Back in my first DC Finest post (click here to read it), I mentioned I was planning on concentrating on the Superman books the new reprint series would be publishing. Well, I caved. In November at a 50%-off sale at a nearby store, I bought the first DC Finest Batman volume, which features the Year One and Year Two stories. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I took a Lyft to and from the store, I had to buy something to justify my costly round-trip, right?
Thanks for agreeing with me.
To be honest, I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed this volume (yep, I was just as surprised at the Golden Age Superman stories in the other volume, too). The 1980s are not my favorite decade for comic books from the big two. But in the middle of that decade, DC was not-so-quietly remaking itself. By the time the stories in this volume were published, the ground-breaking Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series had been published (alongside its less-effective follow-up, Legends), and Superman and Wonder Woman had been relaunched under, respectively John Byrne and George Pérez. Batman was next to get a sort-of makeover, and I suppose it started with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, less a contemporary story in the newly unified DC Universe but more a vision of the future for the character. But Miller followed that up by teaming up once again with his Daredevil: Born Again partner, artist David Mazzucchelli, for a four-issue mini-series within a series in Batman issues 404-407 (1987) and this legendary storyline forms the backbone of this volume.
Front and back covers for DC Finest: Batman Year One & Two, and the book’s spine and years.
DC Finest: Batman Year One & Year Two (released at the same time as the first Superman and Wonder Woman volumes, DC’s Trinity which launched the Finest series) includes Batman 401-412, Batman Annual 11, and Detective Comics 568-579, the latter of which includes “Batman: Year Two,” by Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Todd McFarlane in issues 575-578. And while “Batman: Year One” is regarded as a masterpiece (I personally prefer it to The Dark Knight Returns, in part because of Mazzucchelli’s art), “Year Two” isn’t as highly regarded. And it’s very interesting to see “Year One “in the context of the other eight Batman issues surrounding it, 401 through 403, and 408 through 412, by the likes of Max Allan Collins on scripts, and Jim Starlin, Ross Andru, and Dave Cockrum on art chores. This is the time period when Jason Todd was re-introduced in Batman and nobody seemed to like him (he was originally introduced as the new Robin in Batman 357 in 1983). Batman 408, the first issue after “Year One” and included in this volume, has Batman The New Adventures as the title logo on the cover, as do the other four issues rounding out this edition. In 408’s story, Jason Todd is reintroduced as a troubled kid whom Batman catches stealing the tires off the Batmobile (yes, seriously). This Jason didn’t fare any better … within two years he’d be dead at the hands of the Joker and a fickle public fascinated by a phone-in poll. Jason’s death was ordained by his audience, with technology playing a hand in a modern-day version of Nero’s thumbs down.) But don’t worry, it’s only comics; Jason will come back from the dead decades later and adopt the identity of The Red Hood, another member of the burgeoning Batman Family.
The Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis stories in Detective Comics included in this volume are much better than the Batman issues. Barr’s Batman is a bit of a throwback to the Adam West Batman (Robin is always “chum” and very “punny,” and Batman seems a bit more whimsical, for lack of a better word). Unfortunately, Davis didn’t last long on art, though, but his entire run—which ended with the first chapter of Year Two—is included in this volume. And while both “Year One” and “Year Two” have been reprinted before—and there’s an Alan Davis Legends of the Batman hardbound volume, long out of print—the rest of these books haven’t seen the light of day since they were first published, and—accordingly—I haven’t read them since.
This volume also contains Detective Comics 572, a large-sized anniversary edition (celebrating 50 years of DC’s namesake, Detective Comics 1) that includes numerous artists (Davis, Terry Beatty, Carmine Infantino, and E. R. Cruz, illustrating a Sherlock Holmes tale that may have been laying around in inventory from that ill-fated Holmes series DC tried to do in the mid-1970s). Holmes plays a role in the 52-page story, even if he’s never mentioned by name (Watson and Moriarty are, though) and Mike W. Barr writes the whole shebang. This issue also includes a great “Dick Sprang Remembers” two-page spread, which you can find below. Batman Annual 11, with a Clayface story by Alan Moore, one of his first Batman solo stories, is also included.
Dick Sprang’s great two-page spread from Detective Comics 572, March 1987.
I really enjoyed the Barr/Davis Detective stories. They’re a lot of fun, and Davis’s art is energetic and action-packed. “Year Two” always seemed to me to be an inevitable sequel, but of much lesser quality than it predecessor. And then, as now, I can take or leave Todd McFarlane’s art; he took over for Davis after he left and finished the four-part mini-series within the regular Detective Comics title. But the fans were right: Jason Todd is really annoying, especially in the regular Batman title. It would take Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, and Jim Aparo to come up with a much more suitable—and likeable—Robin in Tim Drake, in a story titled “A Lonely Place of Dying,” in 1989. Hopefully this will appear in a third DC Finest Batman volume, alongside “Batman Year 3” by Wolfman and Pat Broderick. I’d like to read those again.
But we’re getting the cart before the horse: We have to get a second DC Finest Batman volume first, and that one has already been announced. Look for it in May, featuring Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke, another seminal Batman story that has been reprinted ad infinitum. The rest of the volume will pick up right after this one left off, with Batman 413-422 (which includes Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo’s great “Ten Nights of the Beast” story arc, introducing the KGBeast), Detective 580-589, and the original graphic novel, Batman: Son of the Demon by Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham. I’ll be getting that one, too, while—of course!—sticking to my pledge to buy only Superman volumes of DC Finest!
Next up for me: DC Finest: Supergirl: The Girl of Steel (Hey … at least it has “Super” in the title!)
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