Ghost of the Killer Skies - Detective Comics #404

About 5 years ago, I was watching Witchboard with my wife when my phone started blowing up.

"Who keeps calling?" she asked.

It was two people who never called me: my best friend Aharon "AJ" Klum's soon-to-be-ex-wife, and another of our mutual friends. After each call came the texts: PLEASE CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU CAN.

"Aren't you going to answer?"

Neither the ex or Chris ever really called me all that often, or ever. "If they're calling this much, something bad happened," I said. "Whatever it is will still be bad when the movie's over, and I can't do anything about it from Chicago. Let's just finish the movie."

At this time, our firstborn was about a year-and-a-half, and our second was two months old. No one was sleeping much, but that Sunday, both of them were asleep, allowing Dawn and I the chance to watch the Witchboard DVD we'd had from Netflix for forever. These moments were few and far between and I was absolutely adamant: we were gonna do this. Had nothing to do with the movie or anything (Witchboard is hardly a do-not-disturb-upon-pain-of-death affair), just the window of opportunity was damn well not going to be compromised.

So I turned my phone off and staved off learning the inevitable for another hour or so. On October 19, 2014, the mysterious Mr. Klum breathed his last in this world. Caught the last train out, bought the farm, went to the clearing at the end of the path, swept out with the tide however you want to put it. He who was my companion through adventure and hardship was gone forever. 

Obviously one never gets completely over these things, and much more could be said. But let me skip over everything from that moment until just yesterday when a package arrived for me from AJ's mom. "Saw this, thought of you" was the note. The book:

Now I'm never unhappy to receive anything like this in the mail. (Would that every day had the unsolicited but warmly appreciated arrival of an Archive Edition of fantastic Kubert art.) But I was slightly perplexed. And then it all came back to me: I got AJ this! For some Christmas or birthday of yesteryear. He was over at my place sometime around 2000 or 2001, whenever it was, and I had a copy of Enemy Ace: War in Heaven (the one set in WW2) and he read it and liked it. So, always eager to expand my buddy's comic-book horizons or at least spruce up his bookshelves a little bit with some McMolo-approved reading material, I got him this edition. And here it was, showing up at my place, all these years later. 

Did he ever read it? I don't know. I doubt it, actually, but who knows? I know for sure he read the War in Heaven one, as I watched him do it and he referenced it a few times over the years as a movie he wanted to make. To the day he died Klum was talking about the movies he was going to make. No one chooses when, as Martin Blank once said, and things are left unfinished. That's life and death for you. 

So all of the above was going through my head and heart when I cracked this one open. Enemy Ace was never a comic I actively read, but I think Joe Kubert is one of the all time greats, and I like pretty much any WW1 dogfight story anyone is going to put in front of me. 

I knew the broad strokes already but had never read the actual stories (outside of the aforementioned War in Heaven by Garth Ennis and Chris Weston.) Here's how the wiki puts it:

"Enemy Ace centered around the adventures of a skilled but troubled German anti-hero and flying ace in World War I and World War II, Hans von Hammer, known to the world as "The Hammer of Hell". It featured detailed and accurate depictions of WWI air combat, as told from the German POV. Hans von Hammer was a man of honor and chivalry, a flying knight in his Fokker Dr.I, but he was haunted by his duties and the constant death surrounding him."

More details: Von Hammer does not fraternize with his fellow pilots. He never speaks to his orderly, who is forever adding medals and dogfight cups to his mantelpiece and commenting on how easily Von Hammer falls asleep after a day of killing in the skies. His only friend is a wolf in the Black Forest, a fellow loner and killing machine. (Later he gets a dog.) Almost every pilot he shoots down salutes him from his doomed aircraft before plummeting to earth. (You can expect at least one of these - usually all of them - to happen in a single issue.) 

Good stuff, right? It would make a great movie or series or something, especially if it ended with him in WW2 telling der fuhrer to go fornicate with himself like in War In Heaven. (Although ideally, he'd be killed by his long-time nemesis, The Hangman, a French fighter pilot in WW1, and not in WW2.) The whole thing is about grace in defeat, honor in death. No one chooses when. Kudos to Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher for coming up with the character way back when. 

Long before I knew who Kanigher, Klum or Joe Kubert was, (although I guess I had some inkling of Kubert, though no direct familiarity with his work) I came across the Hammer of Hell in: 

as collected in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. As mentioned elsewhere in these pages, that and its companion volume (The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told) altered my bat-trajectory altogether. I shan't retread that ground, though, but I broke the story out again and man is it wonderful. I just felt like putting up a few panels and talking about it a bit. 

