion. From the opening scenes with Azrael in the church – an invocation of Knightfall – the Detective story thus far captures the essence of the Nineties mega-events, a spiritual descendant to No Man’s Land and War Games, Batman standing against an array of impossible enemies, every hand on deck as he enters the lists on behalf of Gotham’s soul once more. Made more comprehensible than those runs (by virtue of being contained to a single title, if nothing else), this resonance smooths the way for an easy acceptance of the implied size of Bruce’s extended family, and while the cast is replete with characters that were once Bruce’s adopted wards before butterflies vanished it away, the use of Batwoman as a peer and equal holding the central place in the Detective title makes the handoff feel nothing like a demotion for Stephanie, Tim and Cassandra. Rather, Detective is more like reopening a formerly defunct and degenerating wing to full use.

Where Detective steps from reintroducing to revising is in the development of Colonel Kane, Kate’s father and sometime confidante into a “villainous” military figure in charge of a pretty standard (if aesthetically well-designed) military conspiracy. Given Kate’s ideals and record of service (“I finally found my way to serve” is the ‘coming out’ statement she makes to her father as Batwoman in return receiving his full support) many people have expressed some concern about the Colonel’s slide into seemingly outright antagonism. It’s an affront that – if Kate is equal to Bruce – is in principle on par with Alfred turning to a life of crime.

Whilst the initial fatherly-sidekick position has been chipped away over his stories already (including Kane’s concealment of the fact his other daughter was still alive, disputes about vigilantism overall and interpersonal tensions), to see Jake Kane engaged in fighting his daughter in support of his service seems cognitively dissonant. That being said, firstly, the story in question is not over and in the background context of Kane’s continued ‘slips’ and the relatively “benevolent” aims of his programme, the story feels less far fetched than it otherwise might. Detective #938, out today, spends some significant time in Jacob’s head, trying to explain how his motivations are consistent with the man whose relationship with Batwoman we’ve already seen so much of.

Perhaps more critically, the need to tell fresh stories with the pieces on the board, integrating existing continuity and relationships, is at the core of what Rebirth needs to be. As with Nightwing, Detective stands out as an exemplar of the opportunities Rebirth offers to make the best of complexity, offering up a host of characters that are not only enjoyable parts of this story but, returned to the fold, could be springboarding into years of interesting work ahead. Like Superman returning with a son in tow or Wonder Woman’s new perspective on Cheetah, moving an existing character forward or finding a better approach to an archetype is the name of the game at the moment. A step in a new direction, any new direction, may be the individual breaking point for a reader with a title, but there will be another train along for them in a minute, if not another take more to their taste running in parallel. It’s business as usual, what Big Two comics are for. The more the merrier, a broad church, each to their own.

Unless…

…the new supplants the former status quo and becomes definitive. A valid way to assess, if not quality then penetration, is via stickiness. If the majority of people hook onto an idea, it suggests the space was meaningfully fallow for it, or for something in the story-telling to speak to a broader more prevalent or pressing issue than what came before.

For the Bat-titles, the question of the day is whather the Nineties are in or out (and to what degree). Bringing us back around to the start of this piece, much as we suggested that earlier Rebirth comics had the power (and responsibility) to cure, by the same token, in this point of tentative rapprochement between continuities and styles, it is worth being aware of what they are doing. For the most part, in a syncretic, shared project, the joint purpose should an exercise for the most part building, not erasing.

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