Collect This! Batman: The Lazarus Affair 3

The 100-Page Super Spectacular returns with the penultimate chapter in "The Lazarus Affair," Batman 334. This chapter runs a short 17 pages, with the final pages taken up by a one-page murder mystery solved by Commissioner Gordon (written by Bob Rozakis) and a Jason Bard backup by Mike W. Barr and Dan Spiegle.

The issue opens with Batman, having been gassed in Hong Kong as Bruce Wayne, waking up on Infinity Island in his Batman costume. Batman's captor shows him various scenes of life on the island, with toga-garbed elite living an idyllic life on the surface, and shirtless slaves working the mines below: a class division reminiscent of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Meanwhile, Catwoman and Robin, in disguise, have been taken prisoner in Hong Kong and are about to be injected with overdoses of opium.

It appears from that sequence of panels that Catwoman was wearing a Selina Kyle disguise over her Catwoman costume, which makes no sense. (If that third panel were taken out of context, it would appear that she's holding up Selina Kyle's head.) Also, it's unclear how they got out of their disguises and into their costumes so quickly. Catwoman and Robin soon round up King Faraday and head off to Infinity Island. However, they are captured along the way by the red, Rover-like retrievers.

The trio are quickly put to work in the mines.

I have a new appreciation for the practicality of Robin's costume here. Sure, the short pants are goofy, but when you're forced to perform slave labor in a mine, you want to be comfortable. Catwoman's high-heeled boots and King Faraday's trenchcoat certainly aren't helping them.

Batman gets to see all this on a tv monitor, and his captor gives him a choice between life on the surface or in the mines, and he, naturally, chooses the mines. He's not there long, however, because it turns out this is the easiest slave camp to escape from.

Talia also assists in the escape, but as is common in these stories, she is faced with a choice, as her premature aging conveniently kicks in.

I wonder what Catwoman's basis for comparison is here. Talia looks "almost fifty" only if we're talking about someone who spent every day coated in butter, laying out in the sun and smoking unfiltered Camels.

One of the biggest flaws of this storyline is that it tries to build suspense as to the identity of the villain. It's difficult to imagine a reader not being able to connect the dots here: Talia, the international settings, a story called "The Lazarus Affair"--it all seems pretty obvious.

Yet, what's even more befuddling is that the heroes didn't figure it out, either, as we see in the issue's shocking ending:


Next: The Explosive Conclusion!

Collect This! The Lazarus Affair 2

The series of posts on this Batman story got delayed by a variety of things, so I'm going to spend the next couple of days getting through the remaining issues of "The Lazarus Affair."

Batman 333 opens with an introduction to another mysterious player in the story: a white-haired man wearing a trenchcoat, who picks up the signal sent by Archer Templeton in the previous issue.

Who is this white-haired mystery man? My guess is it's CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. We'll have to wait until later to see if I'm right.

Meanwhile, Batman has traveled to Switzerland disguised as Gregorian Falstaff's henchman Karlyle Krugerrand in order to search Falstaff's safe deposit box located in what's called a "criminal bank." However, Batman doesn't realize that Krugerrand is dead--killed in an encounter with Catwoman at the end of the previous issue. Batman thinks he's gotten through the tight security system, only to have a trap sprung on him.

Now, here's the panel that immediately follows:

How did Batman get his jacket, pants, shoes, and gloves off while hanging by one hand? Maybe he was wearing those tearaway, velcro pants that basketball players wear for warm-ups.

Also, does building a bank on top of a volcano fill clients with confidence that their assets and valuables will be safe?

Whatever the case, Batman manages to escape the deathtrap, and a James Bond-style ski chase ensues, complete with lasers.

Batman takes a laser beam to the ribs, though, and has to make his way back to Bruce Wayne's Swiss chalet, where Talia is waiting for him. And here, we get the obligatory shirtless Batman scene, which occurs in nearly every Ra's al Ghul story.

I think it's great that Batman leaves the mask on while Talia administers the "salve." You just know at one point in their relationship, Talia instructed Batman to "leave the mask on," and that's how things have gone since.

Of course, one of the dangers of doing a shirtless Batman scene is that someone doesn't get the memo that Batman is shirtless. Let's take a closer look at the fifth panel from above:

Rather than seeing this as a mistake, though, I'd just like to believe that Bruce Wayne has a Batman symbol tattooed on his chest. Perhaps that's what Talia's doing in the second panel.

One of the many things I like about this story is how Marv Wolfman characterizes Bruce Wayne. Though he does come across as a bit whiney in the above scene, complaining about painful relationships, Bruce Wayne is otherwised characterized as an international playboy with some James Bond qualities.

