Category: Batman

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Superman & Batman: Generations 2


By John Byrne with Trish Mulvihill (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-711-5

The second instalment of John Byrne’s “imaginary story” trilogy, un-working the post-Crisis DC mythology he had been such a large part of re-forging in the mid-1980s, is a far smoother, less muddled beast than the first. The expansive saga even broadens the panorama to include many other icons of the company’s five decades of continuity.

After Crisis on Infinite Earths the myriad alternate Earths which had housed different eras of DC heroes and provided handy accommodation for the company’s costumed acquisitions such as the 1940s Fawcett’s Marvel Family and retinue or the Charlton Action Heroes line from the 1960s had been amalgamated into one bulky, homogenous whole, and the company took the opportunity to retrofit their major stars into the bargain.

Batman got darker, Wonder Woman was culturally re-cast and Superman had his charming Weisinger/Boltinoff/Schwartz additions to the original Siegel & Shuster concept jettisoned by John Byrne and associate writer Marv Wolfman. Out went the World’s Finest friendship with the Caped Crusader, the entire concept and career of Superboy and all the tenuous, wondrous baggage of fifty spectacular years.

And then, because we all missed it so much, he decided to bring it back…

In Superman & Batman: Generations, An Imaginary Tale, which was published under DC’s non-continuity “Elseworlds” imprint in1999, Byrne posited a world where the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader began just as they actually had in the dog-days of the 1930s and, by sampling all the eradicated material prior to Crisis, explored how the pair would have fared had they aged like us relatively real people.

Referencing that magnificent discarded continuity and spicing the mix with some intriguing speculative fancy through a more mature, modern sensibility the saga progressed in decade-wide jumps following the family and friends of the World’s Finest Heroes in an epic struggle spanning the years 1939 to 1999, with a punchy postscript set in 2919 whilst revealing a secret origin in 1929.

This second collection following the heroic dynasties of Batman and Superman, which first appeared as a four-issue Prestige format miniseries in 2001, proceeds in 11-year jumps – two per issue – and opens in 1942 with ‘Battlefields’.

Superman, the Blackhawks, Hawkman and all the stalwarts of World War II’s Justice Society are occupied crushing Nazi terror-weapons built by the old enemy Ultra-Humanite when a new factor enters the equation as the hidden Amazons of Paradise Island send their Princess Diana to assist the good people in “Man’s World” as the Wonder Woman. Meanwhile, on the Home-Front Lois Lane and the Dynamic Duo are tackling Lex Luthor’s latest sinister scheme…

‘Absent Friends’ focuses on winter 1953, with the sudden return of long missing Commissioner Gordon and a plot by eco-despot Ra’s Al Ghul. In this world the JSA never retired and while they convene to investigate, on a distant world Superman frees an alien race from slavery and makes first contact with a Green Lantern. And back in Metropolis, Lois Lane-Kent is about to deliver Clark’s second child…

1964 and ‘Children’s Hour’ finds Batman and Superman, elder statesmen of the heroic community, watch as their kids begin their own crusading careers as part of a young wave of heroes who will eventually become Teen Titans – if they can survive the concerted attack of Gorilla Grodd, Mirror Master and the Weather Wizard, that is.

‘Troubled Souls’ visits 1975, wherein an aging Joker looks to be finally incapable of harming anyone and veteran test pilot Hal Jordan finally hangs up his flight jacket to take up politics. As the second generation of cape and cowl crime-busters investigates the Joker’s breakdown they enter a new realm of experience courtesy of mystic Dr. Occult and ghostly guardian Deadman.

In 1986 Superman and Luthor meet for their final battle in ‘To Hunt the Hunted’ as a third generation of costumed heroes join the Justice Society to hunt the out-of-control outlaw Batman, whilst by 1997’s ‘Turning Points’ alien marauder Sinestro decimates the new Justice League of America. With Superman long gone and all Batmen hunted felons, it falls to aging politician Hal Jordan to put on a power ring and battle the alien terrorist.

In 2008 ‘This Ancient Evil’ sees Superman’s greatest enemy return, his brain transplanted into an unstoppable robotic body. Can even Knightwing, the Justice League and Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan stop the metal marauder’s rampage?

This volume ends with 2019: ‘Father of the Man’ as the vanished first Superman finally returns from exile and, reunited with the latest Dark Knight, views a portentous message from the past wherein long-dead Jonathan Kent describes the first meeting of his adopted son and the boy Bruce Wayne. This lost adventure of the World’s Finest Heroes ends tragic when the elder Kent reveals how he failed to save Bruce’s parents….

Intricate and engaging this epic is broad, not deep but for all that is still a hugely readable piece of sweetened fluff, magically engrossing and filled with the “what if?” wonderment of the earlier material it eulogises. A good, solid Fights ‘n’ Tights adventure yarn, Generations II, like its predecessor, might well act as a gateway tale for new readers and tempt fans to try the older material for themselves – and surely that’s no bad thing?

© 2001, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Greatest Team-Up Stories Ever Told


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-51-X

When the very concept of high priced graphic novels was just being tested in the early 1990s DC Comics produced a line of glorious hardback compilations spotlighting star characters and celebrating standout stories from the company’s illustrious and varied history decade by decade. They even branched out into themed collections which shaped the output of the industry to this day.

The Greatest Stories collections were revived this century as smaller paperback editions (with mostly differing content) and stand as an impressive and joyous introduction to the fantastic worlds and exploits of the World’s Greatest Superheroes. However for sheer physical satisfaction the older, larger books are by far the better product. Some of them made it to softcover trade paperback editions, but if you can afford it, the big hard ones are the jobs to go for…

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to see how the new costumed marvel stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the industry (and according to Julie Schwartz’s fascinating introduction here, it was the same with the pulps and dime novels that preceded them) we’ve wanted our idols to meet, associate, battle together – and if you follow the Timely/Marvel model, that means against each other – far more than we want to see them trounce their archenemy one more time…

The Greatest Team-Up Stories Ever Told gathers together a stunning variety of classic tales and a few less famous but still worthy aggregations of heroes, but cleverly kicks off with a union of bad-guys in the Wayne Boring illustrated tale ‘The Terrible Trio!’ (Superman #88, March 1954) as the Man of Steel’s wiliest foes, Lex Luthor, Toyman and the Prankster joined forces to outwit and destroy him, whilst World’s Finest Comics #82 (May-June 1956) saw Batman and Robin join the Man of Tomorrow in a time-travelling romp to 17th century France as ‘The Three Super-Musketeers!’, helping embattled D’Artagnan solve the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask.