Bruce Wayne is producing a movie in Spain about the life of, you guessed it, Hans Von Hammer. Not only is he fascinated by the tales of the Baron, but he believes in the project and "the things it can say to audiences about the nature - and the folly - of war." 

It's unclear why he's in his Batman duds at this point.

Someone is sabotaging the production, and people keep dying. As Bruce talks the situation over with the director, the film's technical expert, Heinrich Franz, enters.

If you're thinking we just met the saboteur, you're absolutely correct. And after a few more deaths and misdirections, Batman comes face to face with the self-styled "Ghost of Von Hammer." Why is he doing this?

So this is about control of the legacy/ competing narrative frames. Naturally, it all ends with a duel in the sky.

Just as naturally, Batman may be receiving a little help from the Great Beyond.

God that last page is so great. And - I realize now but didn't then - a wonderfully Kubert-ian composition. All the kudoses and all the chapeaus to Messrs O'Neil and Adams. I was going to say it would all make a terrific movie. And it would, I'm sure, but it'd make an even better two-hour Special TV Event if they ever end up doing another Batman TV show. (And they should.) This'd be the episode they'd talk about all summer long and for all summers after.

Two last things: I never tire of stuff like this:

"El Hombre Murcielago!" Or, as he helpfully repeats in English below, "Man of the Bats."

And (2) may all the ghosts of our own killer skies, circling above, one day glide to a peaceful landing. Failing that, may they all guide our hands in aviating death-duels with the enemy. Amen and amen. 

Batman in the Bronze Age: Coda

For the past two months I've read nothing but 1970s Batman and Ernest Hemingway.

I didn't plan it that way, that's just how it played out. It actually allowed me to see some connections between the two that I never would have considered otherwise. Some enterprising autodidact out there should take up this line of inquiry - there's a surprising overlap of thematic concerns, shrugging off unbelievable and relentless personal injuries, PTSD, obsession and drive, colorful rogues galleries, and plenty more. I wish I'd taken notes as I went along, but it didn't make itself apparent to me until only a few days ago.

I originally wrote - or tried to write - an entirely different intro than the above, one where I did not mention Hemingway at all and where I tried desperately to work in a description of the Bronze Age as "those brackish waters between the seas of the Silver and Copper ages..." without sounding like Bob Costas (or whomever you like - grandiose instead of grand.) But I failed.

Besides, who needs another definition of the Bronze Age? The internet's full of 'em.

But then I read something from one of these Hemingway-on-writing sites that resonated with me about this series of blogs, and here it is:

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.

Better explorations of both the Bronze Age and the Caped Crusader's journey through it are out there, but I hope you got some sense of the good and the bad and how the weather was from these things. I discovered at least for myself that the Batman works quite well as a two-dimensional diving suit for Bronze Age immersion, suitable for operation at any and all depths.

Though I stopped at the end of 1979, the Bronze Age Batman continued for a few more years, until (most agree) either The Dark Knight Returns or Batman: Year One.

Image from here.

At Marvel, the passing of the Bronze Age was more subtle; later, it began rebooting its characters and compartmentalizing its history, but in the early-to-mid 80s, the characters you read in Amazing Spider-Man or Thor or Fantastic Four looked and sounded "more modern" but retained more or less the same continuity / personality as they had in the Silver Age. DC, on the other hand - and of course that includes Batman - celebrated the change in eras by explicitly dismantling everything that existed before to re-set the clock entirely post-Crisis, the once-in-a-lifetime move the company has repeated 5 times in the 30 years since.

As with heroin, rebooting in such a manner seems to require stronger and more frequently-administered doses once the first one is absorbed by the system.

Which means that all the stories we've looked at over the past two months were erased completely. Remember that for later in the program, if you would.

Unlike many of his cohorts, Bronze Age Batman received a few honorary burials before being relegated to non-existence. We've already seen one of those - the Adventure Comics storyline that killed off Earth-2 Batman - but for this last post, I'd like to look at 3 stories written by Alan Brennert, each of which comments on the passing of the Bronze Age in its own unique way. 

To amuse myself, I'm taking a page from Charles Dickens and presenting these as the Ghosts of Batman (Batmen?) Past, Present, and Future.

Let's begin logically enough with the Ghost of Batman Past:

Illustrated by Joe Staton and George Freeman. (Cover by Jim Aparo)

Possibly my all-time favorite stand-alone Batman story. Both Earth-2 Catwoman and Earth-2 Batman had been dead a few years when this came out in April 1983, so this was a bit of an anomaly at the time and still is. 

