By: Cesar Rodriguez

When it comes to Batman, I don’t know if there is any other comic book character who has had as many talented writers and artists create so many great stories for him. Everyone has their favorite run, for some it’s the classic Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams run, for others the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers run, and I don’t doubt that one day many might look back at the current Grant Morrison work and view it as their favorite. But for me, my personal favorite run has always been by writer Alan Grant, and artist Norm Breyfogle. These two talented creators came together in the late eighties to hopefully revitalize some energy into Detective Comics before being moved to Batman and then finally launching a new title, Shadow of the Bat, for what was an amazing run lasting over four years. That is why this is such an exciting week for me and many others as DC has reunited this dream team together again for this week’s Retroactive – The 90’s: Batman issue.

When I look back through some of their issues, the first thing I am reminded of was all the new villains that they came up with. Grant Morrison has been praised for creating so many weird and morbid villains for Batman in his current run, but another Scottish writer was doing the same thing twenty years earlier. Writer Alan Grant has admitted that when he was assigned the task of writing Batman, he had not been up to date on the current events, so rather than risk writing a Joker or Two-Face story that conflicted with the current continuity, he chose instead to just come up with some new villains. Batman easily has the best rogues gallery in comics, and Grant and Breyfogle made it even bigger by creating some of the most bizarre, sick and twisted villains during their tenure. Right from their first story arc together they introduced Scarface and the Ventriloquist, the schizophrenic puppeteer, who went on to become a popular villain before being killed off a few years ago. My favorite villain from their run would have to be Cornelius Stirk, a psychotic serial killer with a mind bending power to make others see him however he pleases, which ranged anywhere from Abraham Lincoln, a beautiful woman, a demon to Jesus. With such a psychedelic power it sure made for one memorable and VERY surrealistic story. Another favorite villain of mine was Kadaver, a horror movie obsessed sicko who constantly changed his appearance with the use of make up or gags and slept in a coffin inside a lair filled with all the classic torture devices such as an iron maiden, guillotines and a swinging axe. Of course, after a while Alan Grant began to occasionally use the familiar rogues such as Joker, Penguin or Catwoman, but none of their stories had as great of an impact as The Mud Pack, where he brought together all previous versions of Clayface and gave rise to a new and deadlier version in a surprisingly twisted, yet touching story. Their run also ended by introducing another popular villain, Mr Zsasz, the deranged slasher who has become one of Batman’s sickest and scariest foes.

What’s so great about this run is also how varied the stories are, obviously I’ve mentioned many of the villains, but Grant was not afraid to have Batman deal with threats outside of the usual psychotic foes. One of the most recurring themes throughout the run was unstoppable threat of drugs. Drugs were obviously a hot topic in the eighties and they were clearly something that as hard as Batman tried, he simply could not put an end to them. He may be able to punch dealers and pushers in the face, but that would still never be enough from preventing children from trying, or even selling them, in the first place. Grant was also not afraid to go supernatural either, one memorable story arc had Batman against a six-armed Tibetan demon, so having no other option he calls to the aid of Etrigan. On paper, a Batman and Etrigan team up probably shouldn’t work, but it is actually one of the highlights of this run and the two characters have had several team ups since then. Batman even fought Islamic terrorists years before it was ever a twinkle in Frank Miller’s mind. Anarchy was another controversial topic that was brought up in the form of a new character, Anarky, a harsh vigilante out to fight social injustices. Grant neither paints Anarky as a hero, nor a villain, but instead as a grey socially conscious character that makes the reader question Batman’s effectiveness compared to an extreme anarchist such as Anarky.

Obviously, a great script is only half of what makes a great comic, as artist Norm Breyfogle handled the art duties of bringing Grant’s scripts into one of the most definitive portrayals of Batman ever put on page. While most artists draw Batman with an Arnold Schwarzenegger physique, Breyfogle instead drew him with a powerful, but slim and athletic physique that really made the character look like he could flip across rooftops with ease. Breyfogle’s sharp and dynamic art style really lent itself perfectly for a character like Batman as there was a real sense of kinetic energy and movement on the page. When Batman round housed someone, it really jumped out at you. The cape seems to be the part of Batman that most artists love to play with as you can do so much with it, but I would go as far as say that NO ONE draws Batman’s cape better than Breyfogle. The cape was always bending, twisting, and changing its shape around Batman as if it were alive, which gave Batman a larger than life, almost supernatural appearance and of course made him look scary. Something else that I always greatly admired about Breyfogle’s work was how well he made his characters act through his wide range of big character expressions. While most artists draw Batman as cold and stone faced, Breyfogle drew Batman, as well as just about every other character, as very human displaying every emotion through facial expressions.

For the Bat-historians, this run also has a very important significance to Tim Drake fans. While Grant and Breyfogle certainly didn’t create the character, they were largely responsible for the development of the character early on as he became an integral part of the supporting cast. Grant was wise to make the reader care for Drake before he ever donned the costume by showing his growth from an ordinary kid into hero worthy of being by Batman‘s side. Shortly after Drake suffers his first real defeat, the murder of his mother, he becomes even more eager to don the Robin costume but is forbidden by Batman. It isn’t until Batman is captured by Scarecrow that Tim decides to risk his own life to save that of his mentor’s and in the process is exposed to fear gas, but is able to overcome it. All of this severs as Drake’s trial by fire that mirrors the events of Batman’s life years prior and of course shapes Drake into the true hero he is today. It seems that just about any Bat-fan, who is familiar with this, run holds it in high regard, but since these issues were published twenty years ago, many readers today are not aware of the awesome stories within these pages. Unfortunately, these issues have never been collected in any format, which should be a crime as I have already discussed why it is such an impressive run. I’d really love to see some sort of trade paperback collection one day, not just for sake of convenience, but also to hopefully create more awareness of what is with out a doubt one of the most definitive Batman runs.