A lot of these stories are regrettably uncredited, but nobody could miss the stunning artwork of Dick Sprang here, and subsequent research has since revealed writer Edmond Hamilton and inker Stan Kaye were also involved in crafting this terrific yarn.

Kid heroes prevailed when Superman was murdered and the Boy Wonder travelled back in time to enlist the victim’s younger self in ‘Superboy Meets Robin’ (Adventure Comics #253, October 1953) illustrated by Al Plastino, whilst two of that title’s venerable back-up stars almost collided in an experimental crossover from issue #267 (December 1959).

At this time Adventure starred Superboy and featured Aquaman and Green Arrow as supporting features. ‘The Manhunt on Land’, with art from Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris, saw villainous Shark Norton trade territories with Green Arrow’s foe The Wizard. Both parts were written by Robert Bernstein, and the two heroes and their sidekicks worked the same case with Aquaman fighting on dry land whilst the Emerald Archer pursued his enemy beneath the waves in his own strip; ‘The Underwater Archers’, illustrated by the excellent Lee Elias.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was one of the “Baby Boomer” crowd who grew up with Gardner Fox and John Broome’s tantalisingly slow reintroduction of Golden Age superheroes during the halcyon, eternally summery days of the 1960s. To me those fascinating counterpart crusaders from Earth-Two weren’t vague and distant memories rubber-stamped by parents or older brothers – they were cool, fascinating and enigmatically new. And for some reason the “proper” heroes of Earth-One held them in high regard and treated them with obvious deference…

It all began, naturally enough, in The Flash, flagship title of the Silver Age Revolution. After ushering in the triumphant return of the costumed superhero, the Scarlet Speedster, with Fox and Broome at the reins, set an unbelievably high standard for metahuman adventure in sharp, witty tales of science and imagination, illustrated with captivating style and clean simplicity by Carmine Infantino.

Fox didn’t write many Flash scripts at this time, but those few he did were all dynamite. None more so than the full-length epic that literally changed the scope of American comics forever. ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (Flash #123 September 1961, illustrated by Infantino and Joe Giella) introduced alternate Earths to the continuity which resulted in the multiversal structure of the DCU, Crisis on Infinite Earths and all succeeding cosmos-shaking crossover sagas since. And of course where DC led, others followed…

During a benefit gig Flash (police scientist Barry Allen) accidentally slips into another dimension where he finds the comic-book champion he based his own superhero identity upon actually exists. Every adventure he’d avidly absorbed as an eager child was grim reality to Jay Garrick and his mystery-men comrades on the controversially named Earth-2. Locating his idol Barry convinces the elder to come out of retirement just as three Golden Age villains, Shade, Thinker and the Fiddler make their own wicked comeback… Thus is history made and above all else, ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ is still a magical tale that can electrify today’s reader.

The story generated an avalanche of popular and critical approval (big sales figures, too) so after a few more trans-dimensional test runs the ultimate team-up was delivered to slavering fans. ‘Crisis on Earth-One’ (Justice League of America #21, August 1963) and ‘Crisis on Earth-Two’ (#22) combine to become one of the most important stories in DC history and arguably one of the most important tales in American comics. When ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ introduced the concept of Infinite Earths and multiple heroes to the public, pressure had begun almost instantly to bring back the actual heroes of the “Golden Age”. Editorial powers-that-be were hesitant, though, fearing too many heroes would be silly and unmanageable, or worse yet put readers off. If they could see us now…

The story by Fox, Mike Sekowsky Bernard Sachs finds a coalition of assorted villains from each Earth plundering at will and trapping the mighty Justice League in their own HQ. Temporarily helpless the heroes contrive a desperate plan to combine forces with the champions of a bygone era and the result is pure comicbook majesty. It’s impossible for me to be totally objective about this saga. I was a drooling kid in short trousers when I first read it and the thrills haven’t diminished with this umpty-first re-reading. This is what superhero comics are all about!

The wonderment continues here with a science fiction hero team-up from Mystery in Space #90, which had been the home of star-spanning Adam Strange since issue #53 and with #87 Schwartz moved Hawkman and Hawkgirl into the back-up slot, and even granted them occasional cover-privileges before they graduated to their own title. These were brief, engaging action pieces but issue #90 (March 1964) was a full-length mystery thriller pairing the Winged Wonders and Earth’s interplanetary expatriate in a spectacular End-of the-World(s) epic.

‘Planets in Peril!’ written by Fox, illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson, found our fragile globe instantly transported to the Alpha-Centauri system and heading for a fatal collision with the constantly-under-threat world of Rann at the behest of a scientific madman who eventually proved no match for the high-flying, rocket-powered trio.

Before settling into a comfortable pattern as a Batman team-up title, Brave and the Bold had been a high-adventure anthology, a try-out book like Showcase and a floating team title, pairing disparate heroes together for one-off  adventures. One of the very best of these was ‘The Challenge of the Expanding World’ (#53, April-May 1964) in which the Atom and Flash strove valiantly to free a sub-atomic civilisation from a mad dictator and simultaneously battled to keep that miniature planet from explosively enlarging into our own.

This astounding thriller from Bob Haney and the incredible Alex Toth was followed in the next B&B issue by the origin of the Teen Titans and that event is repeated here. ‘The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister’ (#54, June-July 1964) by Haney, Bruno Premiani and Charles Paris united sidekicks Kid Flash, Aqualad and Robin the Boy Wonder in a desperate battle against a modern wizard-come-Pied Piper who had stolen the teen-agers of American everytown Hatton Corners. The young heroes had met in the town by chance when students invited them to mediate in a long-running dispute with the town adults, but didn’t even have a team name until their second appearance.