I know what you're thinking. "Hey! That says Golden Age Batman. What gives, you f**king lunkhead?!" First, really, so quick to anger! Eat more fiber. Second, yes it is a tale of Golden Age Batman, which is another way of saying "Earth 2 Batman." Third, it is very much a late Bronze Age reflection of all Batman, despite that Golden Age tag. Still friends? Good.

The story is told as an excerpt from Bruce Wayne's autobiography, written two years after the death of his wife, Earth-2 Catwoman. It has a "Reflection from Beyond the Grave" quality to it, aided considerably by the Silver Age look of the art. (Sidenote: Joe Staton never looked better than he does in this issue. It's almost as if he felt burdened by the hack deaths he illustrated in AC and felt the need to pay proper tribute in this Brave and the Bold. But I could be reading into things.)

He does an especially good job conveying the various phobias the Scarecrow throws our heroes' way.

If you recall, it was revealed that Bruce and a reformed Selina Kyle married and had a child (the Huntress) in a few panels of Adventure Comics before it was also revealed that Selina was killed, thus providing the Huntress a convenient tombstone over which to swear her oath to fighting crime. Brennert obviously felt these deaths needed a little fleshing out and justification, bless him, and so we get this poignant, lavishly-illustrated tribute that masquerades as an "unknown case of Batman."

He performed the same kindness for Batwoman in The Brave and the Bold 182, which I decided not to cover, but there's a good write-up here.

The story (after a prelude with Commissioner Gordon, where we discover the Scarecrow is out and about) begins with Bruce Wayne at former girlfriend Linda Page's society wedding, where he entertains the sort of soul-searching familiar to anyone who spent their adolesence listening to The Smiths or The Cure.

The Scarecrow disrupts proceedings and releases his trademark hallucinogenic gas, causing anyone who inhales it to live their deepest fear. The Batman gets a good whiff of it and begins to have a full-on Beverly-Crusher-from-"Remember-Me" style freakout.

It's all handled pretty well, with omnipresent narration alternating with the Batman's pov in the captions.

If it was just this Scarecrow / Batman's inner-fears-made-manifest story, it would still be cool, but as we see at story's end, this Scarecrow plot is simply the hook for the story of how the Batman and Catwoman got together. He recruits her as an ally since everyone he knows and loves has "disappeared."

As we saw with all the concussions, this sort of thing wasn't talked about a lot in Batman back then, so it was ahead of its time.

When Catwoman begins to disappear, too, the Batman is forced to make a choice. It's tempting to read this whole bit as literalizing the perceived out-of-step-ness of Golden Age characters in a Bronze Age set-up.

As the Batman notes, they don't even bother finishing the chase for the Scarecrow. Which is perhaps a dereliction of duty on the Batman's part, but he's earned it.

I found all of this very romantic when I first read it, and I still enjoy it as one of the better depictions of comic book romances. All the more remarkable in that it existed in just two single issues: proverbial grains of sand on the beach. (A sidenote: whenever I say "proverbial" to myself, I hear it in my head as if Leonard Nimoy was saying it. I don't know. There it is.)

And these last few panels bring it all home:

It is precisely because of all of the above that when Catwoman #1 (2011) premiered, I was particularly offended by how stupidly the topic was re-introduced in New 52 continuity. Let's have a quick look. (Enlarge for an exasperating a better view.)

Good lord, where to begin... First the art. Horrendous. Anatomy itself is insulted, or at least I am on its behalf. Second, the Sex and the City style of narration: so ridiculous to put these characters in that context. Third, if anyone thinks for a moment that it is at all appropriate - not from a moral standpoint but from a characterization one - to write the Batman as the sort of guy who's going to have a rooftop quickie, that person belongs absolutely nowhere near the Batman. It fits the Catwoman's character a bit more - she seems like the sort who might get a thrill out of such a thing and hey more power to her, whatever - but the Batman? Particularly in the shadow of all the above? ** Massive fail at every level from Dan Didio on down to the editor (Rachel Gluckstern) to the writer (Judd Winnick) to the artist (Guillem March).

** Not that it really was - lot of water under the Bat-bridge between The Brave and the Bold # 197 and Catwoman #1.

I remember reading at the time that people who objected were simply "slut-shaming." Maybe. But not the Catwoman, dumdum. And it was more "dumbass-shaming." Because maybe the World's Greatest Detective shouldn't be acting like one of these dudes you see on "Caught on Camera." (And maybe Selina and Bruce deserve better than some Brazzers sketch? I don't know. Maybe I'm missing the joke and sound ridiculous. It's been known to happen.)

