Hope in Crime Alley: The Importance of Leslie Thompkins

Superhero comics have a language of violence in them that is implicit, if not explicit. Heroes fight villains. There's punching, kicking, shooting, bataranging, webbing, and blasting. It's been part of the lexicon since the formation of the genre. And I've been thinking a lot about violence this past week. Gun violence in particular, but also the fictional worlds I love, the violence in them, and their relationship to the real world. And of course there are no easy answers to any of the questions I've read or I've posed to myself, and I would feel strange writing some paean to better fiction worlds in the face of reality. But when I was thinking about a world that could be a better one, and how that interacts with reality and fiction, I thought about a character from the Batman mythos. Leslie Thompkins isn't exactly an obscure character, but she isn't a top billed one either; she's never been in a movie, and the incarnation of the character on television right now is about as far removed from the actual character in the comics as possible. But I wanted to write about Leslie today, about her history, and about why she's such an important character not just for Batman, but for superhero comics in general.

Leslie Thompkins made her first appearance in Detective Comics #457 from 1975, in a story entitled, "There is No Hope in Crime Alley!" Written by Denny O'Neil, one of the greatest of all Batman writers, and with art by Dick Giordano, this story establishes a bit of continuity that has been played on many times since, that Batman visits the alley where his parents were killed on the anniversary of their death. It also added another wrinkle. After his parents' death, a social worker came to the crime scene and talked to Bruce, and held him, and did her best to comfort him. This little bit of light in that darkest of days for Bruce came from Leslie Thompkins, who appears in that story as a little old lady. one who comes to the alley herself every year to remember the tragedy she witnessed, the one she spent her life working to help make sure never happened again.

Right from the start, Leslie takes the violence she witnessed and went in the complete opposite direction as Bruce did. She does her best to help people to prevent tragedies. And when Batman finds her being mugged in Crime Alley, and begins to savagely beat the mugger, Leslie tells him to stop, and condemns his rage. It's a ten page story, beautiful and perfect. It appeared in the excellently curated collection, The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, that came out in 1988, which is where I first encountered it. At the time, Leslie was a footnote in Batman history, but the story impacted me enough that Leslie being at the Wayne's murder became part of my personal head canon, and my affection for the character was not alone, as I soon discovered.

Leslie only appeared twice more in the course of the next twelve years, once in another O'Neil penned story about Batman returning to Crime Alley on the anniversary of his parents' death, "The Curse of Crime Alley," which also introduced C-List Bat-villain Maxie Zeus, and once in "The Player on the Other Side," Batman Special #1, Mike W. Barr's introduction of The Wrath, one of the earliest anti-Bats. And while O'Neil introduced Leslie, and established the baseline of her personality, it's Barr who would take the character in new directions.

I've written a feature about Mike W, Barr and Alan Davis's run on Detective Comics, one of the most underrated runs on any Bat-title, and the final full issue of that run is the one that introduced the post-Crisis version of Leslie Thompkins (there's weirdness in the continuity of this issue, but I won't focus on that right here). This issue, Detective Comics #574, "My Beginning... And My Probable End..." (which is a quote from "There is No Hope in Crime Alley") features Batman bringing a severely wounded Jason Todd to Leslie Thompkins clinic to save his life.

The changes to the character are notable. Leslie is no longer a social worker, but is instead a medical doctor who runs a clinic in Crime Alley. She is also noticeably younger, not an octogenarian, but probably in her fifties or sixties. This is the story that introduces the idea that Leslie was Bruce's foster-mother for a time, taking an active part in raising the boy. It also establishes that Leslie is well aware of Bruce's identity as Batman, and that she disapproves. She does not consider Batman a heroic knight, but a tool that continues to forward the problems of violence in society; while sometimes Batman is necessary, she feels like Bruce would be better without being Batman. And more than that, she feels responsible for Bruce being Batman, that it was partly her failing that put him on the path. But for all the negativity and confrontation, Leslie cares for Bruce deeply, and is concerned that his crusade will lead to his death, and still wants to protect him.

Barr would use Leslie in his next arc on Detective Comics, "Batman: Year Two," which builds off the relationship established in the previous issue, but the next truly notable Leslie story would be another Barr story, "Faith," from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #21-23. "Faith" is set prior to "Year Two" but after the events of Frank Miller's "Year One." The story deals with Batman's first encounter with the idea that people may want to follow in his footsteps; in this case a young former addict who he saved starts up the Batmen, a group clearly inspired by the Guardian Angels civilian patrol organization, down to the red berets, but are considerably more violent. Meanwhile, Leslie is furious at Batman and what he's doing to the city, and it's after Batman is shot by the man who he once inspired for being a disappointment, that Batman comes to Leslie and reveals his identity. Barr does interesting things with the idea of faith, Leslie's faith in non-violence and peace and the Batmen and their faith in Batman.

While Leslie would continue to pop up occasionally in the Batman titles for the next few years, usually when Batman or one of his allies needed medical attention beyond what Alfred could provide, and was further incorporated into Batman's origin in Batman #0, the post-Zero Hour origin of Batman, the thing that I feel helped cement her in the minds of Batman fans as an essential part of Batman's origin and life is her appearance on Batman: The Animated Series. Voiced by venerable actress Diana Muldaur (best known in geek circles as the argumentative Dr. Pulaski from the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and remembered fondly by me as the hardass Rosalind Shays on L.A. Law, who met with an unusual downfall), B:TAS captured everything that Barr and O'Neil had established and distilled it. Leslie was tough but loving, always willing to tell Bruce what she thinks and to try to convince him that Batman, and the violence he represents, is something that he can leave behind. While only in a handful of episodes, Leslie was woven into the tapestry of Batman's origins so seamlessly that she would be a part of it moving forward. There was one notable change to Leslie's backstory made in B:TAS, which established her as a co-worker and longtime friend of Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father. While I can see some problems with this, as it stops her from just being a good Samaritan as Joe Chill is just a random criminal, it explains how she was able to be such a big part of Bruce's life, and does not interfere with her as a strong and loving influence; this change would eventually be adopted by the comics as well.

