Batman - One Bad Day: Riddler (Review)

 

Writer: Tom King

Artist: Mitch Gerards

Original Graphic Novel

To my surprise, this is the first time I've reviewed a comic or graphic novel written by Tom King. A strange omission, really, given I've read several of his comics. So I might as well get this out of the way first.

I've liked some of Tom Kings work but whenever the man is on something related to Batman he just absolutely loses me.

I didn't review it, partly because it slipped my mind during the years long span I'd been away from this blog, but I had read roughly half of his time on the mainline Batman book during the Rebirth relaunch/rebrand. First arc was shaky but not bad, but he lost me with the second, I Am Suicide. His thesis statement for Batman, at least that early in the run, seemed to be that the very identity of Batman was meant as a form of slow burn suicide in the wake of his parents death. 

I'm not going to go into all the problems I have with that because this review is not about that run, but at least a part of my problem with it lies in what an utterly dour, cynical, selfish slant this places on the entire being of Bruce Wayne and Batman. It removes anything heroic about the crusade and, in some ways, makes him a monster. It colors everything differently. Robin and the Bat family suddenly become less about found family and trauma bonding, instead becoming about a psychotic broken manchild dragging a bunch of kids into something that he intends to kill him someday. It's less about justice and more like a slow form of slitting his wrists.

Suffice to say, I didn't finish the run. I made it farther than you might think, all the way to the wedding-that-wasn't, before I called it. It was around when Catwoman decided Batman couldn't be effective if he was happy. Maybe that was editorial, who knows, but it fit too well with what King was doing even if he didn't originally intend it. I was looking for some kind of refutation of this thesis, but somewhere around fifty issues in it didn't seem to be coming and it was, frankly, a little too late even if that actually was the endgame. The run kind of ruined Batman and Catwoman together for me, to the point I don't really want to read it anymore, and when I saw the next arc was going to be super dark Batdickery like we were still in the 90's, I dipped. Out of like fifty issues I enjoyed the double date two parter and that was pretty much it. Kite-Mans reinvention was great, but it happened amidst an overlong and weirdly bad take on a war between two rogues.

This graphic novel has the benefit of being out of continuity, I assume, and boy is that ever a good thing.

Most of this overlong preamble has been spent complaining about Kings take on Batman, so this is a good enough spot to break that a bit and talk about what works. Tom King is a talented writer. That's obvious even in the things I don't like. He has a nice rhythm and storytelling sensibility that combines to feel very him, if that makes any sense at all. I can dislike a story he writes, but it's less an issue with the mechanics or flow than it is with what the story is about, themes and the like. The mechanics are the aspects of the bookending sequences that I like, even as I don't much care for the ending itself. We'll point of view through a bystander as they set off home from work, texting his wife, then bam, cut to black. We get several black panels for the rest of the page, signifying death, before flipping to the next where confirmation comes with CCT footage of the mans last moments.

It's the trick The Sopranos famously pulled in the very last scene of the show, only this graphic novel knew to set up and explain it beforehand so no one is confused at the final reprise.

Mitch Gerards is one of Kings better collaborators. Which is not a diss on the others, Tom King seems to attract good artists, Mitch is just that good. There's a moodiness to everything, a dreariness, that colors every scene without being dark or grimy. Shadows are heavy, but the other colors contrast through brightness. Slim shafts of white for rain, a near constant in any outdoor scene. Deep in the book, Gerards hands us one of the loveliest scene transitions in comics through use of a basketball court. The change in time period signified by color, the past using the haze of orange that's been part of every flashback breaking into the thick shadows and dark greens hanging over the present day sequences. Top shelf work.

Too bad about the actual story.

I'll preface here by giving a big old SPOILER WARNING. I'm going to talk about the entire plot. Blogger doesn't exactly have spoiler tags, so this is the best I can do. If you somehow made it to my site, I assume you want my opinion and to give that, well, I gotta talk about the story. Otherwise, you might as well cut here and rest assured I didn't like it. I think I'm done with giving arbitrary grades, so there's nothing like that to look for. I'll also note these are all my opinions, so you may feel differently, and also that this is not intended for continuity so it's more or less harmless.