By the end of the 1960s America was a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. Everything was challenged and with issue #76 of Green Lantern, Denny O’Neil and comics iconoclast Neal Adams completely redefined contemporary superhero strips with relevancy-driven stories that transformed moribund establishment super-cops into questing champions and explorers of the revolution. ‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ (O’Neil, Adams & Frank Giacoica, April 1970) is a landmark in the medium, utterly re-positioning the very concept of the costumed crusader as ardent liberal Green Arrow challenges GL’s cosy worldview as the heroes discover true villainy can wear business suits, harm people just because of skin colour and happily poison its own nest for short term gain…

Of course the fact that the story is a brilliant crime-thriller with science-fiction overtones beautifully illustrated doesn’t hurt either…

The Fabulous World of Krypton was a long-running back-up feature in Superman during the 1970s, revealing intriguing glimpses from the history of that lost world. One of the very best is ‘The Greatest Green Lantern of All’ (#257, October, 1972 by Elliot Maggin, Dick Dillin & Dick Giordano) detailing the tragic failure of avian GL Tomar-Re, dispatched to prevent the planet’s detonation and how the Guardians of the Universe had planned to use that world’s greatest bloodline…

Brave and the Bold produced a plethora of tempestuous team-ups starring Batman and his many associates, and at first glance ‘Paperchase’ (#178, September 1981) by Alan Brennert & Jim Aparo from the dying days of the title might seem an odd choice, but don’t be fooled. This pell-mell pairing of Dark Knight and the Creeper in pursuit of an uncanny serial killer is tension-packed, turbo-charged thriller of intoxicating quality.

The narrative section of this collaborative chronicle concludes with the greatest and most influential comics writer of the 1980s, combining his signature character with DC guiding icon for a moody, melancholy masterpiece of horror-tinged melodrama. From DC Comics Presents #85 (September 1985) comes ‘The Jungle Line’ by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch & Al Williamson wherein Superman contracts a fatal disease from a Kryptonian spore and plagued by intermittent powerlessness, oncoming madness and inevitable death, deserts his loved ones and drives slowly south to die in isolation.

Mercifully in the dark green swamps he is found by the world’s plant elemental the Swamp Thing…

The book is edited by Mike Gold, Brian Augustyn & Robert Greenberger, with panoramic and comprehensive endpaper illustrations from Carmine Infantino (who blue-printed the Silver Age of Comicbooks) and text features ‘The Ghosts of Frank and Dick Merriwell’, ‘That Old Time Magic’ and a captivating end-note article ‘Just Imagine, Your Favourite Heroes…’. However for fans of all ages possibly the most beguiling feature in this volume is the tantalising cover reproduction section: team-ups that didn’t make it into this selection, filling in all the half-page breaks which advertised new comics in the originals. I defy any nostalgia-soaked fan not to start muttering “got; got; need it; Mother threw it away…”

This unbelievably enchanting collection is a pure package of superhero magnificence: fun-filled, action-packed and utterly addictive.
© 1954-1985, 1989 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Batman volume 4


By Frank Robbins, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, Joe Giella & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84856-357-5

After three seasons (perhaps two and a half would be closer) the overwhelmingly successful Batman TV show ended in March, 1968. It had clocked up 120 episodes since the US premiere on January 12, 1966. As the series foundered and crashed the global fascination with “camp” superheroes – and no, the term had nothing to do with sexual proclivities no matter what you and Mel Brooks might think about Men in Tights – burst as quickly as it had boomed and the Caped Crusader was left with a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who now wanted their hero back.

For the editor who had tried to keep the most ludicrous excesses of the show out whilst still cashing in on his global popularity, the reasoning seemed simple: get him back to solving baffling mysteries and facing genuine perils as soon and as thrillingly as possible.

No problem.

This fourth impressively economical black and white compendium gathers Batman and Robin yarns from Batman #202-215 and the front halves of Detective Comics #376-390; the back-up slot being delightfully filled until #383 by the whimsically wonderful Elongated Man, whereafter he was unceremoniously dropped to make room for Batgirl’s own solo sallies.

The 27 stories here (some of the Batman issues were giant reprint editions so only their covers are reproduced within these pages) were written and illustrated by an evolving team of creators as editor Julie Schwartz lost some of his elite stable to age, attrition and corporate pressure, but the “new blood” was only fresh to the Gotham Guardian, not the industry and their sterling efforts deftly moulded the character into a hero capable of actually working within the new “big things” in comics: suspense, horror and the supernatural…

The book leads off with ‘Gateway to Death!’ (Batman #202, June 1968) by Gardner Fox, an un-attributed artist – possibly Dick Dillin or Mike Sekowsky – & Sid Greene, a spooky graveyard chiller which found the Dynamic Duo chasing a psychic plunderer towards their own prognosticated doom, after which Detective #376 (by the same creative team) asked ‘Hunted or …Haunted?’ as a time-traveller inadvertently put the fear of death and worse into the Caped Crusader.

Batman #203 was an 80-Page Giant with a cover by Neal Adams, whilst an old foe returned in ‘The Riddler’s Prison-Puzzle Problem!’ (Detective #377, Fox, Frank Springer & Greene) before Frank Robbins (creator of newspaper strip Johnny Hazard) joined the writing team for ‘Operation: Blindfold!’ illustrated by Irv Novick & Joe Giella, a two-part criminal conspiracy saga wherein a legion of thugs and sightless beggars almost took over Gotham.

With veteran penciller Bob Brown on Detective and Novick on Batman the artistic quality was high and consistent but unfortunately the strictly chronological reprinting works against the reader as the concluding episode is postponed and derailed here by Detective #378, the first half of a generation gap murder-mystery ‘Batman! Drop Dead… Twice!’ (Robbins, Brown & Giella) which itself climaxed after ‘Blind as a… Bat?’ from Batman #204 with a rollicking rollercoaster ride of spills and chills in ‘Two Killings For the Price of One!’ in Detective #379.