There is especially a lot of sexual innuendo in the dialogue between Batman and Talia: we know exactly what they mean by "comforting," a word that appears in bold every time it's used. I'm surprised that Bruce doesn't put up air-quotes when he says it.

And speaking of sexual innuendo, I'm really surprised at what DC let Marv Wolfman get away with back in 1981:

Man, someone at the Comics Code Authority must have been asleep at the wheel!

(And by "Chinese border," she really means "utility belt.")

Anyway, Batman and Talia decide that their next step is to sneak into China. This installment ends in Hong Kong, where Bruce Wayne is gassed and taken prisoner.

The issue also contains a related backup story featuring a Robin and Catwoman team-up. After leaving the Batcave in a huff last issue, Robin seeks out help from another of Batman's love interests.

This team-up squares the love triangle established in the previous issue, and much drama comes from Catwoman's jealousy of the Batman-Talia relationship.

Following their own investigation, Catwoman and Robin also make their way to China, where they join with the mysterious, white-haired trenchcoat guy from the beginning of the issue:

Turns out it's not Anderson Cooper after all, but DC universe secret agent King Faraday. I may be wrong about this, but I think this is Faraday's first appearance in a DC comic after decades in limbo. After this story, I always thought that King Faraday was a cool character, and he's been used off and on as the go-to secret agent ever since. And now, he can be seen regularly in the series Checkmate.

The issue ends with Faraday, Catwoman, and Robin all being taken prisoner, which sets up the reunion with Batman and Talia for the final half of the story.

Collect This! Batman: The Lazarus Affair 1

The coverage of "The Lazarus Affair," one of the great Ra's al Ghul stories, continues with the first part of the story, from Batman 332.

In "The Lazarus Affair," Marv Wolfman created a kind of corporate espionage thriller that involved Bruce Wayne as much as Batman, and few writers between Wolfman and Grant Morrison have dealt with the Bruce Wayne character in this executive role to this extent. Through the long-developing subplots, Wolfman gradually makes things very bad for Bruce Wayne, to the point that he is at risk for losing Wayne Enterprises. This is also not the ultra-competent version of Batman that we've seen lately in the comics--here, Batman is spread too thin, and he misses signs that something is wrong with his company until it is almost too late.

As an espionage tale, however, "The Lazarus Affair" wears its influences on its sleeve. The title itself bears a striking resemblence to the titles of Robert Ludlum novels, like The Bourne Identity and The Parsifal Mosaic. And including the word "Affair" in the title hearkens back to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series, in which every episode had that word in the title.

One of the most strikingly obvious references, though, comes in a framing sequence from issue 332. The story opens with a spy named "Archer Templeton" escapes in an inflatable raft from "Infinity Island." Archer hastily removes a radio transmitter from his bag and begins broadcasting a secret code. As the issue concludes, the master of Infinity Island sends out a retrieval device to eliminate Archer.

Now, what does that remind me of? A spy, who attempts to escape from a mysterious island, is tracked down by a globular retrieval device? Have I seen that somewhere before?

Oh yeah--that's it.

Before I go any further, I want to get one thing out of the way. In the interest of full disclosure, I feel it's my duty as a comic blogger to point out that Batman 332 contains the following panel:

Now, when I saw that panel in my recent revisiting of this comic, my comic blogger sense started tingling, and my mind was filled with lines like, "It always does in those shorts, Robin!" and "I think we all know who pitches a tent when Talia's around!" However, here at the 100-Page Super Spectacular, I try to run a classy operation, so I'll just let that one pass without comment.

In this issue, Bruce Wayne figures out that Gregorian Falstaff has been sabotaging his business deals through inside information provided by Wayne's secretary, Caroline Crown. Here's a panel from issue 330 showing Caroline giving Falstaff a call:

It seems, from the arch of her eyebrow and the tone of her dialogue, that she's enjoying her espionage activities, but that is not consistent with the way she is portrayed two issues later:

Here, we see that she is being blackmailed by Falstaff, who is keeping her daughter hostage. (An added note: I love the way Batman enters the room in this panel. It's not so much that he's kicking the door open, but rather opening the door with his foot.)

Gregorian Falstaff is a great character, and I really wish someone would bring him back. Here are some randomly selected images from his appearances in the series:


Notice some similarities? He is always wearing the same green coat with yellow ascot, he talks like Sidney Greenstreet, and he always has a giant, partially eaten turkey leg in his hand. Seriously, what's not to love about that character.