All that now out of the way, One Bad Day: Riddler as a story is essentially bad fanfiction.

Strong statement? Depends on how you mean it. I have a fairly positive view of fanfiction. It's essentially free, democratized writing. Anyone can write whatever they want and put it out for their peers to read. It isn't making any money, so burgeoning writers can play with characters and settings they would otherwise never be allowed to. You know, since capitalism and our copyright laws are an utter joke. 

Most people like to say that "most fanfiction is bad". So? Have you taken a look at a lot of things that have actually been published? Eragon and Harry Potter were once wildly popular despite the actual writing being somewhat pedestrian, at times bad. 50 Shades of Grey made a load of money and that started out as actual fanfiction. You can get enjoyment or like characters even in bad work. That's the entire concept of "good bad" media.

Also, to be blunt, most of todays most popular media are basically corporate approved fanfiction. Stan Lee hasn't exactly written Spider-Man or Iron Man since the 60's. Bill Finger and Bob Kane have been dead a long time, but Batman lives on. We place too much stress and negative feeling on the word simply because it's unofficial or because random people are allowed to put whatever they want out.

When I think of bad fanfiction, I think less in writing quality and more of a bunch of tired tropes or lazy ideas. Things that have been overdone. Possibly pretentious. Often rooted in a misunderstanding of characters and theme. Or maybe they just make everything really gritty and dark and depressing because that's real, man.

Unrelated to the previous sentence, I joke, the Riddler is a murderer in this comic and the smartest bestest man in the world.

Murderin' Riddler is not a take I like, but whatever, I can deal with it. The Batman had him as a killer and that worked. But that film was also trying to tell a story about class inequality that tied into what Riddler was doing. He, along with Catwoman and Batman himself, was a third of a trio that spoke to three different walks of life, status and privilege. It played to the theme of the film and that's why I accepted it.

In One Bad Day: Riddler, the Riddler decides to just start offing civilians because all the riddles prior to this were just one big game to him. Now he's tired of the game and wants to send a message to Batman that old Eddie is his better. Interspersed with all this are flashbacks to Edwards childhood as the son to the dean of a prestigious school. Said father demands perfection or he breaks out the corporal punishment. One of Edwards teachers likes to encourage outside the box thinking so he puts one riddle at the end of tests. Edward cannot think outside the box and gets frustrated so he cheats. He's caught, but the teacher gently chastises Edward. However, when the teacher mentions he'll have to tell Edwards father and hopes at least it'll be a learning experience, Edward coldly murders him on the basketball court, slamming the teachers face into the pavement until it's crushed. 

That is his "One Bad Day".

It's rather groan inducing, really, when you get to the end of the comic and realize everything has just been a pretentious "the gloves are off, the silly villain everyone laughed at is a grim, dark, gritty killer" story. Hell, it's groan inducing even before you get to that point. In order to make this all work, Edward Nygma is given a competency and cognitive ability that borders on superhuman. But really, it's just kind of stupid.

Eddie always knew who Batman was, you see, along with all of Bruces kids. He's been able to sneak in and out of the Manor a lot over the years, get into safes, even found The Pearls. Seen everyone sleeping. He knows who every cop and guard is, who their family is. There's a confusing sequence late in the book where he seems to be able to lay down on the ground, his words causing the guards to shoot and kill each other. He convinces Film Freak to slit his throat after Nygma bests Film Freak in a film trivia game. He knows about Jim Gordons marriage failing, what happened to Sarah Essen, a bunch of personal events he should never be able to find out because how would he have been there. He was apparently the one who gave Joker the plans that led to the famous apartment shooting in Killing Joke.