Issue #380 follows, introducing a new love-interest in Ginny Jenkins, the ‘Marital-Bliss Miss!’ (Robbins, Brown & Giella) who only pretended to be the new Mrs. Bruce Wayne for the very best of motives – saving his life – whilst in Batman #206 Novick & Giella illustrated a canny thriller ‘Batman Walks the Last Mile!’ pitting the Caped Crusader against a conman who claimed to be the brains behind the Dynamic Duo’s success.

In an era where teen angst and the counter-culture played an increasingly strident part Robin’s role as spokesperson for a generation was becoming increasingly important, with disputes and splits from his senior partner constantly recurring. Detective #381 featured one of the best as Batman literally dumped the Boy Wonder in ‘One Drown… One More to Go!’ – another clever crime conundrum from Robbins, Brown & Giella.

Batman #207 carried a classy countdown to catastrophe drama as all Gotham hunted for ‘the atomic nightmare’ of ‘The Doomsday Ball!’ whilst ‘Tec #382 continued the theme of youth in revolt with ‘Riddle of the Robbin’ Robin!’ but the disagreements were never serious or genuine, although that would soon change. Batman #208 was another reprint Giant: this time focusing on the women in his life. However even though Schwartz varied the usual format by having Gil Kane draw interlocking framing sequences, turning the issue into one big single story, all that has all been left out here so you just get the rather nifty Nicky Cardy cover.

Detective #383 was a straightforward thriller set in Gotham’s Chinatown: ‘The Fortune-Cookie Caper!’ but outlandish mind-bending mystery was the order of the day in ‘Jungle Jeopardy!’ in Batman #209 and ‘Tec #384 asked ‘Whatever Will Happen to Heiress Heloise?’ a crafty last tale of cross and double-cross from Gardner Fox, illustrated as ever by Brown & Giella.

Catwoman returned mob-handed – or is that mob-pawed? – in Batman #210 with eight other cat chicks in tow so the Caped Crimebuster was hard-pressed to solve ‘The Case of the Purr-Loined Pearl!’ whilst Bob Kanigher wrote one of the best tales of his long and illustrious career for Detective #385 as a nameless nonentity became the most important man Batman never met in the deeply moving ‘Die Small… Die Big!’

Issue #386 found Bruce Wayne a ‘Stand-In for Murder’ (Robbins, Brown & Giella) whilst the heroes had secret identity woes in ‘Batman’s Big Blow-Off!’ (#211, (Robbins, Novick & Giella) and Young Turk Mike Friedrich returned to script a reworking of Batman’s very first appearance for the 30th Anniversary issue of Detective Comics. ‘The Cry of Night is… Sudden Death!’ was a contemporary reworking of issue #27’s ‘The Case of the Chemical Syndicate’ which launched the Dark Knight on the road to immortality (and to see the original check out Batman Chronicles Volume 1, or any of the many “Best of” collections that feature this landmark tale) but once more the relationship between Batman and Boy Wonder came under probing scrutiny.

‘Baffling Deaths of the Crime-Czar!’ (Batman #212, Robbins, Novick & Giella) pitted a trio of exuberant hit-men against the heroes, before John Broome made a final scripting contribution that moved the Joker away from Clown crimes and back towards the insane killer we all cherish in ‘Tec #388’s ‘Public Luna-tic Number One!‘  – a classy sci-fi thriller that totally reinvented the Laughing Loon, in no small part thanks to the artistic efforts of Brown & Giella.

Batman #213 was another reprint Giant, celebrating other landmarks of the 30th Anniversary and featured a new retelling of ‘The Origin of Robin’ courtesy of E. Nelson Bridwell, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, which is included here after the spiffy cover from Bill Draut & Vince Colletta.

The road to a scary hero continued with Detective #389 and the Robbins-scripted ‘Batman’s Evil Eye’ wherein the Scarecrow infected Gotham’s Guardian with the power to terrify at a glance – obviously somebody saw the long-term story potential in that stunt…

There was still potential to be daft too, though as seen in ‘Batman’s Marriage Trap!’ (#214, Robbins, Novick & Giella) wherein a wicked Femme Fatale set the unhappy spinsters of America on the trail of Gotham’s Most Eligible Bat-chelor (see what I did there? Wishing I hadn’t…?) Not even a guest-shot by positive role-model Batgirl can redeem this peculiar throwback – although the art just might…

The last Detective tale is from #390 and pits the Dynamic Duo against lacklustre costumed assassin The Masquerader in ‘If the Coffin Fits… Wear It!’ before the end of an era is presaged in Batman #215 and ‘Call Me Master!’ by Robbins, Novick and the soon to become legendary Dick Giordano. Although a clever tale of mind-control skullduggery, this tale trialed the loss of Wayne Manor and an all-out split between Dark Knight and Boy Wonder: events that would come to pass within mere months, ushering in a bold new direction for the Bat-Universe

This volume brings three decades of Batman to a solid conclusion. Soon safe boy-scout Caped Crusader would become a terrifying creature of passion, intellect and shadowy suspense.

Stay tuned: This book is wonderfully good but the very best is still to come…

© 1968, 1969, 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Batman: Private Casebook


By Paul Dini, Peter Milligan, Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-213-4

Award-winning animator and director Paul Dini once more proves that he’s the best Batman writer of the 21st century in another collection of his pure, modernistically refined and retro scripts, gathered from Detective Comics # 840-645 and DC Infinite Halloween Special #1. A consummate storyteller, Dini is also quite obviously a lover of the character in all aspects over nigh-on eight decades of stalking the scum of the Earth.

This volume, superbly illustrated by Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs, begins with an astounding resumption of the Caped Crusader’s mission after the cataclysmic events of Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul. As the Dark Knight hunts a new foe he seizes the chance to finally end the threat of the Demon’s Head forever, in the uncompromising chiller ‘The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul: Epilogue.’