Unfortunately, this is Falstaff's final appearance, as Talia kicks him into a a glowing energy sphere (which resembles the one I showed earlier), and he disintegrates.

Or does he?

No, he does.

Next time: "The Lazarus Affair" continues with some very special guest stars!

Collect This! Batman: The Lazarus Affair Prequel

With the impending return of Ra's al Ghul to the pages of Batman, I thought I'd take the next few days to look at two of my favorite stories featuring this villain--"Bat-Murderer" from Detective Comics 444-448 (1975) and "The Lazarus Affair" from Batman 332-335 (1981)--neither of which has been collected in trade paperback. ("Bat-Murderer," however, was collected in one of the great DC digests of the 80s, possibly to coincide with "The Lazarus Affair.") Both of these stories really should be collected, though--perhaps in a second volume of the Tales of the Demon trade.

For no good reason other than I have the issues sitting right next to me, I'm going to start with the second story, "The Lazarus Affair," written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Irv Novick and Frank McLaughlin.

This story was the swan song for Marv Wolfman's run as writer on Batman, and as such, it functions as a culmination point for several subplots that ran through Wolfman's issues. If Marv Wolfman has a legacy in comics as a storyteller (as opposed to the legacy he has through his creations or co-creations, like Blade and the New Teen Titans), it's his ability to maintain soap-opera-like subplots over many issues. In this case, there were three inter-related subplots at work that fed into "The Lazarus Affair": Lucius Fox's struggle with his son, Timmy, who was getting involved in a street gang; the betrayal of Bruce Wayne by his new secretary, Caroline Crown; and the corporate sabotage of Wayne Enterprises by the aptly named Gregorian Falstaff. All of these three plots come together in issue 330: Timmy's gang has been manipulating Timmy at the behest of Falstaff to aid in a robbery of Wayne Enterprises, and Caroline Crown has been feeding inside information to Falstaff so that he can underbid Wayne on certain contracts. In addition, Robin recently returned to the series after dropping out of Hudson University (a source of tension between the two partners), and, most important, Talia shows up in issue 330, anticipating the arrival of her father.

So, in considering "The Lazarus Affair," it's useful to start with Talia's arrival in 330.

Robin asks the musical question: "Why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday?"

The issue begins with death-row killah Archie Skyler putting out the word through his lawyer that anyone who kills Batman before Arch's scheduled execution in the morning will receive $10 million in gold. This offer brings the assassins out of the wordwork in Gotham, and Batman is confused by these sudden random attacks.

In a parallel plot, the story also follows a master assassin named "Cowboy," who has been training for just such an opportunity.
"Trainin'" for Cowboy consists of shooting, stabbing, and bitch-slapping a cardboard stand-up of Batman. Is that really training? If so, then you'll have to excuse me while I head over to Spencer's Gifts to train for my upcoming battles with Xena, Gene Simmons, and Princess Leia.

The attacks on Batman and Robin continue, including one where a grenade lobbed from a rooftop lands in the front seat of the Batmobile. The grenadier, however, is not long for this world, as we see in a series of panels containing three of the most awesome sound effects:
I don't understand, though, how the assassin is screaming "Agghhh!" while the sound effect "ARRRRGGHH!" trails behind him. "BLAMMO!" is my favorite sound effect for a gunshot, though.


The Dynamic Duo's savior is Talia. She reassures Batman that the man she shot is not dead, but neither Batman nor Robin does anything to confirm it. She also quickly lets Robin know that three's a crowd, and she and Batman proceed to ditch the Boy Wonder.

Batman eventually lures all of the assassins to the isolated "Grosvenor's Island," where he eliminates all of them from contention for the $10 million prize, with the exception of Cowboy, who slinks behind a tree waiting for a better opportunity. Batman and Robin finally take Cowboy down at the Wayne Foundation building, and Archie Skyler is taken to the electric chair with his final wish unfulfilled.

Batman 331 continues to develop the subplots that will lead to "The Lazarus Affair." Most notably, the final page ratchets up the bizarre love triangle between Batman, Robin, and Talia.

Talia lays a huge guilt-trip on Batman here: "Ever since you slew my father, I have been without a residence." However, Robin doesn't like this one bit, and threatens to leave. Batman manages to defuse the impending cock block by responding, "You have a lot to learn about life, youngster! A lot to learn about people, and about relationships!" I think we all know exactly what Robin needs to learn.

Well, that gets us to the first issue of "The Lazarus Affair," which I will pick up on in the next post.