SHADOW OF THE BAT #24 - February 1994

The Immigrant - Rosemary’s Baby
Credits:  Alan Grant (writer), Vince Giarrano (artist), Todd Klein (letterer), Adrienne Roy (colorist)

Summary:  Batman encounters Rosemary, a woman who’s illegally traveled to America to retrieve the infant she sold earlier in Central America.  Batman researches the case and finds a connection to the Rayo Fertility Clinic.  While staking out Dr. Rayo’s home, Batman discovers a van delivering babies.  He forces the van to crash and rescues the children inside.  Rosemary’s child is retrieved, and Batman pauses for a moment to reflect on his own mother before resuming his crusade.

Miscellaneous Note:  “Rosemary’s Baby” is an obvious allusion to the movie.  This baby is just a normal, innocent child, however.  Unless we get a sequel in the New 52…

Irrelevant Continuity:  “The System” allows Jean-Paul to instantly speak Spanish.

I Love the ‘90s:  The term “illegal immigrant” is used repeatedly, which might not happen today since the phrase is now considered “politically charged.”

Review:  I have to question why any of these Shadow of the Bat issues are included when there are numerous stories that affect the major storyline that are left out of the book.  As a psychological study of Jean-Paul, there’s a solid premise here, but I don’t think anyone would tell you that it’s required reading for this era.  Grant’s constructed a story that touches on Jean-Paul’s knack (and distaste) for detective work, requires him to reflect on his mother (or who he thinks she might’ve been, since he can’t remember her), and forces him to deal with a domestic situation that requires more than punching and kicking.  Hypothetically, this should open the door to a real examination of the character.  Unfortunately, the entire issue is marred by Batman’s decision to attack a van filled with babies.  He literally runs the thing off the road, then acts shocked that the infants might be in danger.  What kind of a moron is this?  This scene, combined with Vince Giarrano’s nasty early ‘90s art, makes the issue pretty unbearable.

SHADOW OF THE BAT #20 - Early November 1993

The Tally Man
Credits:  Alan Grant (writer), Vince Giarrano (art),  Todd Klein (letterer), Adrienne Roy (colorist)
 
Summary:  The Tally Man flashes back to his past as he pursues Batman.  He remembers the “tally man” of his youth, the loan shark who brutalized his mother.  As a prepubescent, the Tally Man murdered his mother’s abuser, and after his release from prison, discovered his mother hanging from a rope.  Eventually, Batman gets the better of Tally Man.  He tries to fight against the lethal instincts programmed inside him, but barely leaves Tally Man alive when their fight is over.

Review:  Another story intended to show us that our new Batman is Not Quite Right.  Gosh, I hope this doesn’t get old soon.  I would be curious to know where “The Tally Man” ranks amongst other Shadow of the Bat arcs, because this is pretty dreadful.  There is one good idea in the story, the irony of Jean-Paul being targeted over a case of mistaken identity (Tally Man assumes he’s the original Batman), even while Jean-Paul doesn’t know who he truly is.  The rest of the arc consists of utterly mindless violence and a gratuitous “dark” origin for the throwaway villain.  And the origin never explains why Tally Man is seemingly made out of smoke, which leads me to believe Vince Giarrano took his creative license a little too far and just made the villain some kind of a ghost even though the script never called for it.  Looking at all of the stories left out of this collection, I’ve got to wonder who thought it was a good idea to include this arc.

SHADOW OF THE BAT #19 - Late October 1993

The Tally Man
Credits:  Alan Grant (writer), Vince Giarrano (art),  Todd Klein (letterer), Adrienne Roy (colorist)

Summary:  Batman stops a robbery next to a New Age store’s warehouse.  Intrigued by a poster, Batman enters a sensory deprivation tank and explores his subconscious.  Meanwhile, the Tally Man kills the mobster Big Mike.  Next on his list is Mike’s brother, Johnny Mahoon.  Tally Man searches for Johnny at his hideout, the New Age store’s warehouse.  Batman has already incapacitated Johnny and his friend by the time the Tally Man arrives.  After killing Johnny, the Tally Man targets Batman.

