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| Batman, Volume 5: Zero Year - Dark City |
The previous volume, Secret City, was a fun, pulpy narrative that began with its foot on the gas pedal and never really let up. Those same high points of breathless adventure are present in Dark City, but here they're more subdued, and really occur toward story's end, where they function more like a traditional climax. Instead, the story opens with a mystery. One of my frequent complaints about the Batman character is that so often his "core" is lost. The character got his start in a pulp magazine called Detective Comics. He is given the mantle of "World's Greatest Detective." But more often than not, Batman stories—on both page and screen—tend to lose this element of his character. Batman is first and foremost a detective, and a darn good one at that. So it's a welcome thing to have this volume kick things off with a good ol' fashioned detective story.
We begin in the aftermath of Edward Nygma's attack on Gotham City. With Gotham in a blackout, first responders are working tirelessly to get the city's power back online. Things take a turn for the gruesome and bizarre, however, when the police begin discovering bodies with their bones having burst from the skin and twisted into something more like beanstalks. While Gotham's only honest cop, James Gordon, works the crime scene through proper channels, another detective begins investigating from the shadows. The Batman is a relative newcomer to Gotham City, and people are still trying to figure out his role in things. The current police commissioner, Loeb, is adamant Batman is a threat. Gordon isn't convinced, and continues to try and see the big picture.
Batman's investigation leads him to mad scientist Karl Helfern, who has taken the moniker of Doctor Death since his experiments to try and develop better bone structure in humans failed. Doctor Death is a nice throwback to one of Batman's original 1939 villains, and a clear indicator that Snyder is working to honor Batman's rich legacy as much as he is telling an updated origin story for modern readers. Batman's investigation into Helfern takes up much of the first half of the volume, and the story unfurls like a moody detective story straight out of the old pulp era. The shadows are long, the terror is real. But as Batman uncovers the true threat, the man behind Helfern's descent into madness—Edward Nygma, now calling himself "The Riddler"—the story changes gears into something unprecedented. When Riddler blows up the nearby reservoir, flooding the city, we jump forward some weeks in time to find that Gotham is now something more like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Batman is believed to be dead. Riddler holds the keys to the city, having cut off all access points, and controls things from an undisclosed location. Gotham City stands on a knife's edge.
But, of course, Batman must return, and he does so in glorious fashion to rescue the city from destruction. This is a story we've seen told a thousand times. Gotham City is threatened by a megalomaniacal super villain, and Batman must stand in the gap to battle the villain and ultimately save the day. In one sense, there is nothing special here, nothing new. In another sense, though, there is something to be said for a familiar story well-told. And that's what Snyder does here. In a way, this is Batman stripped down to his bare essentials. Gone are the gadgets that usually give him the edge in combat. When he can't solve the problem with his fists, he is forced to rely on his cerebral powers instead. Often forgotten is the fact that Bruce Wayne is a kind of genius, on top of being a physical powerhouse. In many ways, his mind is his ultimate weapon. You might beat him in fisticuffs this time, but he's always thinking, learning, calculating a way to turn the tables on you in the next encounter. Snyder understands this, and in Dark City he gives us a Batman who is as quick as he is strong, as sharp as he is deadly. Beating Riddler doesn't take much strength. It's hard to fight the man who would rather just drop a building on you than face you himself; on the contrary, it takes a brilliant mind to outthink the man who is always plotting ten steps ahead. You beat him by outwitting him—and that's exactly how Batman finally beats Riddler.
Perhaps the most satisfying element of Dark City is how Snyder gives us a Batman who learns. Bruce Wayne is young, only in his mid-twenties or so. He's new to this caped vigilante business, and he makes mistakes aplenty. He fails to anticipate Doctor Death using Wayne's friend, Lucius Fox, against him. He fails to stop Riddler from flooding Gotham City. These are devastating, costly mistakes. But he learns from these mistakes, and that's what makes him dangerous. It's absolutely fascinating to watch this angry young man morph into a hardened crimefighter, learning all the lessons that will be crucial in his later battles. Most of those lessons come through in the story's quieter moments, which are easy to miss thanks to the pure spectacle of the action scenes.
For example, Batman learns that allies are necessary. He must rely on people like Lucius Fox and Jim Gordon to help him bring down Riddler. There is a subplot running throughout the story that focuses on Gordon, who is perhaps one of the most underrated characters of the entire Batman mythos. In a slight twist, it turns out that Bruce Wayne harbors great disdain for Gordon, believing that Gordon is just as corrupt as the rest of the cops in Gotham. But as the story unspools, it's revealed that Bruce has misread things, and that Gordon is anything but corrupt. He's stalwart and ineffably straight, a true cop who cannot be bought, bullied, or outdone. Snyder deepens Gordon's character, and makes a real case for the value of uncompromising virtue. In a world where pretty much every character has some serious flaw or psychological disorder, Jim Gordon is a constant. His unwavering commitment to justice as well as his will to fight in Dark City makes it clear why he will go on to become Batman's greatest ally in the fight to save Gotham for many years to come.
