BRIAN AZZARELLO & LEE BERMEJO – BATMAN – DEATHBLOW. 2003 DC COMICS.
A complex crime and espionage story in graphic comic novel format which is excellent in all respects except for a disappointing minimalist use of Batman himself. He hardly turns up in the story at all. When he does, he notices events from a distance, or rescues someone, or interrogates someone, but ultimately he doesn’t do a lot. His connection to the story at all is due to the mysterious disappearance of a criminal known as The Falcon, who has appeared in the caped crusaders adventures before. Deathblow is really the story of a CIA assassin, a US State funded terrorist, actually using a code-name that has been used by many such operatives before him. The story involves his hunt for a couple of pyrokinetic killers, (people able to start fires at will, rather like the girl in Stephen King’s novel, Firestarter), Batman looks in on the case occasionally when bodies turn up in Gotham City, and meets with Commissioner Gordon to discuss matters. He also monitors events via the Internet through Bruce Wayne funded software which has a convenient back door for his own spyware. This sets Gotham squarely in the modern computer age despite the city still looking very 1940’s film noir and having skies filled with airships. The violence is ultra-modern. People are gunned down severed hands are found, people are burnt to death. Batman shows incredibly poor bedside manner when he questions a man dying of extreme ninety percent burns to his body, by telling him that he is about to die and therefore ought to spill the beans, which of course, he does, providing the back story to events from ten years before and explaining aspects of the CIA Deathblow operation. The story lacks any of the Batmen Versus fire-maker action it promises. A good story that could have been better told without Batman. It’s conspiracy elements take in hints of US Collusion with terrorists, (a bold step in the post 9/11 age). This is more a Bruce Wayne story than a Batman one, given the death of a personal friend of his at the hands of the firestarters. http://www.dccomics.com/
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
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