You see what I'm getting at here? I didn't even get everything. Written out plain, it's absolutely ludicrous. How hard is it to hit that point in a DC Universe story? Where I accept a man who can fly and shoot heat beams. Where a guy dresses like a Bat to fight crime without being crippled by year three. Where a ring powers up and creates things out of green light. It's sudden over competence, reminding me of some fanfiction I've read in the past where a fan of a minor character is upset at how said character is treated in universe so they're going to make them a real threat.

All in service of an ending you know is coming. I sighed halfway through. The threat in the last confrontation is that Riddler knows everything, he's changed and if Batman ever hits him again he'll kill someone, so Batman has to leave him alone. Then a couple page sequence of everyone being scared stupid by him, where mob bosses and bank heads all decide if the Riddler shows up you give him whatever he wants. Everyone laughed at him but now he's scary. No one can stop him, everyone is too afraid.

Did you guess how it ends?

Batman tells the Riddler that he can change too. That Riddler has been abusing his weakness for mercy. We point of view with Riddler. In the mirror he finally notices Batman behind him. Cut to black. Four whole panels of it.

What can I say but "fuck off".

It's definitely non continuity. I don't think I have to explain why at this point. So you can take it or leave it as a what if. But for my money, it's a comic that is unintentionally sillier than any gimmick scheme Riddler's ever done. The book never tells us that Batman killing the Riddler is the only way, only implying it through a seemingly extreme no win scenario. You'll often see some people excuse storytelling beats like this, where a character who kills is suddenly forced to cross that line because they were "left with no choice". The film Man of Steel is a good example with its climax of Superman being forced to execute Zod to save a family, a hollow sequence that occurs after the two practically level Metropolis amidst their fight and likely kill tens of thousands. But there's always a choice.

After all, everything is as it was written to be.

Vaya Con Dios, Castle

Maybe it always had to end this way.

When I was a kid up until my late twenties, I actually really liked the Punisher. At his core, he's more or less a serial murderer, so that probably seems an odd statement. Of criminals, sure, and usually of the worst variety, not often some schmo who holds up the local 7-11, but still a wonton murderer whose general solution to problems is "shoot first, shoot later, shoot some more and then when everyone is dead, double tap the bodies to be sure". But as a fictional character he offered a catharsis of sorts, a fantasy even to those who didn't much care for the idea of guns or violence in real life. Frank Castle was the guy who took out the untouchable, the corrupt. He spoke to a part of most of us that occasionally comes out deep in the recesses of our mind and soul, the part that wonders, just for a minute, what it would be like if the most rotten people in the world got what was coming to them.

Even today, well, take a look around and you might see how that could be appealing. Billionaires who flaunt their wealth and make life harder for all of us. Arrogant assholes who buy up the things we like and erode what made them special before our eyes because they don't have to listen to us. Businessmen who grind the working class to dust, leave everyone struggling to live, paying rent that's tripled over a long stretch of time while wages stayed flat. Shadowy figures who subvert truth, buy up forms of media for the sole purpose of controlling the narrative, controlling us. Politicians who actively subvert the will of the people and do everything in their power to stop us from sending them packing.

Suddenly, the idea of a guy who goes and takes out the people actively making life worse doesn't sound so bad, for fiction. It scratches an itch, one you know can never really be. Fantasy.

Unfortunately, it turns out he's also appealing to some of the worst people you can imagine, the kind who prefer it not be a fantasy, whose targets are quite different. You know the sort of people I'm talking about. Corrupt cops, neo nazis, far right wingers who think the best option to being outnumbered and fading in relevance is to shoot everyone they don't like and be done with it. Never mind the fact that the Punisher has, on numerous occasions, killed corrupt cops by the precinct full. Never mind he'd probably love to kill some Nazis. Co-option of figures and symbols doesn't rely on the truth. It relies on warping that until what you insist upon becomes the truth.

