Strangers in Paradise

Wow.

A rather generous soul where I work has loaned me, in bits and pieces, the entirety of Strangers in Paradise. I finally finished reading it tonight, and I'm sortof processing the entire experience.

The book is, by no means, perfect. The story has several spots that don't fit right. There are either inconsistencies in the story based on something we've previously been told, or events as they unfold don't jive with flashes of the future we received in earlier issues. So to be evenhanded, there are definitely inconsistencies. What made this a stand-out book in my mind, is that it involved me so much in the characters lives... it caused me to emotionally invest in them enough that the inconsistencies didn't bother me.

There's a specific point fairly early in the ongoing series where the book flashes ten years or so into the future, and shows where the characters are now. And while the ongoing series hits several of the beats predicted by that segment, we never catch up and move forward from that point. And while that gives the book a disjointed feel if you dwell on it, I'm enchanted enough by the characters not to care.

The series is largely an emotional soap opera surrounding three characters... Katchoo, Francine and David. The primary dynamic of the story is a non-traditional love triangle. David loves Katchoo, Katchoo loves Francine, Francine doesn't know WHO she loves. She's had a string of bad relationships with men, but isn't ready to move to a same-sex relationship with her High School friend and current roommate, Katchoo. Katchoo has no interest in men, but David knows that somewhere down the road, she's going to need him and he's determined to be there for her when that day comes. The events that separate these characters and bring them back together probably aren't that far removed from the fare of daytime soap operas, but after a point I was so drawn to the characters that I didn't care. I just had to know how it ended, even knowing that prospects were dim for one of the three.

The series also has plenty of comic relief from not only the main characters, but from a wonderful supporting cast. And by the end, even Francine's sleazy ex-boyfriend is shown to have a decent side to him.

But I don't know if I could have stood reading this on a month-to-month basis. The need to know what comes next is strong. And when I could easily reach for the next issue, that was manageable. That said, it's gotten me to pay more attention to Terry Moore as a writer and artist. As of my most recent order with DCBS, I've picked up Runaways from Marvel, which he is currently writing, and I'm going to start ordering his new independent series Echo.

The Greatest Batman Story Ever!

We've had stories where Bruce Wayne was put on trial for a crime that only revealing himself to be Batman could possibly clear him of. We've had stories that put Bruce Wayne in a wheelchair. We've had plenty of stories where someone close to Bruce has learned that he's secretly Batman.

Blind Justice, running from Detective Comics has them all! That's right, Bruce Wayne on trial over a decade before Bruce Wayne: Murderer! A wheelchair-bound Batman four years before Knightfall! What? You haven't read this epic by Sam Hamm? Told in two oversized issues sandwiching a single issue middle chapter, it's got more story than three normal Batman story arcs!

While investigating a strange series of crimes, Batman learns of a secret government cabal performing research within Waynetech. Disposable villain, Dr. Kenneth Harbinger has been experimenting on implanting chips into people in order to control them remotely. When Bruce threatens to shut them down, they come right back saying that they know his secret. If he moves against them, they'll go public. Unwilling to be bullied, Bruce Wayne prepares to file charges only to find himself arrested and charged as a communist spy! Apparently the cold-war era US government didn't smile on billionaire playboys in charge of multinational corporations who spent a lot of time in Communist China at impressionably young ages. Who knew?

Of course, Bruce could explain that he was training with martial arts masters so that he could become a dark avenger of the night... but yeah, talk like that would put him in Arkham sharing a cell with the Penguin. So instead, he prepares a legal defense. Or he would, except that Dr. Kenneth Harbinger, having permanently shifted his mind into another body to break free of the secret government cabal, tries to gun Wayne down. Failing to kill him, it does leave Bruce paralyzed. Gee, without Batman to do the legwork to exonerate Bruce Wayne, things look bleak don't they?

Enter Plot Device #3, disposable supporting cast. Early in the story, Bruce helped reunite Jeannie Bowen with her long-lost brother Roy Kane, who was one of the innocents the cabal experimented on. Accidentally discovering that Bruce Wayne is Batman, Roy offers to let Bruce pilot his body by remote, allowing Batman to return to duty! Repelled by the notion, Bruce reluctantly agrees. Of course, by learning Bruce's secret we can already guess something about Roy... and as one would expect, he's not getting out alive. While he's able to recover the information he needs to prove that Bruce Wayne was framed, 'Batman' is killed. It seems Roy wasn't quite the athlete that Bruce is. So we also get another level of stuff for Bruce to torture himself over as he torches every last bit of the technology that allowed him to endanger Roy's life.

If you haven't ever seen this masterpiece for yourself, check out Detective Comics #598-600.

Recent Re-Reads: Batman - War Games, Acts 2 and 3

Okay, better late than never. While I've still got it roughly in my head, I figure I'll talk about what turned me off about the rest of War Games.

I think I mentioned that what I liked was the mass-Gang-Warfare that was tearing Gotham apart, leaving Batman pretty impotent to stop it. He was pretty much going from one place to another putting out fires, without achieving anything noteworthy. It was like Knightfall writ large. In that story, he was chasing down a couple dozen psychopaths, whereas here every street gang in Gotham went to war at the same time.

But after the first act, the story felt like it lost focus on those players. You stop hearing mention of the specific gangs involved. The whole thing seems to just descend into anarchy. And by the third act that's precisely what happens. While anarchy might very well be a more frightening scenario, they never really stated why the gangs fell apart.