Anyway, back to the Ghosts business. Superman got a similar sort of farewell to "The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne" in Alan Moore's and Curt Swan's excellent "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow." I've gone back and forth on that one over the years, but I enjoyed it much more than I ever had previously on last re-read. Which was only a few months back. What changed? I'm not sure. Beyond my scope here, just worth mentioning. If this had been a Superman in the Bronze Age series instead of a Batman one, that would undoubtedly be the story I'd choose to end on.

On to the Ghost of Batman Present:

Specifically:

Illustrated by Dick Giordano.

Robin and the Batman find themselves mystically drawn to Crime Alley, whereupon the Phantom Stranger appears in his usual manner, offering the Batman an unusual opportunity:

Stranger claims he is simply doing this as a friend. Which in retrospect is a little silly, sure - I mean, in an Infinite-Earths-scenario, the Batman could do nothing else but save his parents and thus himself, over and over and over again, and he'd still be getting murdered/ young-Bruce-traumatized an infinite number of times...

But who cares? Off they go (the Batman insists on going alone, but Robin jumps into the swirling dimensional rift before he can be stopped) Kirk-and-Spock-in-"City-on-the-Edge-of-Forever"style.

Some of my favorite moments come during Robin's exploration of this alternate Earth.

There is, however, Sherlock Holmes, as you'll see in a little ways down.

Robin begins to suspect that for the good of the many, perhaps Bruce's parents should be allowed to die. The Batman somewhat understandably refuses to entertain the idea but leaves young alternate-Bruce under Robin's watchful eye just the same as he goes around town hunting for Joe Chill.

Quick aside - Robin in the window, there, really cracks me up.

Surveillance Fail. Perhaps the Batman never taught him the whole hide-in-the-trees-from-a-distance technique that he himself employs.

Naturally, Robin has a change of heart, and... well, let's let the screencaps do their jobs.

It's a great what-if/ time-travel sort of story, and I genuinely enjoy the fact that while the Phantom Stranger's stated aim is not very logical, the Batman jumps at the chance just the same. It would be a nice touch if it was established that in addition to protecting Leslie Thompkins once a year on the anniversary of his parents death, he hits up the Phantom Stranger to let him save his parents on some random earth.

In the epilogue, we learn that young alternate-Bruce seems destined to become the Batman just the same.

I love this panel.

And finally, for the Ghost of Batman Future, let's go all the way to 1989:

Specifically:

In case you forgot, Deadman's power is that he can temporarily possess people as part of an afterlife deal with Rama/ God, and he's an anguished sort. Christmas finds him taking temporary command of various people's bodies - in some cases, using them to correct their own awful behavior, Sam-from-Quantum-Leap-style, and in other cases simply hovering about in other people so he can enjoy the physical sensations of Christmas. This cheers him up considerably, until he realizes:

As he understandably bemoans his fate, he is visited by a mysterious woman:

"Magic and I have never been boon companions, I'm afraid." In old DC-code, that means she's from Krypton. Could this be Supergirl? Reintroduced into post-Crisis continuity? No, it couldn't be. Supergirl not only died in Crisis, it was repeatedly established that she never existed.

I sense a message to the reader, here...

See that was the weird part about the late 80s at DC. It wasn't enough to reboot everyone and everything, there seemed to be an awful lot of going out of the way to reiterate how totally, utterly forgotten and consigned to oblivion forever pre-Crisis characters and circumstances were.

You might even say they beat you over the head with this message, repeatedly.

Which made the DC guard at the time seem a little like Orwell's Ministry of Truth or the Committee of Public Safety from the French Revolution, un-history-ing whatever it wanted to. And it had the effect on me personally of drawing my attention more and more to pre-Crisis DC, if only to figure out what had existed that they felt had to be so pointedly (and repeatedly) "corrected."

It all seems silly now - I mean, the same year (1989) DC began publishing alternate-timeline stories but brand-repositioned them as "Elseworlds" - but at the time, something like this was very hit me as an anti-regime act smuggled to the viewer under Christmas cover.

Making Deadman the vehicle for it not only made sense but was about the only way you could do this at DC in '89.

So, while Earth-2 Batman does not appear at all in this story, he very much does, if you take my meaning.

~

Before I go, let me mention two of the other stories in this Christmas Special. I bought it at the time it came out but hadn't looked at it in years and had completely forgotten about John Byrne's contribution, an Enemy Ace Christmas tale that just may rank among the best things he's ever done:

Considering Byrne's c.v., that's saying a lot. (Finished art by Andy Kubert)

Definitely worth checking out. Also worth checking out and much more germane to this blog series is this story by Gray Morrow of the Batman's career from the perspective of the Bat-cave itself.

It seemed an appropriate note to end on.