‘The Wonderland Gang!’ sees a collection of Batman’s oldest foes unite as the most obvious team ever when Mad Hatter, Tweedledum & Tweedledee combine forces with the Lion, the Unicorn, the Walrus and the Carpenter to wreak excessive havoc for untold profit in the wealthy palaces of Gotham. Naturally, all is not as it seems…

Peter Milligan wrote ‘The Suit of Sorrows’ as the haunted armour Batman wore in the aforementioned Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul begins to exert a malicious influence over his actions. The struggle against the suit and the cult that crafted is a powerful parable of willpower over desire and acts as a prelude to the return of Azrael to the DC Universe – but not in this book…

Dini and some of his favourite heroes and villains return for ‘Opening Night’ as the Penguin, new Ventriloquist and malignant dummy Scarface cross swords with the Gotham Guardian and Zatanna; a complex and beguiling tale that ends in blood-soaked ‘Curtains’ for more than one player in the drama.

Catwoman and reformed consulting detective Edward Nigma go looking for answers as a mutilating murderer haunts the city’s mean streets and not even Batman’s newest weapon “the Heirs of Lupin” (an online community of DC sleuths including Detective Chimp and Oracle) can divine the true secret of ‘The Riddle Unanswered’.

This stellar confabulation ends with a vignette starring Zatanna in solo inaction taken from DC Infinite Halloween Special. ‘Kcirt Ro Taert’ is a spookily shocking shaggy dog story that ends this classy compendium on an unbeatable high note.

Howsoever short-term sales-stunts bend and twist the Batman mythos, the core elements of the character remain unimpeachable and Paul Dini always find a way to satisfactorily blend the contemporary with the classical. His tales of a renewed, determined and darkly benevolent crime-fighter look well set to finally overturn the Grim Sociopath image that has dogged Batman for too long…

These fresh, thrilling and compelling adventures will astonish long-time fans and casual browsers equally. This is the still best Batman in years. By the way if you’re thinking of settling for the softcover edition of this fine collection, be advised that the hardcover has secondary, different front and back covers under the regular and spectacular dust jacket reproduced above. I know how funny we Bat-fans can get if we think we’ve missed something…

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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JLA: Ultramarine Corps


By Grant Morrison, Ed McGuinness, Val Semeiks & Dexter Vines (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-383-1

Here’s a peculiar little item thrown up by the peculiarities of periodical comics publishing, but one increasingly important to fans following Grant Morrison’s creative pyrotechnics in the Batman titles. Collecting a portion of JLA Secret Files 2004 #1 and JLA Classified #1-3 the tome also rather inappropriately includes one of those always uncomfortable marriages of publishing convenience as the JLA endures another less than stellar cross-company crossover – this time from JLA/WildC.A.T.S #1.

In JLA: Justice For All Grant Morrison introduced a team of American military metahumans duped by malevolent General Wade Eiling into attacking the World’s Greatest Super-heroes. Wising up at last the Ultramarine Corps eventually declared their independence and resigned their commissions. Setting up a floating headquarters called Superbia, the quartet invited other heroes – such as the Global Guardians and some members of previous Justice Leagues – to join them as a pre-emptive strike-force that would not rule out extreme sanctions wherever necessary.

Here Ed McGuinness handles the art for the spectacular sequel as the new champions attack and are attacked by the lethally dangerous Gorilla Grodd. ‘Island of the Mighty’ finds the Knight and the Squire centre-stage as the new team’s arrogant assault goes hideously awry and all those heroes not eaten by the sinister simian are co-opted by a fantastic being called Neh-Buh-Boh and turned upon helpless humanity.

Meanwhile the JLA are fighting in a distant baby universe and only Batman remains to protect the Earth…

‘Master of Light’ pairs the Dark Knight and the Squire as Grodd’s eerie ally extends his control over the surviving heroes of Superbia, clearly working to his own agenda, whilst the super-ape easily quashes Batman’s last-ditch attack. Things look bleak in ‘Second to Go’ until the JLA returns to spectacularly save the day, before suggesting a unique penance for Superbia’s Finest…

Fast-paced, glossy and chock-full of big ideas this light romp is an enjoyable piece of eye-candy most notable for laying the groundwork and setting up the ambitious Seven Soldiers publishing event.

The remainder of this book is a less successful, but still a vitally visual fiesta for fantastic fight-fans as old JLA foe the Lord of Time begins to rewrite history, causing dimensional rifts and an uncomfortable alliance with the parallel earth heroes called the WildC.A.T.s.

The tale is stuffed with guest cameos as the heroes chase the increasingly more powerful villain through the ages, but as usual far too much time is spent with the teams fighting each other (presumably because all any comic fan could ever desire of a team-up is to discover which hero is strongest/fastest/most buff or buxom…) before they finally unite to tackle the bad-guy – who defeats himself when they cannot.

This yarn is a poor example of Morrison’s exceptional talent, but Val Semeiks, Kevin Conrad & Ray Kryssing do the best they can so at least it looks shiny and pretty. Even though a shaky fit these mismatched tales will still please the dedicated fans and the Ultramarine episodes offer a tantalising glimpse of greater things to come in better conceived books.

© 1997, 1999 DC Comics and Regis Entertainment, 2004, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman & Batman: Generations – An Imaginary Tale


By John Byrne, coloured by Trish Mulvihill (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-605-7

Working on the biggest guns in any company’s publishing stable is like being King Canute. You get the major gig, make your irrevocable, industry-shaking refit of said star-vehicle and then as time passes, watch it get inevitably changed or as with DC in current times changed back to suit the restless drive of the fickle fans.

After Crisis on Infinite Earths the myriad alternate Earths that had housed different eras of DC heroes as well as providing handy accommodation for the company’s acquisitions such as Fawcett’s Marvel Family and retinue or the Charlton Action Heroes line had been amalgamated into one bulky, homogenous whole, and the company took the opportunity to retrofit their major stars into the bargain.

Batman got darker, Wonder Woman was culturally re-cast and Superman had all the charming Mort Weisinger/Murray Boltinoff/Julie Schwartz additions and contributions to the original Siegel & Shuster paraphernalia jettisoned by revamp architect John Byrne. Out went the friendship with the Caped Crusader, the entire career as Superboy and all the tenuous, wondrous baggage of fifty spectacular years.