Leslie became a more steady fixture in the Batman comics starting with the 1999 massive event, "No Man's Land." Leslie decided to stay behind when Gotham was shut off from the rest of the world, and kept her clinic running as a neutral space among the city's warring crimelords, where anyone could come to receive medical treatment or to find a safe haven. Alfred spent much time there with her, and she was befriended by both Azrael and a young woman who Barbara Gordon used as a runner through the wastes of Gotham, Cassandra Cain, Leslie had her own spotlight issue, Batman Chronicles #18, "Spiritual Currency," showing how, even in the darkest hours of Gotham, Leslie kept her hope alive and her pledge of non-violence, even when faced with more violence around her than ever before. It's a great issue, and one of the best spotlights on Leslie.

After "No Man's Land," Leslie would continue to appear regularly in the Batman titles. She befriended Selina Kyle in the early issues of Ed Brubaker's excellent Catwoman series, helping Selina and her protege, Holly Robinson, get their lives in Gotham's East End together. She remained a recurring character in the Denny O'Neil written Azrael series until that character's death. It was even established by Devin Grayson in an early issue of Gotham Knights that she and Alfred had flirted with having a romantic relationship for years, but their duties had kept them apart.

This next paragraph is going to be tricky for me to write, partially because it violates the blog rule about only writing about comics I like, and partially because it takes a good character and drags her through the mud. "War Games" was a Batman event that was released in 2004-2005 and featured a massive gang war in Gotham started by Spoiler, one of Gotham's younger vigilantes, who took an exercise Batman had run in the Bat Computer about how to get control of Gotham's mobs and tried to implement it without thinking of the consequences. It's a messy story for many many reasons, and in the end features the death of Spoiler at the Thompkins clinic after being tortured by Black Mask. After Spoiler's death, Batman discovers that Leslie, who had left Gotham for Africa, let the girl die, not treating her, to give Bruce an object lesson and hope to stop his endless crusade and save further children from dying in it. It's an ugly, out of character twist, and completely violates everything Leslie had stood for over the past thirty years. I'll be honest: I mentioned head canon earlier, that trove of stories you keep that "count" for you, and while I try to stick close to canon, this was a story I hated from day one and never counted.

Fortunately, Chuck Dixon took over as writer on Robin again in 2008 after a six year or so absence from the book and character he defined, and immediately set about making things right. He revealed that Spoiler, Stephanie Brown, was in fact alive, having asked Leslie to help fake her death so she could escape Gotham and the life she had lived. In one fell swoop, Dixon had returned Leslie to the good, noble woman she had always been. Leslie would return to Gotham and appear briefly in those Dixon issues of Robin, and would get a spotlight in the Gotham Gazette mini-series that took place around the "Battle for the Cowl." Her final pre-Flashpoint appearances would be in Batgirl, when Stephanie was the title heroine.

Since Flashpoint, Leslie's backstory has actually returned to closer to what it originally was, as she seems to now be a social worker for Gotham's child protection services working with children and adolescents. She has only made brief appearances, once in a flashback as Jason Todd's case worker after his parents died but before Bruce took him in, and a few times in We Are Robin, where she is working with Duke Thomas after his parents disappeared in the wake of Joker's assault on Gotham. Her one appearance with Batman in this context was in Batman #52, a flashback to her working with a young Bruce, but it could be taken either way that she's his case worker or a family friend. There is one odd appearance in an issue of Grayson, where Leslie is seen working in a refugee camp in Africa as a doctor, which doesn't seem to fit this persona, but we'll see if that gets folded in. In a recent Twitter interaction I had with him, new Detective Comics writer James Tynion IV said Leslie will be appearing in Detective Comics #935, coming out this Wednesday.

Just as a brief aside, There is a  Leslie Thompkins in Fox's Gotham, played ably by Morena Baccarin, however the character is Leslie in name only. In the series she is a former Arkham doctor turned medical examiner who has little to no relationship with Bruce Wayne and is one of the romantic partners of Jim Gordon. She has no problem with violence. So basically she's about as close to her comics counterpart as anyone is on Gotham.

But earlier I said I wanted to not just talk about who Leslie Thompkins is, but why she's important to Batman and comics. To start with, Leslie is a smart, driven, female character who takes no guff from anyone, even if it's Batman, which puts her in a league with character like Wonder Woman and Amanda Waller, which is worth noting. But more importantly, Leslie represents to me the path not taken. In a world where flashy people in flashy costumes fight and destroy everything around them, she is the calm blue ocean, the voice that says there has to be another way. She reminds Batman every time they talk that he could stop, that he could use the Wayne fortune not to fight the results of crime as Batman, but confront its roots in poverty and pain. And while she judges and will never go easy on Bruce or any of his allies, she also always has a kind word and an embrace. In a world where violence is on every corner, whether it's on the pages of a comic book or a newspaper, a person who holds out hope that people really can be better, that peace and non-violence is an option is a rare thing. And because of the laws of comic book plot, Batman can never take up the path Leslie offers, her mere existence assures that the option remains open, and hope for a better, more peaceful world is always available. And that hope is important to have in the dark days of Gotham, and anywhere else.

And By the Flaming Sword You Shall Know Him

SPOILERS for last night's episode of Gotham, "Scarification"

Well, that was unexpected. I had my own theories about exactly who Theo Galavan was. I know a lot of people were thinking Ra's al Ghul or someone with connections to the League of Assassins. I never went that way. With all his talk about the founding of Gotham, my money had been on him being a new grandmaster of the Court of Owls, since the Owls are fresh in people's minds, but I had also considered a member of the Arkham family, or even someone connected with the Religion of Crime. But no, no, it's connected to something even more deeply entrenched and completely insane in the Batman mythos (which works beautifully as Gotham embraces its Burtonian insanity), The Sacred Order of St. Dumas. If you're curious about the comic book history of the group who are making their debut on Gotham, read on.

The Order of St. Dumas made it's first appearance on Batman: The Sword of Azrael #1, written by legendary Bat scribe Denny O'Neil with art by Joe Quesada, a mini-series designed to introduce a new character into the Batman mythos for a very specific purpose we'll get to shortly. They were not connected in any way to the founding of Gotham as on the show, although the list of founding familes given in Gotham do include three of the four well established founding families of Gotham: The Waynes (Batman's paternal family), the Elliots (family of Batman's nemesis, Hush, who appeared in Gotham as the kid Bruce beat down with his father's watch in season one), and the Kanes (Batman's maternal family, and also the family of Batwoman). The fourth name mentioned, Crowne, has certain ties to the Court of Owls, but is probably the least of the names, and not listed in the comics as a founding family. The comics have a fourth founding family, the Cobblepots, Penguin's family, but the continuity of Gotham clearly precludes that.