Instead, these acts focused on the notion that since this was all based on Batman's plans, then Batman knows what he has to do in order to 'win'... and what happens when that completely backfires on him. Here you have a classic Batman-is-a-dick moment, when he overrides Police Commissioner Akins and basically takes charge of the Gotham police. When he blows it, he's blown any trust that Akins had for him, and made an enemy of the cops. Now, I think this was pretty much an editorial mandate... but so soon after Bruce Wayne: Fugitive when Bruce realizes he needs to soften up a little, let his friends and associates in a little further, and act less like an ass... well, is't it a bit soon for this?

Then there's the torture of Stephanie Brown. While, thankfully, DC decided to spare us the explicit details (a decision they wouldn't repeat in Infinite Crisis, or the DC Universe at large in it's wake) there's still a lot of uncomfortable violence directed her way. But while it's not something I'm comfortable with, it actually sat better with me on the re-read. I shudder to think what we would've seen had this been a little more contemporary. When DC shows us Wonder-Dog mauling Marvin fatally and chasing Wendy around Titans Tower... who knows?

But ultimately, one of the most disappointing things about War Games is that while it was a major crossover event designed to change Batman's continuity... it barely hung in there before it was almost completely reversed. And now that Spoiler has returned, there's almost no element of this story that still stands. In hindsight, War Games is completely skippable, and for something that dominated eight titles for three months, that's kindof sad.

Recent Re-Reads: Batman - War Games, Act 1

So between large boxes of comics once a month, I'm spending a lot of time re-reading stuff I've already purchased. This helps justify my actually keeping my comics, as well as allowing me to help update entries in my database.

So last week, I re-read the three-month, 25-chapter epic War Games. This book occupied every book DC published that was even tangentially related to the Batman universe. Even Legends of the Dark Knight which was usually kept exempt from crossovers was occupied. This story is relevant, considering my recent rant on liking Marvel's crossovers more than DC's because of the lasting impact on their respective universes. Particularly, my gripe was that Marvel accomplished visible goals with their crossovers while DC tends to just use theirs as a reset button.

This one is an exception to that rule. This crossover largely existed to shake up Batman's status quo, revamping his relationship with Gotham's police and set up a new 'head criminal' in Gotham. So in this case, DC was actually doing something I think was worthwhile. The problem is that after the first third, I think the story just flounders.

Here's the gist. I think by now we all know that Batman plans for every possible (and apparently impossible) contingency. I mean, a man who keeps a backup PERSONALITY is probably ready for everything. Including the possibility that every gang in Gotham might go to war at the exact same time. Stephanie Brown, who was Robin for about a week, steals that particular contingency plan, and decides she's going to prove herself to Batman by carrying it out. I mean, if she can make one of his plans work, then he was wrong to fire her... right? Show of hands if you think this was a good idea.

She sets up a meeting with all of Gotham's top (non-lunatic) criminals, and is suitably shocked when they start killing each other. Out of 21 attendees, eight survive. So most of Gotham's gangs are now leaderless and wanting blood. This part of the story highlights Batman's helplessness to contain the chaos. Tim is still retired as Robin, Nightwing isn't even in Gotham yet, so it's basically him, Catwoman and Batgirl versus every crook in Gotham. Nightwing does make it to Gotham in this chapter, but he's got his own baggage. This act basically culminates in a standoff between several gangs of criminals and the police at Tim Drake's high school where one of his fellow students (and daughter of one of the new mob bosses) has been shot. Batman and his crew are able to save the day, but not in time to save the girl, who's bled out.

Throughout this first act, Batman has no idea what's going on, or what prompted all this. He's wondering who's behind it. The audience only learns as Stephanie confides in Catwoman that she set up the fatal gangland meeting, but that the key figure involved didn't show up... some hood named 'Matches' Malone. (Most Batman fans are aware that 'Matches' Malone is a criminal identity Bruce Wayne set up for dealing directly with Gotham's underworld to gather information, etc.)

Through this first act of the story, it's directed and tight. Sadly, that doesn't seem to last beyond the first act. I'll see if I can't post tomorrow to discuss where this one goes downhill in Act 2.

What I've Been Doing

Well, I'm now officially Count Jovial1, Creature of the Night. I've got a new third-shift position, and while it's not going to help my complexion, it does generally leave me some good time for reading.

Since I'm finding myself with a bit of a shortage of new comics to read between DCBS boxes, I'm taking a cue from Bill over at Just Bill's Comic Drawerbox to re-read some of my back material. It's not quite the same, as Bill is still working on catalogging his collection. As my collection is much more modest, I'm taking it as an opportunity to get some benefit of keeping my comics.

So that leads (invariably) to the question... what have I been reading?

I've been going back and reading some of my Batman books from 2000-ish. Rucka's Detective Comics, Brubaker's Batman run and Grayson's Gotham Knights. And, on the whole... I'm finding that they're holding up pretty well from my perspective. I loved the division between the Bat-titles. Each one had a purpose, and I thought the writers did a pretty good job of differentiating the books. I've also just re-read the first 10 issues of Gotham Central, in light of Rucka's joining Brubaker and Lark on Daredevil.

I've also been re-reading some of my (limited) Superman books. I'm not sure if I've read many truly great Superman stories, and I'm sortof paging through what I have to see how it holds up. I've reread the Sacrifice crossover resulting in the death of Maxwell Lord, and the One Year Later story that crossed Superman and Action Comics. If anybody can recommend a good Superman read, please let me know. I know one friend has suggested the Election 2000 stuff. I'll have to check that out.

A couple more weeks, and I'll have another shipment from DCBS to add to the collection.