Comics Fondle

Mike W. Barr loves mysteries (his The Maze Agency, for example) and, for the first time I can immediately recall, in Son of the Demon, Batman does seem like a detective. He does seem a lot like Barr’s Maze Agency detectives in his investigatory procedures, but the procedures still fit. Son of the Demon is almost twenty years old, back when Batman went around and talked to regular people while wearing his costume, globe-trotted, and wanted a wife. The mystery angle of Son of the Demon doesn’t last too long, only a few pages, but they’re content-heavy pages. This comic is from before decompression and while the present action of the story isn’t too long, there’s a lot going on.

Barr opens the story with an action scene. The funny thing about Son of the Demon is its importance to the Batman film franchise. There’s a helicopter scene almost straight from Batman Forever and Batman is presented, in that first action scene, in an identical manner to the way he’s presented in Batman Begins, the unseen predator. There might have been a few other things, but those two are the ones I remembered first. Both elements work better in Son of the Demon than in the films because illustrator Jerry Bingham gets a lot of effect out of his art. He’s not the best artist–some of his close-ups are bland–but he’s got a great sense of design. Barr and Bingham work really hard to make the reader experience Son of the Demon in a more cinematic sense–extreme close-ups reveal something to the reader, extreme long-shots do too.

Son of the Demon’s strength lies in Barr’s handling of Batman. I usually dislike people who approach the character with Batman as the true personality and Bruce Wayne as the mask, but Barr does it and it works. Some of Son of the Demon is a James Bond movie, only with Batman running around. He’s the only one in a costume, but it makes sense. Barr’s Batman isn’t the psychologically-broken, paramilitary lunatic of modernity. He’s a comic book character and Barr is happy with him in those terms and Bingham does some great illustrations of him in those terms. Of course, Barr’s Batman kills people and hates people enough to hurt them and enjoy it, which is a big no-no these days. Even though he’s running around in blue underwear during the day, the character feels a lot more human, more real. Thisf story’s happy to be a comic book story.

Barr’s dialogue is a little weak in places, but these weaknesses are forgivable. He’s working in a shorthand with Son of the Demon and he establishes the right pacing for expositional dialogue–and it never gets too bad, certainly not bad enough to even pause. Similarly, Bingham tries a few things with black and white, some work, some don’t. He also has some problems with static figures, but when they’re moving, Son of the Demon filled me with a sense of youthful exuberance… something a Batman comic book never does.

Son of the Demon lacks humanism–which is surprising, since its basically about Batman getting married and liking his (supervillain) father-in-law–even though Barr did show some signs of it in the non-Batman characters. He keeps the reader somewhat distant from Batman, showing the reader his external response to his emotions, without ever showing them his internal. Again, it works. Barr’s got a good Batman going in Son of the Demon and a good comic book otherwise. I was sorry it ended.

A-

Technorati Tags: Mike W. Barr, Jerry Bingham, Batman, Comic Book, DC Comics, Review

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