The Order of St. Dumas are a splinter group from the Knights Templar, because what fictional universe doesn't have at least one group whose origins lie with the Crusades and the Templars? Led by a knight named Dumas (who wasn't a saint by anyone's reckoning except his order), the Order was able to escape the purge of the Templars and went underground, slowly building up wealth and influence over the centuries. They remained secret by having a champion, and assassin called Azrael, programmed from birth via something they called The System to guarantee his loyalty and to provide the training needed to be their deadly angel, who would eliminate any member who stepped out of line.

When it first appeared, the Order appeared to be in decline, a small group of the richest men in the world who stuck together more for their mutual benefit than any real religious affiliation. One of them, Carlton LeHah, had betrayed the others and begun siphoning off the Order's money, and when Azrael was sent to kill him, he was prepared and shot Azrael with armor piercing bullets. Azrael, dying, found his son, a student in Gotham City named Jean-Paul Valley, and passed the mantle on to him, while LeHah took up the name and guise of the Demon Biis, St. Dumas's great enemy, to wipe out the remains of the Order. The murders drew the attention of Batman, and Batman joined forces with Jean-Paul, the new Azrael, to stop LeHah.

With LeHah defeated and what seemed the rest of the Order wiped out, Azrael became a new apprentice of Batman to try to beat The System and use his abilities for good. The story of Azrael becoming a temporary Batman after Bruce's crippling at the hands of Bane is one of the seminal Batman stories of the past twenty-five years, the Knightfall epic. Throughout the story, Jean-Paul continues to see visions of St. Dumas brought about by The System, and when Bruce finally is healed and returns, Azrael wanders off, disgraced.

But Azrael soon discovered the Order was not what he had thought. There was actually still a more traditional religious order in existence, headed by a man called Brother Rollo, who had an ice cathedral in the Swiss Alps (I love sentences like that), and with the aid of Sister Lilley, one of the Order's own nuns who had grown disenchanted, Azrael spent the first twenty-five issues of his own series fighting the Order. Along the way, readers found out that the Order had a history with the League of Assassins and had a group of troll-like servants, one of whom, named Nomoz (pictured above), we had met in Sword of Azrael. They went as far as unleashing a plague on Gotham as part of a plan to cleanse Earth of non-believers, which was the first of the major catastrophes that would lead to "No Man's Land."

Azrael did eventually triumph over the Order and destroyed them and their cathedral, but it turned out there were more splinters of the Order. Lilley joined with one in Asia and tried to resurrect the Order, but failed. One was revealed, saying that it was in fact the original Order, with Brother Rollo's faction that created the Azraels being a splinter itself, and tried to recruit Mark Shaw, the international man of mystery who had once taken up the names Manhunter and Dumas, to be their new agent (a clear retcon in the last few issues of Manhunter, but a clever tie to the Dumas alias from the 80s and the Order). And another became known as the Order of Purity, and were central to the last Azrael series, feauring Michael Lane, a former GCPD officer, taking up the mantle of Azrael and a cursed suit of armor called the Suit of Sorrows. And that was the last we heard of any part of the Order before Flahspoint rearranged DC history.

I know that original Azrael armor gets a lot of heat for being the most '90s of '90s comic book costumes, and damn it is, but I have a soft spot for it and all it's Joe Quesada designed flare.. The Order of St. Dumas has been absent from DC continuity since the Flashpoint reboot, but Azrael is too cool a concept to keep away, and in the solicitations released yesterday, DC announced it will be collecting Sword of Azrael and the first six issues of the original Azrael series in a new trade, so I can only expect that the return of Azrael and the Order is closer than I had imagined before yesterday.

Gotham Season 2, Episode 1, "Damned If You Do"

Hey, look, Gotham's back! Gotham had a first season that was enjoyable, if incredibly uneven, and so much of enjoying it had to do with ignoring it as any precursor to an established Batman mythos, something the final episodes of last season completely cemented by throwing off the reins of any established canon. So, I came back to it with last night's premiere unsure of where I stood with this, a re-imagining of the origins of many of my favorite comic book characters. And I've decided Gotham is like that friend you have, the one who's fun at parties, but makes lots of bad decisions, and all you can do is shake your head and enjoy it when they win, or don't screw up entirely. They're good intentioned, and sometimes pull of a Hail Mary pass, but wow, what you have to do to get there.

I will say, flat out, that Gotham made some improvements this first episode. The main one, the one that leapt out at me, was that it handled its mammoth cast better than at any point last year. While there were still three plotlines (more if you count some brief touches), each and every one connected to a main plot, with Jim Gordon being kicked off the GCPD and having to find a way to get back on the force. While Bruce had his own thing going on, trying to break into his father's proto-Batcave, and Barbara Kean and the loonies in Arkham were being the loonies in Arkham, Gordon encountered each of them and we saw how they effected his decision. And Penguin's plot simply tied in to Gordon's, without there being anything going on aside from that. Riddler was a little more off to the side, but we'll get to that in a bit. Still, there were no plotlines that seemed to be sitting out in right field, not tying in to anything going on in the main plot of the series, which is a focus sorely lacking last year.

Even though the plot was consistent, there were some holes that you could drive a truck through. Gordon needing to go to Penguin to oust Commissioner Loeb seemed a questionable decision for a number of reasons, the largest being that Gordon has dirt on Loeb. There was a whole episode last season that ended with Gordon knowing Loeb's daughter killed her mother and Loeb covered it up. While Gordon might be too noble to use it, to completely ignore it seemed an odd choice. I can ignore lapses in logic that are intrinsic to a show, but simple ignoring events that are key to the show's past seems odd (frankly, that entire episode seems to be ignored, as no one has since mentioned that Gordon is head of the policeman's union).

