The Comic Grab Bag Review Part 2: Batman #536 (1996)


Batman #536


 Background:

This issue was written as a tie-in to the DC crossover series The Final Night. During this storyline, an entity called the "Sun-Eater" comes to Earth's Solar System and absorbs all of the suns energy. Superman and the Justice League tried to stop the Sun-Eater from devouring the Earth's sun by first teleporting it to another dimension. But the Sun-Eater proved too powerful for the device used to teleport him.The second plan was to divert the Sun-Eater by creating an artificial second sun. This involved big names like the Green Lantern, Firestorm, Ultra Boy and even Superman. This failed as well. So with all the energy sucked out of the sun, the Earth went into perpetual night. The lack of the Suns warmth was slowly freezing the Earth over. Riots and crime spiked up due to global panic.
Long-eared Batman everybody!

Many crazy plans to stop the Sun-Eater came from super villains like Lex Luthor and even an emissary from DC's version of Hell known as Etrigan the Demon. The latter said he could heat sun again with the condition that he took ownership of all the souls of everyone on Earth (that obviously didn't fly).

To make matters worse, the sun was shrinking yet retaining its own mass. This meant that the sun would create a supernova and kill everyone on Earth.

The storyline ends with Hal Jordan as Parallax (He used to be the Green Lantern but stuff happened and he's Parallax) used his immense power to absorb the super nova caused by the sun and put it back into the sun. The sun then became normal again and the heroes cleaned up Earth. End Scene.

Plot:

With Gotham and the rest of the world in perpetual night, crime was naturally on the rise. Rumors of a monster spread through Gotham and was sighted so many times that even the police couldn't shake the notion that something sinister was lurking in the Gotham skyline. A few pages into this comic and the monster is revealed to be Man-Bat.
Art for Man-Bat is consistently solid throughout the comic...Can't say the same for Batman

An investigation in the house of Doctor Langstrom (Man-Bat's alter ego) ensues. Batman finds the wife of the doctor unconscious and realizes that if Man-Bat is allowed to stay in this perpetual night, he will eventually begin eating humans to feed his hunger. Batman then plans to use the antidote to turn Man-Bat back to normal but thinks it might not be potent enough since the transformation has lasted so long. I'm not too familiar with Man-Bat but I guess he's like a werewolf and transforms back into a human when the suns out.
Man-Bat will step up the food chain if you don't run away from him!
Man-Bat has some human conscience left and decides to leave Gotham in order to not kill any of the civilians that dwell within. So the comic ends with Batman not curing Dr. Langstrom and Man-Bat escaping to...um..somewhere else...?


Art:

Terrible. Just terrible and inconsistent. I hate everything about Kelley Jones' and John Beatty's style. Batman has a very weird witch doctor vibe to his cap and headgear. Sometimes people look fat or old for no reason. Other times, they look so well shaded and life like. I never understood how this art could pass the editor's desk.
Ugh...Sgt. Bullock, you've seen better days. 

The one thing I find myself also disliking is the "long-eared" Batman style. When I was a kid, I loved the idea of having long antenna like ears for some reason, but now it seems so silly. They neither look functional nor stylish and only come off as unnecessary and exaggerated. I'm glad this was only a 90's thing. I hope it never makes a return.

Review:

I like the way the story of this issue naturally fits into the cross over series. Man-Bat fits the villain spot perfectly since he has that werewolf type persona. Also, it's already known that Man-Bat goes crazier and crazier the longer he is in his transformed form. I do wish I had the other issue so I could figure out how this ends.

The art ruins the entire comic though. It just looks like a complete mess of colors and shading. One panel you'll be looking at something coming out of film noir comic (I'd imagine) and then in the next, you see something that would come out of a Marmaduke comic. Batman can look intimidating, young, and strong in one panel, and then look old and weird looking (and kind of fat).

Sadly, I hate the Jones/Beatty run in the Batman comics and I've been exposed to his work before. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who mainly likes comics for their art. But the story is decent so it's worth a read.

Unique Thing:


Frumpy Batman. Nuff' Said.

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