Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Detective Comics 425


What is the connection between Batman and Shakespeare?

Those possessing even a passing familiarity with the Bard’s oeuvre know that his plays fall into three categories: tragedy, comedy, and history. Of these, his tragedies are arguably the most recognizable, having been performed thousands of times in theaters across the globe, appearing in numerous film adaptations, and profoundly impacting pop culture. Hamlet and Macbeth are his two most well-known tragedies, and considering that they were penned by the same author, it’s remarkable just how little they have in common.

Hamlet, in some respects, paved the way for all the plays that were to come after it; despite its medieval setting, the writing has a timeless quality that transcends milieu and examines the genre of theatre itself while simultaneously probing the human mind and teasing madness from its convolutions. Hamlet’s insanity stems from his cowardice and the belief that he has no control over his own destiny. In his famous soliloquy, he considers taking his own life but ultimately balks when he realizes that what might lie on the “other side” could potentially be worse than his current situation.

Macbeth also deals with madness, but it is of a different kind. The titular character’s thirst for power (intensified by his encounter with the Witches and the urging of Lady Macbeth) compels him to murder the king of Scotland so that he can assume the throne. Once he has done it, however, he finds that the deed has wracked him with overpowering guilt. His sanity, and that of his wife, rapidly deteriorates, and things just go downhill from there.

Several years ago I saw a comic strip in Cracked (remember when it was a magazine that tried to steal some of Mad’s audience, rather than a website?) in which Hamlet visits a psychiatrist. Like much of the material in Cracked, it wasn’t very good, really, but it raised an interesting point: It’s possible that Hamlet could have benefited from this; he just needed to face up to his issues instead of running from them. He needed someone to talk to about his problems other than himself. Macbeth, on the other hand, was doomed from the moment he raised the dagger. He had no hope of redemption.

When you consider the fact that Bruce Wayne watched a thug gun down both of his parents, his story can certainly be seen as a tragedy. Some have suggested that he is, likewise, a little crazy. After all, declaring a one-man war on crime isn’t exactly something a person in his right mind would do. Thankfully, though, he understands that revenge is not the right course of action, and while it’s never far from his thoughts, at least he doesn’t have his parents’ murder thrown in his face constantly, unlike Hamlet and Macbeth, who are unable to escape the consequences of the deaths that forever altered their fates.

Could Batman have been “cured” by spending a few hours a week sorting things out while reposed on a shrink’s couch? It’s conceivable.

Getting back to Macbeth, the fact that things go bad so quickly and then just get worse and worse have led many to declare it the most tragic of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Some actors even consider it bad luck to say the title, referring to it instead as the Scottish Play or something like that. Whether or not this superstition holds any water is debatable, but theatre, like everything else, has its own little quirks, and to deny its practitioners the right to be a bit odd runs counter to the spirit of entertainment. (Will I be struck with ill fortune by the very act of typing it? I’ll keep my guard up just in case.)

One of the most famous scenes in Macbeth is the one in which Macbeth encounters the Three Witches. They make reference to the ancient pagan goddess Hecate, which is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, she is fairly obscure in the pantheon of Greek deities (although she might not have been when the play was written); second, the form that she frequently assumes is an amalgam of three women, all standing back to back. This, of course, parallels the Three Witches, but it also, in a strange way, relates to the plot of Detective Comics #425.

The story opens with Batman’s thwarting an attempt on the life of lead actor Barry Johnstone during a performance of Macbeth at Gotham’s outdoor Shakespearian Festival. A killer had tried to take Johnstone out earlier, and Batman, anticipating that he or she would try again, succeeded in preventing the actor’s death a second time.

The Dark Knight pursues the killer through the surrounding woods and finds him, disguised in a ghoulish costume (as seen in the gorgeous cover image by Bernie Wrightson), climbing onto a prop horse-drawn carriage. He leaps onto the vehicle but only manages to pull his mask off before the carriage hits a pipe and throws Batman off. By the time the Caped Crusader regains consciousness, the killer is long gone, and he decides to assume the guise of Wayne and see if he can find any clues by talking to the director and cast.