I'm also wondering where the series is going to go with Gordon having killed a man while doing a favor for Penguin. I have to really work to wrap my brain around a Gordon who would do that, as it is completely anathema to the Jim Gordon I've read for three decades (although not to the one in Geoff Johns's Batman: Earth One, which I think the producers have been drawing some inspiration from). I'm hoping that this is an action that haunts Gordon, and not in the "Penguin is holding it over his head," way. I know Gordon has no problems taking a life when threatened in the line of duty, and I'm fine with that. But Ben McKenzie's excellent moment when he tells Leslie Thompkins, "I did a bad thing," should be something that comes back around later on.

The performances on Gotham continue to move between the sublime and the grotesque in the best possible ways. I give all the actors on the show credit for taking what they're given and committing wholeheartedly to it. There are smaller performances, like Donal Logue's Bullock, where he's much more at peace than we saw him all last year. Robin Lord Taylor continues to impress as the Penguin, and I really enjoy David Mazouz's Bruce Wayne. The Arkham crew were a delighful group of scene stealers; now that she's insane and villainous, I am enjoying Erin Richards's Barbara Kean 1000 times more, and while I don't think Cameron Monaghan's Jerome is going to be the Joker in the end, he's a pleasant maniac to watch. And my usual kudos go out to Anthony Carrigan, whose Victor Zsasz is my favorite character on this show, with his wicked performance that can switch from manic glee to violent terror in moments.

I have some issue with the direction of Edward Nygma, though none of that has to do with Cory Michael Smith's performance. The schizophrenic, talking to a slick version of himself in the mirror thing is out of character for Riddler. And I know I said you have to embrace a different mind set when looking at this show, since these aren't any version of these characters we've seen before, but we will be seeing more of district attorney Harvey Dent this season, and having two characters with the same kind of dark side and rage issues seems redundant, although Evil Ed meets Big Bad Harv might be fun (and before anyone corrects me, I know the Big Bad Harv thing is DCAU only, not straight DC canon, but it works so well here, I had to use it).

And this wouldn't be Gotham if we didn't introduce at least a couple new characters, in this case the mysterious Galvan siblings. We didn't get much from Tabitha yet, although Jessica Lucas imbues her embryonic Tigress with enough cold calculating power and violence that you know she is no one to be messed with. Her brother, the seeming new criminal mastermind of the season, Theo, is played by James Frain, an actor who I am an unabashed fan of. Frain is one of those "that guy" actors, someone who appears in everything, and is often the villainous Brit. Whether it's as vampire Franklin Mott on True Blood, corporate baddie Ferdinand on Orphan Black (the best sci-fi show on television now. You should be watching it), wicked prince Eric Renard on Grimm (the best supernatural superhero show on TV now, and one with no comic book antecedent), the supervillain Chess on The Cape (remember The Cape? Six seasons and a movie never happened there, sorry Abed), or a slew of other characters, Frain brings a palpable sense of menace to his antagonists that I admire. I'm looking forward to seeing what Frain and his Legion of Madmen do.

Other episode highlights included Bruce and Alfred building a bomb and high-fiving when it works, Barbara's little phone call to Leslie, and the production design on Penguin's minions and the club Gordon goes to collect Penguin's money. Whatever else you have to say about this show, it is designed gorgeously,

So, where are we with Gotham now? Is the show perfect? By no stretch. Is it a fun carnival ride of madness and poor decision making by characters who should know better? Absolutely. And really, that's all I'm asking for at this point.

Gotham Episode 17: Red Hood (Or, My Thoughts on the Importance of the Joker's Mask)

I had thought, at the beginning of the season, that I might regularly write about Gotham and many of the other comic book based TV shows this season. But time gets away from one, and even more than time, the incredibly uneven season of Gotham hasn't helped it (not to mention the best comic based show of the season Agent Carter, didn't start til mid season. Expect something looking at the season next week). Every time I think Gotham is finding its footing, an episode would happen that would make me shake my head and put down my virtual pen. But last night's episode, "Red Hood" while still uneven, finally hit some of the points about Gotham City that I feel like they've needed to, not to mention having some strong performances and a plot that actually followed in most places.

One of Gotham's principal sins has been that it is incredibly busy. There are countless plots in each episode, to the point that many of the case of the week plots suffer at the hands of writers needing to stuff in a dozen other characters. And while there were still plenty of plots, I actually found the case in this episode actually worked, and Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock did some actual police work, not just roughing guys up, going to mob connections, and stumbling blindly into the solution of a case. While I understand Gotham has only the thinnest veneer of a procedural, it was nice to see that Gotham's good cops aren't completely dependent on luck and fists. And kudos to Lee Wong as Chiang, the witness. That guy was just a delight to watch. Any episode that doesn't have a great scene chewing sequence from Zsasz should totally have that guy.

That case of the week is the titular Red Hood Gang. While last episode set up one possible suspect for the future Joker, that episode was exceedingly uneven, and I have certain giant problems with the presentation of a commodity known to Gordon being the Joker (more on that later). The episode starts out with a sequence clearly meant to inspire memories of the brilliant heist scene from the beginning of The Dark Knight but in an early form; this isn't a Joker who's ready for prime time. But more than that, it's clear he's not the Joker when one of his gang kills him and takes the Hood. Pretty soon we're getting scenes of gangland betrayal as the Hood passes from one hand to another through murder.

My first instinct was to think of the Hood as a cursed object, like the Scarface dummy, carved from the gallows wood from Blackgate Penitentiary (my wife, Amber's response to that when I mentioned it was, "God, no wonder s#$%& like this happens in Gotham when they let people do stuff like that." And I can't say she's wrong). But I got to thinking and I don't think it's the Hood itself, it's the city. This is the first true talisman of the madness that bubbles beneath Gotham. The idea of the city as a character is a big part of Gotham, and I feel like the showrunners have been trying to capture that in this series with fairly limited success. The madness has been so contained, so random, and all so easily explained. Gotham isn't a bad, crazy city. It's just a corrupt, lazily run city. Get rid of guys like the mayor, Commissioner Loeb, and the Wayne Board, and the city itself is redeemable.