And then he decided to bring it all back…

In the four-issue Prestige format miniseries Superman & Batman: Generations, An Imaginary Tale published under DC’s non-continuity “Elseworlds” imprint in1999, Byrne posited a world where the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader began just as they had in the dog-days of the 1930s, and by sampling all the eradicated material prior to Crisis, explored how the pair would have fared had they aged like us relatively real people.

Written with obvious affection and referencing the magnificent alternate-continuity flights of fancy dubbed “Imaginary Stories”, but with a more mature modern sensibility the saga progressed in decade-wide jumps that followed the family and friends of the World’s Finest Heroes in an epic struggle spanning the years 1939 to 1999, with a punchy postscript set in 2919 but revealing a secret origin in 1929.

Beginning with ‘The Vigilantes’ where two new mystery-men, Superman and Batman first meet to defeat the mad scientist Ultra-Humanite at the New York Word’s Fair, jumping to ‘Family Matters’ in 1949 where the Joker and Luthor kidnap Clark Kent’s wife Lois, the ‘Strange Days’ of 1959 where aging Dark Knight and Metropolis Marvel battle Bat-Mite, Mr. Mxyzptlk and a host of weird aliens and monsters whilst their children prepare to succeed them or tragically fall the turning point comes with the ‘Changing Times’ of 1969.

Now elder statesmen of the heroic community Batman and Superman watch their children deal with such complex issues as corrupt US President Nixon, the Vietnam War and massive social unrest, only to lose one of their own to the ageless madness of the Joker.

‘Twilight of the Gods’ in 1979 introduced the eco-despot Ra’s Al Ghul to the saga as triumph and tragedy continued to dog the heroes’ descendents and one of their oldest foes struck his most telling blow, whilst ‘Crime and Punishment’ a decade later found the revenge-crazed Superman a disgraced and hunted felon for taking the law into his own hands, with the epic proper ending in 1999 with ‘Beginnings and Endings’ as the fragmented survivors of the twin heroic dynasties reunited after years at odds.

The epilogue ‘1929’, using the magic of comic-books leapt into the 30th century to reveal the actual first meeting of Superman and Batman, a rather saccharine conclusion that was clearly meant to presage the inescapable sequel…

Complex and professional yet somehow inadequate and unfulfilling, the time-girdling circularity and touchy-feely happy-ending is strongly reminiscent of Robert Heinlein’s later Lazarus Long novels (but lacking the satirical bite), as Byrne focused far too hard on adding everything Silver-Aged-and-the-Kitchen-Sink to the mix, but for all that this is still a hugely readable piece of sweetened fluff, beautifully engaging and thoroughly engrossing, and might well act as a gateway tale for new readers and young fans to try the older material for themselves.

Great but not the greatest, Generations is a book every Fights ‘n’ Tights fan should try, but be warned it’s out of print and going for a vast range of prices from online and high-street retailers…

© 1985 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-845-4

This fast and frantic collection presents another “final” clash between the Gotham Guardian’s extended gang-busting family and the immortal criminal mastermind: one which re-invents the eco-supremacist Ra’s Al Ghul.

This contemporary and more acceptable embodiment of the classically inscrutable “ancient foreign menace” was typified in a less forgiving age as the Yellow Peril or the threat of the Eastern races for the “civilised” West, embodied most memorably by Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu. This breed of alien archetype permeates the early days of popular fiction and is an overwhelmingly powerful symbol, although here the character’s Arabic origins, neutral at the time he was first created, seem to embody a different kind of ethnic bogeyman in today’s post 9/11 world.

The concept of a villain who has the best interests of the planet at heart is not a new one, but Ra’s Al Ghul, whose avowed intent is to cull teeming humanity back to ecologically viable levels and save the Earth from Mankind’s poisonous polluting madness, hit a chord in the 1970s – a period where such issues first came to the attention of the young. It was a rare kid who didn’t find a core of good sense in what “the Demon’s Head” planned.

The character is still best remembered for the O’Neil/Adams collaborations (see Batman: Tales of the Demon) but has come a long way since: arguably becoming more diluted and less impressive with each outing, but here an awesome assemblage of writers – Paul Dini, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, Fabian Nicieza, Keith Champagne and artists David López, Jason Pearson, Tony S. Daniel, Freddie E. Williams III, Don Kramer & Carlos Rodriguez, Ryan Benjamin, David Baldeón, Alvaro López, Jonatham Glapion, Wayne Faucher & Bit, Saleem Crawford and Steve Bird revive “the Demon’s Head” in breakneck, high-octane fashion just as DC’s much-publicised plans to kill off Bruce Wayne were about to commence.

Gathering the crossover story-arc that featured in Batman Annual #26, Robin Annual #7, Batman #670-671, Robin #168-169, Nightwing #138-139 and Detective Comics #838-839 the tale follows Talia and her son Damian as he learns the secret history of his dead grandfather Ra’s Al Ghul as Batman roves the world hunting down the last ancient alchemical Lazarus Pits which have always resurrected the long-lived villain over the centuries.

Genetically perfect, young Damian, whose sire was (technically) the Dark Knight is a reluctant student, and suspects that there might be an ulterior motive for his latest lessons. Playing hooky in a Cantonese graveyard the boy experiences things that shake even his cocky, obnoxious bravado…

Old time Wonder Woman mentor I-Ching (see Diana Prince: Wonder Woman volumes 1-4) guest-stars in the unfolding saga as does the deadly Sensei, master of Al Ghul’s League of Assassins; all strands in a broader web of intrigue revolving around the son of Batman, a factional war to determine the eventual successor to the Demon’s globe-girdling organisation and the desperate hunt to find the mystical city Nanda Parbat; an utterly pure refuge from all earthly evil.

However it seems the Demon is not quite dead: his consciousness is trapped in a disintegrating animated cadaver and if he is to survive the immortal mastermind needs to transfer his soul into the body of someone young and who, preferably, shares his genetic structure…

Revolted and on the run Damian turns to the Batman Family to save him from this horrendous fate whilst his mother Talia is been ousted from leadership of the cult by the mysterious White Ghost, fanatical acolyte of Al Ghul and one who holds the secrets of reviving the undying eco-terrorist…

Perhaps a little short on mood, this all-out blockbuster epic might appear a little disjointed to newer readers, but the action is non-stop and absolutely mesmerising as the assorted heroes try to halt the villain’s inevitable return, prevent a far worse monster from taking his place and save an innocent city and potentially malign child from falling into undying darkness.