It's not super surprising the Punisher could have ended up a target for co-option by the right. He's a creation of the eighties, born out of a mold of vigilante hero with their own roots in political fallout of the time. Frank Castle has a lot in common with numerous protagonists played by Clint Eastwood, including but not limited to Dirty Harry. He comes from the same primordial ooze that spawned Paul Kersey, Charles Bronsons character from 1970's schlock film Death Wish. They come from a time period of right wing anxiety of the "softening" of police, that the cops just couldn't get the job done anymore so it was up to real men to take the law into their own hands and get some real killing done. All because cops got caught doing things they shouldn't and had to abide by some rules.

Middle America's easily scared and pretty easy to fool, history seems to show.

With all that in mind, suddenly it makes a lot more sense that the more violent of us might decide to take the symbol of the Punisher, the skull, and crowd around it. None of them have ever read a comic, I'm sure. The few that have probably aren't great at reading comprehension, or maybe they're willfully twisting it. But the character serves their purposes. Especially the cops. 

Little more than jack booted thugs these days, if the police were ever anything else, they struggle with a populace who has become increasingly aware of their crimes, of the human rights violations and abuses they used to get away with regularly. The times changes, technology caught up and we all became a bit more aware. So the people trained to react to any threat with lethal force growled back. The skull is a warning. Don't fuck with me because I'm the one with the power here and I'll take you out if need be. They do it, too. Take a look at the news headlines today, you'll probably find something about another black kid murdered for existing while black. It is, after all, a day ending in the letter y.

As this all happened, it was easy to see the Punisher losing any real relevance to any well adjusted person. I threw away my Punisher shirts around when the Fox News talking head of the time started wearing a Punisher skull pin. I didn't feel comfortable wearing them outside. Rather than a cool symbol from a comic I liked, it became tied up in things I didn't agree with, with death and murder and people who would prefer minorities stop existing. I still have my old Punisher comics in a box somewhere, but I'm not sure I'll ever read them again. It's hard to square away stories I enjoyed with the effect the character has had.

Disney, of course, noticed. This hadn't been as much of an issue back in 2009, when they purchased Marvel Comics. But you could tell they got incredibly nervous around when the skull started being associated with proto-facists, moreso when those same people dropped the proto. Merch for the character started dwindling, comics starring the character, once plentiful, started slowing to a trickle. Creative direction for the character visibly seemed to shift, showing a company increasingly uncomfortable with the character they owned.

If you hadn't noticed all that, the unease was made plain within the pages of the thirteenth issue of the then current volume of his ongoing, back in 2019. The character, accosted by adoring cops, came face to face with a representation of his real life influence and didn't like what he saw. A meta blend of reality and fiction, making what had happened in the real world part of said fiction in order to force him to deal with it in some way. The confrontation saw him tear the skull decal off their car, rip it to shreds, and blatantly threaten them in a way you'd expect from Frank Castle. "If you want a role model, Captain America would be happy to have you. If I catch you doing what I do, I'll come for you next."

A game attempt. But it didn't do a whole lot. How could it, really? Comics are, these days, a niche hobby. Certainly not one most of the cops proudly displaying the skull have ever been into, so they were unlikely to encounter the message. Even if they did, they'd likely refuse to absorb it.

So what to do? It's an issue for Disney, for sure. Famously considered a family friendly company, they never much like anything that could tarnish their brand. It's why they often don't do much with any R-rated properties they acquire when they decide to buy up the competition. They don't care about social issues so much as how much it affects their bottom line. It's the root of their current-as-of-writing spat with Floridas sentient turd of a Governor, Ron DeSantis. They make a lot of money off LGBTQ in numerous fashions while Ron is a fascist who would love to wipe them off the face of the Earth. If LGBTQ acceptance hadn't reached where it has socially, I guarantee you Disney would not have given two shits about all of the anti-gay bills that passed through Florida legislature.