All these heroic feats make this story a comic book classic, but Snyder's most profound insight into the character of Batman comes at this volume's conclusion. In the weeks following Riddler's fall, as Bruce Wayne steps in to help rebuild the city, Gordon is finally made police commissioner, and the status quo we're accustomed to begins to fall into place, Bruce's trusted butler, Alfred Pennyworth, tries to set Bruce up with Julie Madison, an old girlfriend. There is a touching sequence in which Alfred envisions Bruce's life with Julie, where Bruce gives up being Batman and elects to settle down and raise a family, having finally escaped from the darkness. But Bruce rejects Alfred's attempt to reintroduce him to Julie and steps fully into his role as the city's dark protector. Batman, Bruce argues, must become a symbol for the city, to show people that they do not have to live in fear of evil men. And this, Bruce insists, makes him happy. Alfred counters his assertion by saying, "You say that because you don't know, Master Bruce. You don't. There are joys you haven't experienced. Deeper types of happiness." But his words fall on deaf ears, and Bruce simply, tragically, replies, "Not for me."
The irony, of course, is that Alfred is very right. He is the only one who sees the Batman for what he truly represents. Whereas Gotham City might look upon Batman as a hero, as a symbol, Alfred understands that there is a human being behind the mask. That Batman is actually Bruce Wayne. And Bruce Wayne is a young man still traumatized over witnessing the death of his parents, still hurting at having grown up alone. Batman, Alfred understands, is not so much a hero as he is the manifestation of one boy's wanton act of self-destruction, a dark alter ego that Bruce indulges to numb the pain. If there is one complaint I have about this Batman story, it is that Snyder does not devote more time to exploring this notion. Alfred is noticeably absent for a good majority of the story's latter sections, and seems a bit underused. Then again, it could be his absence that makes his insight so profound. While Batman is off saving the city, Alfred waits alone in the darkness, for Bruce Wayne to reemerge and come home again. And when it's necessary, Alfred will step in and do what needs to be done to keep Bruce Wayne alive. He tells Bruce at one point, "I might not agree with you, ever...but I'll always be there to patch you up."
There is a dimension of sacrifice to Alfred's character that goes unsung all too frequently. Alfred is understated, and remains at Bruce's side because of the sense of commitment he has to the Wayne family. He is a man of honor, but he is intelligent and caring enough not to play into Bruce's delusion that Batman is somehow good for him. He understands that Batman is a choice, a choice Bruce makes to remain on life support, a choice that offers temporary relief, but does nothing to heal the pain. He speaks to Bruce of "deeper happiness," and I cannot help but think of C. S. Lewis and the "deeper magic" of The Chronicles of Narnia. Out here in the real world, we all must face our personal tragedies. And in the process of doing so, we run the very real risk of putting on a cape and a cowl, of convincing ourselves that sometimes our darkness is the best we can hope for. And that darkness doesn't necessarily manifest itself in stereotypically bad ways; in fact, most of the time our darkness works its way out in glittering vices as we indulge the things we like. These are the things that keep us on life support, the things that keep us numb to our pain, the things that keeps us from a deeper happiness—happiness defined as a thing that doesn't always wear a beaming smile. Following Jesus Christ is not always a happy venture. As any honest Christian will admit, it's usually one marked by a deep sense of loneliness, profound loss, and great and terrible pain. But there is a kind of resoluteness to Christianity, a strong resolve to make the hard but necessary choice to let Christ tear into our wounds in order to heal them.
See, our tendency is to think that Bruce makes the heroic choice by choosing to remain as Batman and forfeit his chance at a normal life with Julie. But the truth is—and Alfred sees this—the choice to remain Batman, for Bruce, is the easy way out. It's just another way of closing himself off, of remaining numb, of avoiding the human element. This truth is what makes the Batman such an important and profound character. He has as much to say about the human condition as any of the great literary figures throughout the ages. And like the best of those characters, Batman provides us with a strong warning. We, like Bruce, need allies in the midst of our own little battles, each and every day. It's not impossible to go at it alone, and in many ways we would prevail. But the real cost, the loss of the human element, ensures that the darkness that will eventually consume us is one of our own making. This is the great warning Alfred puts before Bruce. It's the great warning that Batman puts before us all.
With the Zero Year storyline, Scott Snyder tells a rollicking tale that seems tailor-made to be adapted for the big screen, offering up big, bombastic action sequences over against quieter character moments that are easy to miss. As always, the art by Greg Capullo is second-to-none. Batman has never looked better. And no small amount of credit goes to inker Danny Miki and colorist FCO Plascencia. The colors splash and electrify in hues of purple and red, and there are some truly stunning panels that plaster a silhouetted Batman against a sky marred by forks of lightening. This story is sure to go down as another classic, as Snyder continues to outdo himself with each subsequent volume. I'm eager to see where he takes the character from here.
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