Writer: Brian Azzarello / Penciller: Lee Bermejo / Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher / Editors: Mark Doyle, Maggie Howell, Will Dennis / Designer (Original Issues): Steve Cook / Covers by Bermejo, Jim Lee and Alex Sinclair / Collects: Batman: Damned #1-#3 / Black Label (DC Comics)
6th July 2021 (Released: 6th July 2021)
The Pitch: The Joker has been murdered. His killer is a mystery. Batman is the World's Greatest Detective. But what happens when the person he is searching for is the man staring back at him in the mirror? With no memory of the events of the previous night, Batman is going to need some help. So who better to set him straight than John Constantine? The problem with that is as much as John loves a good mystery, he loves messing with people's heads even more. So with John's "help," the pair will delve into the sordid underbelly of Gotham as they race toward the mind-blowing truth of who murdered The Joker. Batman: Damned is a visceral thrill-ride and supernatural horror story told by two of comics' greatest modern creators, Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo.
Almost two years on from the pointless controversy this book got caught up in, does anyone remember if the book is any good or not? Known more for a single panel in it's first issue more than it's quality or otherwise, is it time to reappraise it, shorn of the hubbub that saw that same first issue quickly changing hands for around five to ten times it's original value? I think so. So what do you get when you open up DC's first Black Label book? Sadly, I must first talk about it's... size. It is, after all, the first thing you notice. Black Label launched at an oversized format that DC dubbed 'Prestige Plus', essentially closer to the European Bande Desinee format than a regular comic. This of course meant that the art therein would be more favourably displayed. But would the stories match the scope for epic appeal?
DC played it a little safe by starting with the Batman / Joker dynamic. Always a sure-fire crowd pleaser, this particular duo is given fresh life by removing one half of the pair in the opening issue. It's worth mentioning here that Damned is a quasi sequel to Azzarello's and Bermejo's Joker OGN from a few years back, with the action picking up from Batman and Joker's bridge fight at the end of that story. Now, the Joker is dead. And it looks like the Batman may have finally cracked and killed the crown prince. But the Bat has no memory of this event and begins an odyssey across Gotham, led by John Constantine, who may have has much interest in tricking Batman as any of his rogues gallery. Damned presents with a strange version of Gotham and it's inhabitants, not to mention various characters that have crossed paths with Batman over the years. We get two versions of Zatanna Zatara: the street magician and the stage performer. In a nightclub, we're introduced to Etrigan – only now he's rapping gangster. Boston Brand, The Deadman, haunts the book, as does the memory of the now dead Joker. And another creature stalks Bruce Wayne's memory – an angel of death, waiting to take his parents, but is actually The Enchantress. She speaks to Bruce as a child, preying on his fears and on his parents' souring relationship. The book marks a very different take on these characters and on their history. Showing the Wayne marriage as anything less than idyllic is in itself a kind of sacrilege, but it does add an interesting layer. Unlike a lot of Batman stories, you never get the sense that the Bat knows more than the audience, or has the upper hand.
gotham becomes a dickensian, darkly magical plain for batman and constantine
The book becomes a labyrinth, never quite explaining itself or it's purpose, but suggesting that young Bruce, to save himself from death in Crime Alley made a deal with the devil – The Enchantress – to become The Batman. Seeing Batman operate in the world of the supernatural never sits well with me, but here the odd setting works, since all of Gotham becomes an eerie, Dickensian, darkly magical plain for Batman and Constantine to navigate. It's final answer to the question 'Is The Joker really dead?' comes as a surprise and suggests a potential new world for some stories to take place in, perhaps giving some Black Label stories their own universe. Azzarello's writing style in terse, elliptical. He creates a shorthand fog of words for Constantine which helps cement the idea he may not be all he claims to be. Gotham becomes a tower of Babel, a special hell where slight of hand is backed up by sleight of speech. Bermejo's art is superlative and can only be described as such. He creates a smoky, atmospheric look, with oil-drum fires, peeling wallpaper and decaying wood. I should say by way of complete disclosure that I'm huge Bermejo fan, his military-influenced Batman, all kevlar pads and velcro straps, is my jam. It's great that DC chose this size for the book. Jared K. Fletcher creates a disjointed type for the letters, furthering the dislocating nature of the both captions and dialogue. Despite the controversy, Damned was a suitably large-scale beginning to to Black Label. It's loaded with mystery and darkness and doesn't offer easy answers or for that matter an easy ending.
Batman: Damned is available in a new trade paperback edition or in it's original hardcover edition from Gosh comics. You can also pick up the trade or the hardcover from Bookshop.org.