Dedicated fanboys will thrill to the return of low-key old baddies such as Merlyn the Archer, Silken Spider, Tiger Moth and Dragonfly, the heroes strut their martial stuff against hordes of ninjas, assassins and warrior death-cults and the settings range from lost world to hidden kingdoms with the ever-present treat of soul-stealing body-snatchers ramping up the tension page by page. Daft and joyous this is real treat for the extreme combat fans and lays the threads for much of what would follow in the days after the latest “Death of Batman”.

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman/Deadman: Death and Glory


By James Robinson & John Estes (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-213-4 Softcover 978-1-56389-228-8

Everybody thinks they know Batman but only by a select few are the secrets of murdered trapeze artist Boston Brand also understood. An ordinary man in a brutal, cynical world Brand was a soul in balance until killed as part of a pointless initiation for a trainee assassin. When he died, instead of going to whatever reward awaited him, Rama Kushna, spirit of the universe, offered him the chance to solve his own murder. That opportunity evolved into an unending mission to balance the scales between good and evil in the world. The ghost is intangible and invisible to all mortal men, but has the ability to “walk into” living beings, possessing and controlling them.

Gotham City: Batman gradually regains consciousness, realising he is facing a squad of armed, trigger-happy police and holding a knife to the throat of a hostage. The scene is a Nightclub-turned-charnel house and all evidence before the hero’s widened eyes indicates that he is the murderous culprit…

Suddenly clear headed he drops his victim and escapes the SWAT teams, determined to find out what has happened since he lost consciousness. Stepping broadly out of character Batman uses magical items taken from villainous sorcerer Felix Faust to perform an eldritch rite and captures his prime suspect, Boston Brand. Unfortunately, his old comrade Deadman is not the guilty party, but reveals that a rich man who has sold his soul to the devil is responsible for all the Dark Knight’s woes.

Meanwhile, Albert Yeats, loser and AIDS victim is running for what’s left of his life, hunted by things he doesn’t know and can’t understand…

Determined to renege, Frederick Chaplin has offered another’s soul for his hellbound one, and the devil has accepted. Yeats had been chosen by the universe to reincarnate as the Messiah in his extremely imminent next life, but that can’t happen if he’s paying Chaplin’s tab in the Inferno. Deadman has been watching over Yeats until he safely passes, but when Batman was first possessed and subsequently distracted the Ghostly Guardian with his spell Yeats was left alone and unprotected…

Now the kid is in the wind and the heroes must find and shield him long enough to die safely, a task complicated by an entire city hunting what they still think is a murderous Bat-Maniac, whilst the real possession-killer – a phantom, satanic counterpart to Deadman called the Clown who has spread terror and death for seventy years – is loose to spread his own unholy kind of havoc…

Intriguing and pretty but lacking much of the emotional punch of earlier Batman/Deadman pairings, Death and Glory looks great but feels rather dispirited and glib in its attempts to blend urban horror, all-out chase action, cod-religion and hidden histories with a millennial feel-good factor, resulting in a top-rate outing for Boston Brand but a rather forced and unlikely performance from the Dark Knight.

Nevertheless, fans of both heroes will find lots to love here and Estes’ painted art will win the approval of most comic lovers. This book is still available through physical and online outlets, in both paperback and hardcover editions…

© 1996 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying


By Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Jim Aparo, Tom Grummet, Mike DeCarlo & Bob McLeod (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-9302-8963-8

Batman is in many ways the ultimate superhero: uniquely adaptable and able to work in any type or genre of story – as is clearly evident from the plethora of vintage tales collected in so many captivating volumes over the years.

One less well-mined period is the grim 1980s era when the Caped Crusader was partially re-tooled in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, becoming a driven, but still level-headed, deeply rational Manhunter, rather the dark, out-of-control paranoid of later days or the costumed boy-scout of the “Camp” crazed Sixties.

Robin, the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson: a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss. The story of how Batman took the orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still regularly undergoes tweaking to this day.

Grayson fought beside Batman until 1970 when, as an indicator of those turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder college student. His creation as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with had inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed sidekicks and kid crusaders, and Grayson continued in similar innovative vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership of America’s increasingly rebellious youth culture.

Robin even had his own solo series in Star Spangled Comics from 1947 to 1952, a solo spot in the back of Detective Comics from the end of the 1960s wherein he alternated and shared with Batgirl, and a starring feature in the anthology comic Batman Family. During the 1980s he led the New Teen Titans first as Robin but eventually in the reinvented guise of Nightwing, re-establishing a turbulent working relationship with Batman. This of course left the post of Robin open…

After Grayson’s departure Batman worked solo until he caught a streetwise urchin trying to steal the Batmobile’s tires. This lost boy was Jason Todd, whose short but stellar career as the second Boy Wonder was fatally tainted by his impetuosity and tragic links to one of the Caped Crusader’s most unpredictable foes.

Todd’s unsuspected emotional problems and his murder were controversially depicted and dealt with in Batman: a Death in the Family. In the shock and loss of losing his comrade the traumatised Dark Knight was forced to re-examine his own origins and methods, becoming darker still…

After a period of increasingly undisciplined encounters Batman was on the very edge of losing not just his focus but also his ethics and life: seemingly suicidal on his frequent forays into the Gotham nights. Interventions from his few friends and associates had proved ineffectual. Something drastic had to happen if the Dark Knight was to be salvaged.

Luckily there was an opening for a sidekick…

In this volume, collecting a crossover tale that originally appeared in Batman #440-442 and New Teen Titans #60-61 (plotted by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, scripted by Wolfman with the Batman chapters illustrated by Jim Aparo & Mike DeCarlo, and the Titans sections handled by Pérez, Tom Grummett & Bob McLeod) a new character entered the lives of the extended Batman Family; a remarkable child who would change the shape of the DC Universe.

