#NCBD old school thread! As usual, not really reviews more like pontifications with a reviewish component. Spoilers, but no spoilery images. I usually don't go into every book I got because I run out of brain juice before I get there, but I do my best.

BATMAN 103

So I genuinely don't remember the last time I talked about the main Batman title here - I know it hasn't been consistent in any case - so forgive me if I mix in a bit of talk about the general title direction with the stuff about this issue in specific.

So this issue marks the debut of Ghost-Maker, the latest of Tynion's new characters. Ghost-Maker has a history with Bruce, having trained under many of the same masters at much the same time, but unlike Bruce, Ghost-Maker is a psychopath and sees Bruce's emotionality (because

we all know Bruce is an emo at heart) as a major flaw, and he's arrived in Gotham... as far as I can tell basically just to bother Bruce by being better at Bruce's job than he is. Because he says later on that he hates Gotham, so like it isn't that he's from Gotham and wants the

best for it or anything. Much has been made about the repetitiveness of Ghost-Maker as a character who has a history with Bruce (like Hush) from training (like Nobody) and I get that. But I do kind of wonder....

I mean this is a bit of a tangent and more related to the way the

industry has changed I guess, but is it really that weird that there's another character who has a history with Bruce? The last one was Nobody and he's been dead for almost a decade realtime, and generally themes repeat over time in comics. Consider the concept of anti-batmans-

characters who borrow heavily from Batman's themes and origins but are villains. Killer Moth did it first, and then we had Wrath and Bane and Prometheus, not to mention obvious ones like Owlman and "Batman but kinda evil"s like Azrael and Thomas Wayne. Also, Morrison turned

Talia into an antibatman. And it's interesting because this is a complaint I've heard more of late, and I don't know if it's the people I hang around with (some of them are quite preoccupied with making things different and new.......) or if it's the current state of the industry

but I do think that the ease of accessing old books has made people less inclined to tolerate repetitive themes or plot points which is a little concerning because comics as an industry rely on resets and people kind of pretending Bruce doesn't have an unusually high number of

old friends who became supervillains.

Anyway that was a tangent but here's what I'm saying: even if the idea of Bruce having an old rival isn't new, the kind of banter that flows between them ("he's still upset that I made fun of him when he was 15 years old") and the extent of

their overlap is pretty fascinating and different. This isn't someone who shared one or two masters with Bruce, this is someone who was on a similar quest to master <i>everything</i> as Bruce, and went to many (if not all) of the same masters, and learned many, if not all, of

the same skills. Barbara, currently acting as Oracle, is completely unable to get through his systems and defenses - he is, in essence, the Mello to Bruce's Near. Same masters, same training - just a little behind. And when he encroaches onto Bruce's territory, aka Gotham,

minor difference widens in ways Ghost-Maker doesn't immediately understand.

Anyway they're initially clashing over ClownHunter, who escapes in the melee and breaks into Harley's new apartment. This bit with Harley and Clownhunter makes up the secondary plot of this issue,

as we find Harley missing Ivy and then having to fight off Clownhunter and his bat-bat. Honestly this issue is like 70% amusing battle banter to me, I love it, but it all culminates in a four-way confrontation between the two threads, where Bruce's sentimentality-influenced

vigilantism comes into conflict with Ghost-Maker's emotionless rampage and they disagree over how to handle ClownHunter which...

There's a central question coming to the surface here in the arguments between Bruce and GhostMaker, and Harley and Clownhunter... which seems pretty

timely considering the conversations that have been going on in fandom, as well, namely... when is it too late for a person to be redeemed? Is there any such thing?

Harley is really thinking of turning over a new leaf and going the way of the hero (her explanation tickled me

actually since it's the same thought I put out there the other day: before the Joker she was a prosocial person trying to help people, so why would she want to stay a villain without him there to make her do it?) but Clownhunter's position is basically... no. You don't get to

kill people and be complicit in the Joker killing people and then decide you're going to be good now and have it count, because you can't make up for all the stuff you've already done. And really the answer to that is the same as Bruce's answer to GhostMaker re: why it would be

absurd to kill Clownhunter: these are characters who have come through trauma and been warped by those experiences. Given that, why give up on them? Why not try to save them?

I feel pretty good about Batman agreeing with me.

Anyway I quite enjoy Tynion's take on Harley -

she's sweet but still unhinged, and she's trying to reconnect with herself - who she was before the Joker warped her head. And of course I LOVE GhostMaker and ClownHunter even if the similar rhythms to the names are causing me to type one when I mean the other a lot. The artwork

is great - I've always loved Pagulayan (who I maintain draws the best Catwoman ears ever) and I honestly think March is at his best drawing Harley. She's... so cute?? I do hope that one day Tynion has a chance to do the kind of character building for Bruce that we see him doing

Harley here, but as of now the high octane action approach is working for me, too.

If there's one thing I'm kind of worried about it's that the Batman Title may be doing all the heavy lifting for characters like Babs and Harley who have to go through their journeys/arcs here

because they no longer have their own titles... but chances are at least one (...Harley, lbr) or both will have their own writer when titles start being added to the list in Marchish, so I'm okay with it for now.

Overall, loved the issue, looking forward to the future.