But Gotham isn't that. Writers over the years, as recently as Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder, have played with the idea that Gotham itself is just wrong, founded on blood, madness, and death, and it needs something like Batman to try to set it right. But as many proto-Scarecrows and Black Masks we see, none of them have been anchored in the city. The Red Hood has a power, not the one to avoid bullets that the initial owner thinks it has, but the power to inspire madness, to dredge up everything that is below the surface of Gotham and give it form. And that's a part of Gotham, and part of the Joker. More than just a grinning, unrepentant matricide, the Joker is anarchy and madness incarnate. So the idea that he is the logical (or illogical, I suppose), extension of what the Red Hood is doing to Gotham feels much better to me.

See, while I prefer Batman to have found his parents' killer and moved beyond that, I much prefer my Joker as the unknown. Accepting Alan Moore's, "pat little poor pathetic failed man who broke" theory feels no better than accepting Tim Burton's, "preening criminal who just went off the deep end," theory. Who the Joker is doesn't matter, and shouldn't. Knowing his origins takes something away from the character. Christopher Nolan got that, with Joker's speeches about his scars, and Paul Dini got it in "Mad Love" when it turns out the story he told Harley Quinn to win her over is just one of many versions of his past. The past to the Joker is just a shadow, something to cast where he needs it to serve his purpose. Who he was before he put on that hood and stepped into Ace Chemicals doesn't matter. That was a human being. The Joker is no longer anything human (Metaphorically. The verdicts's still out on what he really is until the end of Scott Snyder's "Endgame"), and to give him a past humanizes him, something that does him a disservice.

As to the rest of the episode, and the other plot lines, I'm happy to see further development from Bruce. I was fairly impressed early on with the show's handling of Bruce Wayne, but felt it meandered a bit. The past three episodes, we're starting to see a bit of Batman showing up. Not much, not enough to be frustrating, but the rage that fuels him is there, and the beginnings of the skill. But he's still a kid. And while the more militant Alfred is still not my ideal, I am really starting to adore the rapport between Sean Pertwee's Alfred and David Mazouz's Bruce. the entrance of the third party into their house, this time tied to Alfred, allows for Alfred to be fleshed out, and to provide some wonderful character moments between David O'Hara and Pertwee. And while I saw the episode ending twist coming a mile away, the moment of the betrayal was no less impactful for it.

The remaining three plotlines (yes, those of you who aren't watching Gotham, you thought I was joking about the number of plotlines in a episode. I wasn't), well, the less said about Barbara and her drunkenness and her growing weirder relationship with Selina and Ivy, the urchins she let stay in her apartment when she found them squatting there, the better. The only thing that I have to wonder is if there's a way that this show can make Barbara less likable. She doesn't listen to anyone, she's useless, and now with that scene that felt like something out of Law & Order: SVU between her and Selina, she's graduated from useless to plain creepy.

The Gotham mob plots were a bit more interesting. Fish Mooney's meeting with the guy running the clinic/human organ harvesting place she is imprisoned went about as expected. It's always great to see Jeffrey Combs on anything, although it took me a second to recognize him without Star Trek alien prosthetics, but that voice is so distinct it captured me immediately. And Jada Pinkett Smith once again proves that Fish chews that scenery better than anyone, and that nobody can outcrazy her. I still wonder why they don't just shoot her and be done with it, but maybe we'll get that when the Dollmaker makes his appearance. And can I say how odd it is that the Dollmaker, a fairly recent and obscure member of Batman's rogues gallery will now have appeared on TV live action TV series (a version was on Arrow last season), while we have yet to see a live Killer Croc in any medium. And I think the duo of Penguin and Butch is going to work just fine. They have been two of the highlights of the season, and they play off each other really well.

I don't know if Gotham is out of the woods just yet. There's still five episodes left in this season, and a lot can happen in five episodes for good or ill. But "Red Hood" might have been the series's strongest outing to date, and shows the potential of what the series could be with a little more clarity of vision.

TV’s Flash: The Hero We Need and Deserve

“Flash > Gotham. Discuss. Show your work.”

I posted that thought to Facebook last week, not sure whether I was being crazy or not, but, thankfully, my friends, a League of Extraordinary Gentlenerds to be sure, backed me up. In fact, amid our discussion, Matt gave me the title for this column.

A couple weeks back, we wrote about the premieres of Gotham and Agents of SHIELD, but we skipped the debut of The Flash two weeks later.

Then last week, I found myself watching the fourth episode of Gotham and being self-conscious of how much I was frowning. Something was bothering me, but I wasn't quite ready to articulate it.

Then I watched the second episode of The Flash the following night, and I figured it out:

I'm enjoying The Flash A) much more than I thought I would, and B) more than Gotham.

I did not see that coming.

In fact, were it up to me, I wouldn't have watched Flash at all. My wife (@HillaryGrote) threw it on the DVR on a whim. I had no interest, as I'm not a DC guy and I already wasn't watching Arrow, though it’s on my list of things to eventually get around to on Netflix.

But I'm not here to tear down Gotham. That's not what this blog is for. That's what comment sections are for!

Instead, let's talk about what The Flash is doing right. (Warning: I am NOT a Flash expert, so I’m writing solely within the context of the TV show.)

-They have fun with his powers. Having super speed allows Barry to heal quickly. In the second episode, Flash has fainting problems, not because some unseen enemy is sapping his powers, but because he needs more food to sustain his rapid metabolism. In the third episode, a suited-up Flash confronts the Mist at Iron Heights Prison and blurs his face so his dad can’t see him.

-The show isn't afraid to do cheesy villains, like a live-action Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Flash is known for his rogues’ gallery, a colorful assortment of villains with less than fear-inducing names. Just in the first episode, we got the Weather Wizard, Reverse Flash and a hint that Gorilla Grodd may feature in a future episode. Episode four introduces Captain Cold, played by Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller. It’s nice to see some new comic book villains get the live-action treatment, because honestly, how many more live-action Catwomen or Green Goblins do we need?

-The relationship between Barry and Detective West gives me the warm fuzzies, and yeah, that’s probably partly because my dad was a police officer for 27 years. There really isn’t a father figure-son relationship this healthy in any of the movie/TV superhero joints I’ve seen this side of Uncle Ben. It helps that Jesse L. Martin is no stranger to playing a cop, having spent about a decade on Law & Order.