Over the next few pages we discover that there are three potentially problematic things going on behind the scenes of Macbeth. (And here we have the tripartite image of Hecate as a metaphor, dear readers.) First, there is a love triangle between Johnstone, Del Sartre (the director), and Claire Foster (who plays Lady Macbeth). Second, myopic, seasoned actor Ezra Jimson (who plays the Porter) strongly dislikes Sartre’s contemporary take on the play. Third, Johnstone’s understudy Tod Dunn thinks Johnstone is a “scenery chewer” and that he should be playing the lead role.

At the following night’s performance, Dunn assumes the role of Macbeth because Johnstone had to call in sick. Even though Johnstone is not present, Batman decides to stick around because he has an “uneasy feeling.” One of the highlights of the play is, not surprisingly, the scene with the Witches, during which a small charge causes a harmless but impressive explosion in their cauldron. Remembering the theft of some nitroglycerin the night before, Batman leaps onto the stage and hurls the cauldron into the woods, where it detonates massively.

Batman asks Sartre whether he was with Johnstone during the first shooting attempt, and when Sartre replies that he was, the Dark Knight immediately fingers Jimson as the killer. Having found broken glass in the eyeholes of the mask, Batman realized that the perpetrator had poor vision, which accounted for the fact that Johnstone had been missed by both bullets. Johnstone’s absence during the performance revealed that he was not the actual target.

Jimson was actually trying to murder Sartre for “making a mockery of the theater” with his modern flourishes. He rigged the cauldron with the explosive since he had been unable to successfully shoot Sartre (the deaths of the other actors would have just been collateral damage).

Jimson, like Macbeth, found only madness when he tried to dethrone a king.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Detective Comics 437


“Who wears the Deathmask conquers all…all but the final conqueror.”

Whether real or imagined, the berserker is one of the most fascinating concepts in the history of warfare.

The idea of a seemingly unstoppable warrior of unbridled ferocity, cutting a swath of destruction through an opposing army is undeniably bizarre. He fights like a man possessed, pays no mind to the myriad blades penetrating his flesh, is impervious to fatigue. Those who encounter him and live to tell the tale insist that he must be something other than human.

The word “berserk” derives from a Norse word meaning “to change form.” According to some accounts, berserkers wore wolf or bear pelts rather than armor. They have also been described in some literature as resembling trolls. It isn’t hard to imagine the terror that beholding such a thing would induce. The berserker completely sacrifices his humanity for the battle. If war is the representation of humankind at its most savage, he is the living embodiment of that savagery.

Many historians have attempted to determine the mechanism of the berserker. The most common explanation for the behavior is drugs, which is certainly reasonable. In modern times, we have, after all, witnessed people “freaking out” under the influence of psychotropic substances. And after quaffing a few tankards of ale, some men believe they’re invincible.

Whether or not the warrior has a say in becoming a berserker is unclear. There are, of course, those who believe in a cause so strongly that they would be honored to assume the mantle, but it’s just as likely that many berserkers had the decision made for them, having been selected for their size, mettle, or some other factor.  

It is understood that he will most likely not survive, and if he does he won’t be the same man afterwards. Many soldiers, having experienced the horrors of war, suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder, but the berserker would probably be incapable of functioning on any level. Rather than burning out in a blaze of glory with the mutilated bodies of a hundred foes in his wake, he would become a burden on his tribe. Death would, therefore, be preferable.

“Deathmask,” in Detective Comics #437, explores the consequences of an ancient artifact’s falling into the wrong hands, awakening a centuries-old “curse” that robbed men of both their humanity and their lives.

It’s opening night of a new exhibit at the Gotham Museum. The Mask of Matuchima, a priceless art treasure discovered during a recent expedition in Central America, depicts the face of the Xochipecs’ god of death and is drawing a lot of attention. The opening has attracted Gotham’s best and brightest, including Bruce Wayne, who, in his Batman garb, thwarts an attempt by a group of thieves to steal the mask.

Moments before the unveiling, a heated argument breaks out between chief archaeologist Austin Spires and executive assistant Judd Thaxton, both of whom were candidates for the position of museum director, which was given (unfairly in their estimation) to Marcus Wingate. The two part ways just before a scream erupts from the nearby exhibit hall. Rushing into the chamber, Wayne, accompanied by Commissioner Gordon and a several others, discovers Lord Matuchima (or someone dressed in his mask and robe) standing over a body that is assumed to be Wingate’s.