In ‘Suspects’ Batman is rapidly burning out, and not only his close confederates but also an enigmatic investigator and a mystery villain have noticed the deadly deterioration. Whilst the criminal mastermind embroils the wildly unpredictable Two-Face in his scheme, the apparently benevolent voyeur is hunting for Dick Grayson: a mission successfully accomplished in the second chapter, ‘Roots’.

The original Robin had become disenchanted with the adventurer’s life, quitting the Titans and returning to the circus where the happiest and most tragic days of his life occurred. Here he is confronted by a young boy who knows the secret identities of Batman and Robin…

‘Parallel Lines’ unravels the enigma of Tim Drake, who as a toddler was in the audience the night the Flying Graysons were murdered. Tim was an infant prodigy, and when, some months later he saw the new hero Robin perform the same acrobatic stunts as Dick Grayson he instantly deduced who the Boy Wonder was – and by extrapolation, the identity of Batman.

A passionate fan, Drake followed the Dynamic Duo’s exploits for a decade: noting every case and detail. He knew when Jason Todd became Robin and was moved to act when his death led to the Caped Crusader going catastrophically off the rails.

Taking it upon himself to fix his broken heroes Drake determined to convince the “retired” Grayson to became Robin once more – before Batman made an inevitable fatal mistake. It might all have been too little to late, however, as in ‘Going Home!’ Two-Face makes his murderous move against a severely sub-par Dark Knight…

Concluding with a raft of explosive and highly entertaining surprises with ‘Rebirth’ this often-overlooked Bat-saga introduces the third Robin (but who would get into costume only after years of training – and fan-teasing) whilst acknowledging both modern sentiments about child-endangerment and the classical roles of young heroes in heroic fiction. Perhaps a little slow and definitely a bit too sentimental in places, this is nevertheless an excellent, key Batman story, and one no fan should be unaware of.

Short, sweet and simply superb, here is a Batman – and Robin – much missed by many of us, and this tale, like so many others of the 1980s, is long overdue for the graphic novel treatment. To the Bat-Files, old chums…
© 1989,1990 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: R.I.P. – the Deluxe Edition


By Grant Morrison, Tony S. Daniel, Sandu Florea, Lee Garbett & Trevor Scott (DC Comics/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-137-3

After a sustained and vicious campaign of brutal psychological warfare, the all-encompassing criminal hegemony calling itself the Black Glove has succeeded in destabilising the already dubious mental equilibrium of Batman. The Glove’s enigmatic, quixotic leader Dr. Hurt is on the verge of his greatest triumph…

Grant Morrison’s controversial, much-touted extended saga relating “the Death of Batman”, promised much and managed to leave many fans confused, angry and unsatisfied, but us older lags knew full well that whatever happened, however long it took, Bruce Wayne would be back and the dance would begin all over again. So let’s take a look at this culminatory saga on its isolated, intrinsic merits and not as part of the hysterical “Buy Me! Buy Me!” huckster-hype: a solitary book starring one of the industry’s most resilient stars.

I’m reviewing the rather lovely Deluxe British edition produced by Titan Books: a lavish oversized hardback that really feels like a special event and which collects the contents of Batman #676-683 plus the portentous prelude from DC Universe #0, and also includes an extensive cover gallery – including all the variants – and a sketch section by Morrison and artist Tony S. Daniel.

After the aforementioned prelude (by Morrison & Daniel), a confrontation and mutual warning for the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince, ‘Midnight in the House of Hurt’ (which begins Sandu Florea’s cracking contribution as inker) sees the villainous clan commence their end-game as distracted, exhausted, head-over-heels-in-love Batman is dragged through further tribulations. The criminal cabal invite the Joker to join their Black Glove, whilst in ‘Batman in the Underworld’ the hero’s greatest allies begin to suspect that he’s out of control: even Bruce Wayne is no longer sure…

The first inkling of a counterplan comes with a glimpse of Batman’s earliest cases – a time when the master strategist had time to plan for every possible contingency. With his closest confidante apparently dead a radical new Caped Crusader stalks Gotham – the outlandish Batman of ‘Zur En Arrh’. Death and Chaos rule on the streets in ‘Miracle on Crime Alley’ and the utterly unpredictable Clown makes his characteristically savage move in ‘The Thin White Duke of Death’…Naturally it’s not what anybody expected…

Let’s be clear here: at the time of the original comics publication, for the industry and fan-base the Death of Batman was already a done deal. With the mega-crossover event Final Crisis rumbling along like a gaudy juggernaut, everybody “knew” that Bruce Wayne was a goner and only waited to see how, so when ‘Hearts in Darkness’ finally appeared with a resplendent, resurgent, triumphant Batman vanquishing and vanishing, leaving a slew of unanswered questions, there were howls of protest.

However these are readers who were aware of a greater picture that involved the entire DCU. For the purposes of this collection though and any casual reader picking it up, there is a solid narrative conclusion which is marvelously supplemented by the two-issue postscript ‘Last Rites’ which follows.

Illustrated by Lee Garbett and Trevor Scott, ‘The Butler Did It‘ and ‘The Butler Did It Again’ focus on Alfred Pennyworth as he adapts to a life without Master Bruce and his driven alter-ego. Looking backwards and to the future these contemplative pieces pinpoint some key moments of Batman’s serried history whilst carefully planting those clues that would inform the adventures of his successor and even lay a trail of breadcrumbs that would lead to the return of Bruce Wayne…

With the addition of such fashionably despised elements as Bat-Mite and Black Casebook continuity (see Batman: the Black Casebook), as well as deferring/postponing the traditional last chapter explanation and wrap-up, Morrison caught a lot of flak for this tale, but in all honesty, with the value of distance and hindsight this whole thing actually works very well, indeed.

Pretty, enthralling beautiful and magnificently compulsive, this is a Bat-book well worth another look.

© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Titan books, who published this edition, are responsible for a huge number of publications; their magazines and graphic novels range from British and World comics and strip classics to fantasy, science fiction, licensed product and DC/Vertigo material for all tastes. Their fabulous new website/blog should beopen for business as you read this. Why not check them out as soon as you’re done here?