-The low-hanging-but-still-brilliant casting fruit that is John Wesley Shipp as Barry's dad, Henry Allen. Shipp played the Flash on CBS for 22 episodes from 1990-91, and he played Dawson's dad on the late-’90s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, back when the CW was still the WB and its mascot was a singing frog.

-Tom Cavanaugh (Ed, the Mike and Tom Eat Snacks podcast) makes a great big bad as Harrison Wells, the scientist who mentors the Flash but manipulates events behind the scenes to fulfill Barry’s destiny and fakes being in a wheelchair like a true goldbricker (seriously, where’s Walter Sobchak when you need him?). There's a long-game here that's more than just “eventually Batman will show up.” Setting up STAR Labs as a metahuman prison in the third episode is a nice escalation of Wells’ arc, creating a Central City Arkham that will clearly suffer a breakout at some point, probably around the end of the season. That said, did anybody else think the hallway leading to the particle accelerator beneath STAR Labs looked a little too much like the hallway leading to Cerebro in the X-movies?

-A superhero in a red costume making jokes, enjoying his powers and fighting colorful villains? If I close my eyes tight enough, it's like Spider-Man got a TV series. Grant Gustin certainly looks like an American Andrew Garfield. He’s even got the notorious Parker Luck: The woman he loves (Iris West, with whom he grew up after his mom was murdered, so OK, maybe that’s kinda creepy) loves someone else, he’s chronically late to crime scenes despite his super speed, and for all his power he can’t bust his dad out of prison. Yet despite all that, the show never feels like it exists in the same dark universe as David S. Goyer. This is the DC I want my son to see when he's ready for the live-action stuff.

-Superhero team-ups. The premiere gave us a scene with Green Arrow (Stephen Amell), tying Flash into that other CW DC hero. The third episode introduced, via flashbacks, Robbie Amell (yes, relation) as Ronnie Raymond, the original Firestorm, who apparently was “killed” in the same STAR Labs accident that gave Barry his powers. Looking forward to the network digging up another Amell to play Red Tornado in a future episode.

For more on the Flash in general, read Matt’s write-up on Mark Waid’s defining run on the book during the Wally West years. Waid is currently doing gangbusters on another red-suited hero, Daredevil. 

Dan Grote has been a Matt Signal contributor since 2014 and friends with Matt since there were four Supermen and two Psylockes. His two novels, My Evil Twin and I and Of Robots, God and Government, are available on Amazon.

Agents of GOTHAM: Matt on Gotham and Dan on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I went into the series premiere of Gotham with both anticipation and trepidation. There are two kinds of comic book fans: the kind who get a hopeful swell every time a new translation or series for their favorite character appears, and the kind who wants to tear it down because it's not their version of the character. I am, I'd like to think quite obviously, the former. And a new Batman TV series? How could I not look forward to that? But it's not really Batman, or it is in the same way Smallville was Superman; a prequel where we won't actually see the hero that drives the action. So I was wondering if Jim Gordon could carry a pilot, let alone a series. And while the jury is till out on the series, the pilot was highly enjoyable.

I was surprised to see that the first character viewers see is neither Bruce Wayne or Jim Gordon, but a young Selina Kyle. I took this as something of a good sign, since I felt it meant we would be dealing with the wider world of Gotham, as the title indicates, and not just these dual narratives of Bruce and Jim. This is, of course, quickly followed by the iconic murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of Bruce, and the pilot deals mostly with Jim Gordon and his partner, Harvey Bullock, investigating the Wayne murders and running afoul of the mob. We get to see how these two police play off each other, with the more by the books Gordon and the more corrupt Bullock, and we get some great moments between them, some serious and some actually pretty funny. The hierarchy of the Gotham mob is established, with appearances by classic characters like Oswald "Penguin" Cobblepot and Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, and new mobsters like Fish Mooney and most of her crew. There are plenty of other Batman universe cameos, but you don't need any real knowledge of the character history to watch the episode.

Ben McKenzie's got some big shoes to fill as Jim Gordon, and I think he did a solid job of it in this episode. He's driven, honest, but doesn't come off as a boy scout. He has an edge to him that I feel works for the modern portrayal of Gordon. If you had asked me any actor in Hollywood to play Harvey Bullock, I would have said Donal Logue, and I was right; he was born to play Bullock. He has the right mix of humor and violence. I was also impressed with Robin Lord Taylor's Oswald Cobblepot, as it is clearly two roles, the one he plays as an obsequious toady to his mob boss, and the other when he's making deals with the GCPD. But the biggest surprise and relief was David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne. I was worried about how Bruce Would be portrayed, either as a lost sniveling kid or as Batman already, but the writers, and Mazouz, found a nice balance. There are moments where Bruce does indeed seem lost, but at least one other between him and Alfred, played in the Michael Caine "old soldier" model by Sean Pertwee, where we see the kind of steel he has in him.

The look of the series is nothing unfamiliar to anyone who has watched any of the modern live action interpretations of Batman. Gotham is a dark, rundown city. It does feel more in line with the Nolan films, which clearly influenced the production, than the more surreal Burton ones, but the influence of all of them are felt. I liked the way the episode was shot as well (with the exception of a couple of odd shots of McKenzie's face as he chases the man he thinks killed the Waynes, done with what felt like a handheld camcorder). There were some very nice shots, especially of Selina scaling roofs and of Gordon approaching Wayne Manor that stick out in my mind.

If you are a continuity nut who is bothered by changes to the existing canon in adaptation, well... I'd probably steer clear. There are lots of tweaks that will drive you nuts. Oh, one thing I noted that pleased me in this regard: I did my best to go as unspoiled as possible by casting announcements, so I didn't realize that Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen would be characters in the show as GCPD officers (by comic continuity, Montoya wouldn't have been born yet, or be in diapers, and Allen would still be in Metropolis). So we have two principal police characters, both of color, and Montoya is clearly still a lesbian. After the discussions about the straight-washing of John Constantine for his new series, it's good to see Gotham not only keeping Montoya's orientation, but making it a plot point without making it something that is going to define her character.