After the “resurrected god” knocks an officer out with his bludgeon, Wayne leaps out an open window to again assume the guise of the Dark Knight. When he returns (crashing through a window, of course), Matuchima, having made short work of several men, turns his sights on Batman, and an intense fight ensues. The terrifying figure’s strength is far beyond that of the foes to which Batman is accustomed, and in the end he is forced to submit, allowing Matuchima to escape.

It turns out that Matuchima’s initial victim was one of the thieves, who had managed to escape Batman’s notice earlier, rather than Wingate. One of Gordon’s officers reports that the grotesque assailant escaped into the park and that they had discovered the body of Wingate there. Rather than dying at the hands of Matuchima, he had succumbed to heart failure. Upon inspection, Batman notices a peculiar scratch on the side of the corpse’s neck, but no one else seems to think anything of it.

The two chief suspects are Thaxton and Spires, both of whom disappeared during the incident. Batman instructs Gordon to look for Thaxton while he heads to Spire’s apartment. When he arrives, he finds Spires being strangled by Matuchima. The Caped Crusader engages Matuchima, permitting Spires to flee, but his foe knocks him off the roof with a powerful kick. He grabs an awning on the way down, but by the time he gets back to the apartment Matuchima is gone.

Going through Spires’ papers and notes, Batman discovers that the mask was believed to be a gift from the death god, providing its wearer with incredible power and guaranteed victory in battle. The fact that the Xochipecs experimented with narcotics gives the Dark Knight the final clue to the puzzle. He returns to the museum, where Gordon is waiting for him, having received a call from the distressed Spires about another disturbance there. Gordon reports that Thaxton is nowhere to be found, which comes as no surprise to Batman.

They find Spires, gun in hand, being assaulted by Matuchima. Spires fires on him several times before he finally collapses. The mask falls off as he hits the floor, revealing the face of Thaxton. The archaeologist tries to play innocent, but the Dark Knight, having pieced everything together, knows the truth. By appealing to their egos, Spires tricked Wingate and Thaxton into wearing the mask, which contains a tiny spur laced with the narcotic that induces the berserker state (as evidenced by the scratch on Wingate’s neck). He knew that the wearer’s heart eventually bursts from the strain, which was an effective way of eliminating both of them so that he could take the job of museum director.

Deciding that he has no other recourse, Spires attempts to abscond with the mask but loses his balance and plummets to his death, shattering the artifact in the process.

Like his predecessor Sherlock Holmes, Batman recognizes the significance of clues ignored by others. He is always one step ahead, anticipating a criminal’s next move, which has saved his life and the lives of others too many times to count. While he is unable to prevent the deaths of Wingate and Thaxton, he is able to prevent the mask from causing further chaos.

It is worth noting that Gordon recognizes the recent change in Wayne’s personality while at the museum and expresses his distaste for it in a thought balloon. This is one of the earliest references to Wayne’s assuming the “effete snob” persona (his own words) designed to keep people from suspecting that he’s Batman. I’m sure that it pains him to act in such a manner, but the Dark Knight’s war on crime is his number-one priority, and he cannot allow anything to endanger it.   

This story, penned by Archie Goodwin, represents the very best of what Bronze-Age Batman has to offer (it’s no mistake that it was included in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told). It’s remarkable how much action and mystery can be packed into a mere twelve pages. The dialogue is sharp and mellifluous, the setting engaging, the pacing impeccable. Goodwin grabs readers from the first page and doesn’t let go until the end.

Goodwin’s fantastic story is superbly realized by the artwork of Jim Aparo, best known as the artist of The Brave and the Bold (Batman team-ups). Aparo is right up there with Neal Adams, Irv Novick, and Dick Giordano in the pantheon of great Bronze-Age Batman artists. The pages virtually crackle with his storytelling wizardry. Working within a relatively short page count, which might have been a considerable liability for other artists, brought out the best of his abilities.

A definite winner.