Really, there were only two options. They could make like Matt Furie, creator of Pepe the Frog, whose dismay at the far right co-opting his creation led him on a crusade against those types wherever possible. There's merit in the approach. After all, the Punisher made money and a corporation cares for little other than their bottom line. Disney's famously litigious as it is. But culturally, there's little chance of ever wrenching the character back from the mud the fascists had dragged him through.

So that leaves the second option. Tear it down and salt the Earth. Be done with it.

Marvel seemed to settle on the latter. It started with a trademark for a new symbol. The famous skull was going away. Then they hired Jason Aaron, a well known Punisher scribe, for a new direction. Suddenly, he was involved in the Hand and falling down a path he couldn't come back from. One where it seemed like death was probably the end game.

It wouldn't be the first time Jason Aaron had killed a version of the character. He'd once been the one chosen to follow Garth Ennis and close out the Punisher MAX version of the character. That series ended the only way the Punishers story ever really could, with him succumbing to his injuries, to the war, after a brutal confrontation with the Kingpin. If anyone was going to do it a second time, it would probably be him.

The run broke down the war, the modus operendi, in a very real way. The Punisher had, from the aughts on, occasionally played with the idea that the loss of Franks family was nothing but an excuse for his war. Maybe he did love them but he'd turned their memory into something terrible. This was the thesis statement of Ennis first arc of MAX, delivered by former comrade Microchip, and the series dabbled in it ever since. The most recent run just made it explicit, going so far as to resurrect Frank Castles wife just to have her come face to face with what her husband had done in her name.

In the 80's, the reaction would probably have been one of justification. Given the way Death Wish was written, the way it takes Paul Kerseys side, would it have been strange if his wife and daughter had approved of his actions? For a movie back then, written as it was, probably not. Probably the same for Frank Castle in the 80's. But times change, sensibilities change and the characters have to change with them. Marvel characters are, after all, forever un-aging. They use a sliding timescale to keep things current. When you slide the time, the context of a characters life will change with the new environment their past slid into. For example, Frank Castle, known for most of his history as a Vietnam veteran, is suddenly a veteran of the Gulf War.

In more modern times, when we look at things like the Punisher with a more critical eye, when those old low rent films are derided and picked apart, wouldn't it make sense for his wife to be horrified by the mass murder made in her name? Doesn't it make sense that the darkness was always in Franks heart, that she saw it and was about to ask for divorce before a freak happening saw her gunned down? What does it look like when someone finds that their family name is now associated with the most successful serial killer in human history?

So she shoots him.

He didn't die, in the end. Comic book shenanigans happen and Frank is saved from death. It wouldn't have guaranteed permanence if he had died anyway. Wouldn't have been the first time Frank Castle died in main continuity, after all, or even the second. Remember Angel Punisher? But it left him at the mercy of its coda, where his peers and his soon to be ex wife broke down his ethos, his way of life, his war. It feels like something of a breakdown of the very concept, intending to put a bow on it. He's shunted off to another dimension, far away from the main Marvel universe, where he's shown protecting a group of orphans in a weird land. Even if Frank Castle lives, the intent seems to be that maybe the concept of the Punisher cannot. Much like when the Samuel L Jackson version of Nick Fury became the mainline Nick Fury, with the old version shunted off into limbo. He doesn't have a place anymore.

Nothing stops them, of course, from reversing course later. This is fiction, after all, and if things died down enough that Disney and Marvel thought they could get some money out of bringing the character back to the old status quo without getting raked over the coals for it you can bet your last dime they'll do it. But for now, it feels like a sendoff, like a last look at a character, at a concept, that just doesn't work in the modern day, divorced from the era when it seemed less horrifying, when real life hadn't taken inspiration. The character outlived his usefulness and his relevance, becoming something pop culturally that he'd never been in the text of his stories. 

It makes sense that could happen. That's one of the tools of the fascist, one of their favorites even. Sometimes you can't stop them from co-opting things, you can only let go and move on.

Maybe it always had to end this way.