OK, folks, SPOILER HATS ON: I've been general so far, but I really want to discuss the one aspect of the pilot that has me... not nervous, since this is a different vision of Batman, but a bit disappointed. Anyone who has read a mystery novel or watched a cop show could tell that the death of the Waynes was a hit, not a mugging, pretty much straight away, and this is borne out by the episodes end. I have never liked this version of Batman's origin. I feel the randomness of the crime makes it much more poignant; it's not about taking out the mob (that's the Punisher's schtick), it's about stopping crime from hurting anyone else. I just feel like something that is elemental to Batman is lost when it's not a random crime. I can see why they chose to do it, as it gives Gordon something to investigate and something he can get close to solving, so he doesn't look like a major loser since he can't take out any of the major villains they'll be introducing, but I wish there was a way that didn't invalidate something I find important to what Batman is. SPOILER HATS OFF

So, in the end, what do we get? We get a  stylish crime drama pilot, with a bit of the procedural and a bit of the noir tossed in. A lot happens in the episode, more than we get in two or three episodes of some shows, so that's a point in it's favor for me, who likes a densely packed show. There are solid performances. And there's the beginning of a new interpretation of the Batman mythos. While I'm not one hundred percent sold, I think there's a lot of potential here, and I'll be back next week.

The show that wasn’t very interesting for most of its first season then got much, much better for five episodes is BACK! And I’m happy to report that even without Bill Paxton stealing every scene, Agents of SHIELD has retained the quality it finally unlocked earlier this year.

When we last left Joss Whedon’s band of misfit spies, Agent Coulson had been given directorship of a new, post-Hydra SHIELD, complete with a new base and a new clone of Agent Koenig (yay for more Patton Oswalt!).

As the new director – Nick Fury went underground at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Coulson has distanced himself from his agents, with the possible exceptions of May and Koenig, as he tries to recruit new ones who won’t whisper “Hail Hydra” in Gary Shandling’s ear when no one’s looking. In the meantime, he’s padding out the ranks with old contacts and mercs, among them Isabelle Hartley, played by Lucy Lawless, returning to sci-fi/action/adventure after playing Ron Swanson’s love interest on Parks and Recreation.

The show opens strong, in 1945, with a couple of Hydra leftovers debating their next move and revealing the MCU’s latest macguffin – a tiny version of a mall art installation that just happens to have the same Kree gibberish inscribed on it that we saw last season – when in walks Peggy Carter and Howling Commandos Dum Dum Dugan and Jim Morita to round up the stragglers and ponder the German word for nuts.

Said macguffin, referred to as “the obelisk,” wound up in SHIELD hands and later on the black market amid the insurrection. Coulson’s crew are attempting to track it down when they are forced to confront a new baddie from the Marvel pantheon, Carl “Crusher” Creel, the Absorbing Man, who is able to take on the properties of any material he touches and is often depicted as a shirtless, bald weirdo wielding an old-timey prison ball-and-chain. Suffice it to say, the TV version looks much cooler – so much so that it feels like the show maybe got a bump in its effects budget.

So what else have the agents been up to since last we left them? Well, they’re keeping turncoat Ward locked up in their new base, sending Skye to visit him whenever Coulson thinks he can provide useful information. Ward apparently has been using his time behind laser-bars to grow a beard, try to kill himself and work on his Hannibal Lecter impression. At least it’s made him more interesting.

Meanwhile, Ward’s replacement, Agent Triplett, is still around, thankfully. The grandson of Howler Gabe Jones was a welcome addition to the show last season and a far more watchable good guy than his predecessor.

Back in the lab, Fitz, the male of the two Hogwarts post-grad students who heretofore made up the team’s science unit, is having problems remembering words and otherwise doing the things for which he was hired after nearly drowning last season. He’s also hallucinating conversations with his former partner, Simmons, who it’s later revealed is no longer on the team, so he’s essentially their brain-damaged ward, having A Beautiful Mind conversations with himself. This gives Koenig more room to act as Coulson’s Q-style consigliere.

Also back is Adrian Pasdar as Brig. Gen. Glenn Talbot, the military hardass who decided that after the Hydra insurrection, all SHIELD personnel, good or bad, needed to be rounded up. Amid the quest for the macguffin and fighting the Absorbing Man, Coulson has his people steal a Quinjet from Talbot, so they have a transport unit with a cloaking device.

On the whole, the first episode back made me want to restore the show to my DVR. Between the quest stars, watching Lucy Lawless demand her arm be cut off, the increasing importance of Patton Oswalt, and the Absorbing Man's no-at-all-cheesy transformations, SHIELD's overseers are clearly trying to improve upon their rough start, and deserve a second chance.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 5/7

Batman: Eternal #5
Story: James Tynion IV & Scott Snyder, Tim Seeley, John Layman, Ray Fawkes
Art: Andy Clarke

I still plan on doing a catch up on this series with individual issue analyses, but I had to talk about this issue because it made me ever so happy. This issue moves away from the Jim Gordon plotline that was the driving force of the first month and introduces or fleshes out a few more characters. We get to see Vicky Vale, the reporter who is probably best known for her appearance in the first Tim Burton Batman movie, but is a much older character than that, as well as introducing her new associate at the Gotham Gazette. We also get to see Harper Row and her brother Cullen, the characters introduced as new supporting characters by Scott Snyder in his run on Batman. I love Harper; she's smart, tough, and a nice addition to the Bat family. But the thing that made this issue for me, really made it, was Tim Drake. Yes, it really feels like Red Robin is back in the Bat titles, after only a few appearances here and there throughout the tenure of the New 52. And this feels like my Tim Drake. I'm not going to start bashing Teen Titans here, but I will say that the Tim Drake there has not really rung true to someone who has pretty much every appearance the character has ever made. But this issue works beautifully. Tim is the tech savvy detective he always felt like he was supposed to be; he looks at the bigger picture and figures out something Bruce hasn't, and then he gets into a fight with a bunch of nanobots. Andy Clarke's art is solid throughout the issue, but the creepy tentacles of nanobots are really a great visual. I've been enjoying Eternal so far, but if this issue is an indication of the Red Robin to come, this book is going to be high on my reading order each and every week.

