BATMAN #700: TIME & THE BATMAN

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BATMAN #700: TIME & THE BATMAN

September 13th 2010 01:33

Category: Graphic Novels/Comics

Publisher: DC Comics
Production Team: Writer – Grant Morrison, Penciler/Cover art – David Finch, Inker – Richard Friend, Artists – Tony Daniel, Andy Kubert, Frank Quietly & Scott Kolins, Colourists – Ian Hannin, Alex Sinclair, Tony Avina, Brad Anderson & Peter Steigerwald
Cost: AU$10.95/US$4.99

The 700th issue of Gotham’s Dark Knight – talk about a milestone, and a large size anniversary special according to the write up on the front cover. The only problem is for a milestone issue is that things are rather light in regards to content, something that with an iconic character like Batman is a bit of a letdown. And when you’re forking over almost eleven dollars you’d be forgiven for wanting just a tad bit more – this thing is no more than fifty six pages and you’re being charged two dollars less than what you are charged for a volume of say Naruto or Bleach which has about three times the amount of pages. Frankly its only because I am a big fan of characters like Batman and other iconic Western superheroes that I bother with these works, but from a purely monetary perspective it isn’t really worth my while by a long shot.

So Time and the Batman, an interesting title, one that has all kinds of potential resonances and possibilities just like the nature of time and life itself really. You have to hand to Grant Morrison he is a superb story teller and he presents a rather interesting story with this particular issue. Some would say that time is an eternal agony of now, a miasma of unexplained tomorrows and unrequited pasts...you get the picture, existential angst with just a tad bit of half baked mysticism. What has this to do with the Batman? Does this waffle have anything to do with the comic – well what is the one thing that cannot be defeated? That lays waste to countries, kings, peasants and monsters alike with nary a thought – its time. Time is relentless; it can be patient and remorseless because it knows that it will win at some stage. But what if you could defeat time somehow, not through physical means but through something more prosaic, something more mundane.

And it’s interesting that the idea for it all comes not from the mind of Batman but actually from one of his many costumed nemeses, the Riddler no less who would be the one to voice such a pithy line “What can we beat but not defeat?”Broken into four separate parts; Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow...And Tomorrow the story that is Time and the Batman gives us an interesting insight into the evolution of the Batman as he was, as he is and as he will be in a future era and countless other future eras. You see in this particular tale the one thing that is playing time at its own game and able to go the distance...an idea, a concept.
Let’s face it ideas and concepts as well as stories and myths are the things that can outlast time itself so to speak, they are not flesh and blood or material, the laws of entropy do not wear them down. Look at religion, most of the world’s major faiths are based on concepts that are at least a thousand or more years old, if not several thousand in the case of Buddhism and Christianity. The story of King Arthur is at least a thousand or more years old, the Norse mythology or the tales of the Olympian deities all of these have lasted down through the ages and although they might have undergone some alteration they’re still existent. So in the DC Universe the concept of the Batman, the Dark Knight becomes a concept in its own right, an icon rather than just being the alter ego of a costumed crime fighter who lost his parents to a desperate criminal.
It all begins when Batman and his crime fighting partner Robin are in the clutches of a cabal of their nemeses; Joker, Riddler, Catwoman and the Mad Hatter who have managed to commandeer and experimental time machine as well as said machine’s operator, Professor Carter Nichols. Fun and games as far as the Joker’s concerned although it’s not as much fun as he was expecting as his nemesis is soon able to get loose once the machine needs to recharge after projecting Batman back into the past. Assistance from Commissioner Gordon and Police Chief O’Hara helps wrap things up and ensures that the four super criminals are safely locked away behind bars.
But things don’t end there, the Joker’s Joke Book and Professor Nichols end up becoming recurring elements in the next several eras as the next two incarnations of Batman find themselves each confronted with these two elements in some shape or form. In fact it’s almost as if these two things define the next two incarnations of Batman, they’re the moments when the next person to don the cowl is defined. Just as the original Batman was defined by the death of his parents the next two guises are defined by this moment in time. And here again we have an idea, a concept, something that is able to shrug off the slings and arrows of time, a particular moment and item has an impact that sends shockwaves like a pebble tossed into the pond but we only know when the waves will reach the shore at a certain instance, otherwise we remain ignorant of them.
Time and The Batman is an interesting tale to read but as I said earlier it isn’t worth paying the price asked. Sure there are some great pictures and artwork at the back as well as an overview of the Batcave and so forth but even then it still only comes in at fifty six pages and frankly for nearly eleven dollars I would have much rather had a little bit more meat on the story than all the fluff. And let’s not forget the several pages of various adverts as well...no sad to say Batman #700 is a bit of a letdown. Perhaps DC should consider giving the audience a bit more meat on a project like this, to me this seemed like a story that was crying out for another fifty or more pages of story to make it into a real masterpiece and suitable milestone issue.

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