Batman: Year 100

I meant to babble about this one back over the winter break when I first read it, but I never quite gathered my thoughts together. And I still haven’t. But I do really like the book. So here are some ungathered thoughts.

Pope’s art is just so interesting to look at – his characters’ faces look like mangled dough roughly pushed into place & I particularly dig the way he does lips, bee-stung, overfilled, fit to burst. The bat-fangs are way cool and the red-washed elevator scene is righteous & I think page 101 panel 1 (in the 2007 TPB), with Bats bunched into a ball rocking throwback boxing boots, is my favorite of the book.

I actually didn’t care so much for the script in the beginning, but that’s my fault – I wasted way too much time trying to figure out the timeline & not enough time rolling with the story. To pass the blame buck elsewhere, I feel like I’ve been programmed to place DC comics in continuity first, to appreciate them based on their ties to esoteric historia, and to enjoy them second. Those are the bitter words of someone not steeped head to toe in the minutia of DC lore, but whatever.

So then I relaxed about the who’s who and settled into the story. Pope boils Bats’ identity down to basics, and by the end, I didn’t care whether it was a Bruce or a babchi behind the cowl.