This limited series represents more than a reunion for a classic and much-lauded Batman creative team from the 1970s. It represents a different side of the Dark Knight, a side we've rarely seen since Frank Miller's landmark limited series in the mid 1980s. Steve Englehart offers up a slightly more playful Batman, one that's still haunted by his past but stands out as more of an ordinary man rather dark avenger of the night. This is the Batman as a rogue, as an adventurer and as a thinker. There's a simplicity to the script that's a little distracting but charming at the same time, but the wit, action and melodrama, while obvious, are ultimately fun and welcoming. This is a great look back at a different interpretation of a classic character and a great Batman comic for all ages.
Bruce Wayne attends a fundraiser for a gubernatorial candidate whose campaign promises include an initiative to legitimize the Batman in the law-enforcement community as opposed to hunting him down like a rogue vigilante. Wayne is shocked to discover who the candidate's fiancee is as he comes face to face with a past lover: Silver St. Cloud. That's not the only surprise to pop up at the event, as the Joker turns up to make an announcement of his own.
Silver St. Cloud's appearance an issue of Detective Comics in the late '70s may have been one of the first times, if not the first, that I noticed a girl (or fascimile thereof) as being something soft and desirable. The character seemed to ooze sexuality, at least to this reader, who at the time had no idea what sexuality was. The same mystique and sensuality fails to turn up here. Silver still comes off as beautiful, but the romantic and sexual tension between her and the Batman just doesn't come through here (yet). Rogers offers up a lithe and graceful vision of the Batman. He's not the bulked-up brute we often see in comics today. The artist's interpretation of the Joker remains a strong one. There's a creepiness and rotten quality around the edges of his gaudy appearance. The colors reinforce that feel with a tinge of yellow and redness in his eyes. Chuckry employs a darker blue tone for the title character's costume than what we saw adorning Rogers's line art three decades ago, but it works well, reinforcing the grimmer side of the character.
Englehart offers an accessible reintroduction to Silver St. Cloud, and I would imagine there are many readers who are unfamiliar with the character. The problem is that this introductory issue fails to capture the depths of Bruce and Silver's unusual and unstable relationship. I was pleased with the other references to elements from Englehart's run on Detective so many years ago, notably the mentions of the Joker Fish. Those stories influenced many Batman creators who followed, notably those working on the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini Batman animated series of the 1990s.
My favorite part about this issue had nothing to do with Silver St. Cloud or nostalgia. Englehart presents Bruce Wayne as a man, fallible, vulnerable, relatable. This Batman is not engimatic, not cold, not distant. He's driven by a tragic turning point in his past, but it doesn't define him completely. Is this a better interpretation of the Batman? I wouldn't say that, but it's a refreshing change of pace. 7/10