Cyclops #1
Story: Greg Rucka
Art: Russell Dauterman

I love Cyclops; I've written about that before. I love Greg Rucka. So the combination of a Cyclops ongoing written by Greg Rucka was a surefire hit with me. This series features the young Cyclops, the one brought to the present in All New X-Men on a space adventure with his dad, the space pirate Corsair. Cyclops here is sixteen, and someone who thought he lost his dad years before. Now he's trying to not only navigate being out of his own time and away from everyone he knows, but with the father he thought he lost and a crew that includes a giant lizard man, a bird alien, a cyborg, and a cat/skunk woman his dad is dating. Rucka paints a great picture of Cyclops, one that is fully fleshed out; he's a confused teenager without being whiny about it; Corsair gives his son the advice that, "everyone sucks at being sixteen," and I have to say, Rucka remembers that feeling and knows how to make it work really well. Aside from all that introspection and character beats, we also get some hints about exactly how Corsair is back from the dead (no, not the time Cyclops thought he was dead. That time he was just abducted by aliens. The time he seemed really dead), we get to meet Corsair's crew, the Starjammers, and we get an action piece involving boarding a Badoon ship. One of the things that makes this a strong first issue is you get pretty much an entire story in one issue. Marvel has had some great first issue's lately, especially She-Hulk and Daredevil, both of which did exactly this. While I understand trying to build a series around the first issue and having it spin into a huge arc, I always feel a strong stand alone first issue helps lure the reader back for more. While it might not have the direct agency of a "To be continued," you can get a better feel of exactly what the book will be if the first issue stands on its own. I find this especially true with mainstream superhero books, where the world building isn't as difficult since you're building a house of a pre-existing frame; books where you have to build the whole world get a bit more time from me, and I'll get to that in a minute. The issue wraps with Cyclops and Corsair heading out on their own in the captured Badoon ship for a tour of the galaxy's great sites. I'm a sucker for father and son stories, and this is a cosmic road trip thrown in. It looks like a fun, action series with a strong core relationship, and is a series I'm looking forward to watching develop.

Nailbiter #1
Story: Joshua Williamson
Art: Mike Henderson

Speaking of issue ones that have to spend some time doing world building, here is the horrifying (in the best sense of the word) Nailbiter, from the writer of my favorite Image series I feel like needs more attention, Ghosted, Joshua Williamson. Imagine one town produced Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Jack the Ripper. If it existed, that town would be Buckaroo, Oregon, a creepy little town that has produced sixteen serial killers. After a brief introduction to one of these "Buckaroo Butchers," the titular  Edward "Nailbiter" Warren, we are introduced to the character who seems to be our protagonist, Nicholas Finch, an army intelligence agent who seems about to take his own life. Only a call from a friend of his, an FBI profiler, stops him. His friend tells him that he has discovered the secret of Buckaroo, and that Finch needs to get out to Buckaroo now. Finch arrives, only to find his friend missing and the town creepier than he imagined. Quickly he meets the local goth girl who local toughs harass with comments about her becoming the next Butcher, the guy who runs the local serial killer souvenir shop, and the local sheriff. Sheriff Crane, who knew Carroll, Finch's friend, was also looking for the missing man, and the two go to meet the person Carroll was in touch with: Nailbiter Warren, who is free and living back in town. The first issue is wonderfully atmospheric, with gorgeous dark art from Mike Henderson. This first issue works very differently than Cyclops did; while we only get sketches of the characters (well wrought ones; I'm curious to see more about Finch's past and his anger issues, for instance), this issue establishes mood and setting perfectly. Buckaroo is going to be as much a character as any of the people in this series, and it is the thing I feel like I know the best after this first issue. And frankly, that's a character that made gooseflesh break out on my arms, which for a horror comic, is a very good sign.

The Sixth Gun #40
Story: Cullen Bunn
Art: Brian Hurtt

I feel bad that I haven't written about The Sixth Gun more. I've commented about other books that fall in a similar range, a book that is so consistently good that I don't reach out and address it as I should. Frankly, as we run down to the end of the series, I'll probably do a full on recommended reading for it, but for now, let's look at issue #40. For those unfamiliar, The Sixth Gun is a weird western that follows six magical guns that can bring about the apocalypse, and those who bear them, some trying to destroy the guns, some trying to use them for their own nefarious purposes. After most of our heroes were killed over the past few issues, those few remaining, Beckie Montcrief (the bearer of the Sixth Gun), Drake Sinclair (the bearer of four of the other six guns), and Nidawi (bearer of the spirit of the shaman Screaming Crow), are being chased by serpent men and Jesup, the bearer of the Fifth Gun and servant of Griselda, the Grey Witch, who plans to use the guns to remake the world. It's another brutal issue, where more of our heroes fall by the wayside, and features a great battle between Jesup and Drake. Drake is becoming more and more affected by the guns he bears, and when Jesup gets his hands on a couple of them, things turn badly for Drake. Series artist Brian Hurtt does a tremendous job in the scene where Drake must face down the golems created by the Fourth Gun. Becky's use of the Sixth Gun to travel back in time to talk to her fallen friend, Gord Cantrell, to learn what he knew of the guns is poignant and painful, as Gord knows the only reason Becky would be coming to him in this form. With only ten issues left before the finale, The Sixth Gun continues to ramp up the tension, with the supernatural elements all coming together to what I'm sure is going to one final great battle between good and evil.

Oh, and a couple general notes before I go:

- I was still recovering from a wonderful and exhausting Free Comic Book Day last week (thanks to everyone who came out and made it an amazing day), so I didn't take notes as I was reading my books and thus don't have the info to write a full review here, but you should all check out Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour. Deep South crime done amazingly; if you liked Scalped, Aaron's last crime book, this is well worth checking out.

- With network upfronts now hitting, we have seen not only the renewal of the two current major network comic book based series, Arrow and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, but the pick up of five more: iZombie, Flash, Constantine, Gotham, and Marvel's Agent Carter. The trailers for two of these have hit, and I enjoyed both quite a bit. I remain optimistic about Gotham, and Donal Logue was born to play Harvey Bullock, but Constantine knocked me off my feet. There's a clear reverence for the source material, the opening shot of Ravenscar Asylum shows that right off the bat, and Matt Ryan looks like the DC Direct John Constantine action figure come to life. And he's British! I know three minutes can't tell you too much about a series, but that was a fine three minutes, and I'm on the hook for this one, no doubt.