Irrelevant Continuity:  

• This arc apparently continues an ongoing storyline involving a mobster named Buto that was killed, allegedly because Big Mike sold him out to Batman.  The Tally Man has been hired by Buto’s brother to kill Big Mike, Mike’s brother Johnny, and Batman.
• While exploring his subconscious, Jean-Paul sees visions of his father programming him to become an assassin during his sleep as a child.  I’m assuming this is material already covered in Sword of Azrael, but most of the details of Jean-Paul’s past have been left vague in the main titles.

Review:  The first coincidence in this story, that Batman would stop a robbery next door to a warehouse with sensory deprivation tanks, one with posters advertising the tanks even though it’s a warehouse and not a store, isn’t so bad.  What Grant wants to do is to have Jean-Paul learn about sensory deprivation and be inspired to try it out.  Fine.  The second coincidence, that the New Age store’s warehouse is also a mobster’s hideout, one that just so happens to be on the same hit list as Batman...it’s a harder pill to swallow.  There might be some context in the previous issues that makes this less ridiculous (apparently Batman was in this neighborhood in the first place investigating Buto’s murder), but it’s hard to get past the idea of mobsters hiding out in an active warehouse filled with New Age equipment.  It’s absurd, but never played as absurdly funny this issue, so it just comes across as a lethargic plot convenience.  

Regarding Jean-Paul’s journey to the center of his mind, I have no problems with Alan Grant using Jean-Paul’s mental state as an excuse to explore sensory deprivation, but Vince Giarrano’s art fails the scene spectacularly.  Giarrano’s rendition of the boneless, smoke-like Tally Man is tolerable, and I like some of his Gotham cityscapes, but the bulk of his art resembles a bad Erik Larsen impression.  That anatomy is atrocious, sketchy lines appear everywhere for no reason, and the human characters just look ugly.  It’s amazing that prestige format books like Excalibur and Shadow of the Bat often ended up with subpar fill-in work during the ‘90s.  I would think editorial would’ve been much more discerning when finding replacement artists for these titles.

WEB OF SPIDER-MAN Annual #10 - June 1994

Shriek, Rattle, and Roll

Credits: Terry Kavanagh (plot), Mike Lackey (writer), Jerry Bingham (penciler), Tom Palmer (inker), Steve Dutro (letterer), Freddy Mendez (colorist)

The Plot: Spider-Man escorts Shriek into Ravencroft, despite his objections that the facility isn’t ready to accept patients. Shriek soon feeds on the negative emotions of a guard and powers herself out of her restraints. She frees her fellow patients, Pyromania, Gale, Mayhem, and Webber, and attacks the staff. With John Jameson’s help, Spider-Man apprehends the inmates.

The Subplots: Warrant and his boss Reynard are using a guard, Barker, as a spy. Their plan is to watch Ravencroft explode and exploit the new bounty hunter opportunities it will generate.

Web of Continuity: Edward Wheelan, formerly the Vermin, now works as a peer counselor at Ravencroft.

Creative Differences: An added thought balloon has Mayhem (who apparently is the only one of the convicts without an online profile) reflecting that she’s only helping the others long enough to kill them after they escape. This was apparently added to justify why Mayhem is joining the other inmates even though a previous scene established that she viewed them as immoral. I don’t think establishing that she wants to kill them as soon as they’re free helps clarify her motivation, though.

Review: Aside from Jerry Bingham’s art, there’s nothing of note here. I don’t even think the introduction of four new Ravencroft patients was intended to do anything more than kill a few pages. In case anyone’s curious, Pyromania is a pyrokinetic, Gale can create massive winds, Mayhem secrets a poisonous gas, and Webber is a “deranged psychotic escape artist,” as opposed to those perfectly stable psychotic escape artists. Two of these villains could’ve given Wizard staffers some easy flatulence jokes, but I can’t imagine anyone else paying these characters a lot of attention. They are such total blank slates that virtually any writer could do something with them, but the Handbook’s already filled with hundreds of generic goons begging for a reinvention.

Daze and Confusion

Credits: Terry Kavanagh (plot), Joey Cavalieri (script), Alex Saviuk (breakdowns), Don Hudson (finishes), Sergio Cariello (letterer), Joe Andreani (colorist)

The Plot: The master hypnotist Daze targets Senator Gaines, who is under Warrant’s protection. Warrant neutralizes Daze and rescues the senator from committing suicide. Reynard injects Daze with truth serum and learns that he works for a criminal cabal known as the Fold.

Review: A caption on the final page asks readers to write in if they want to see more Warrant action. This teaser story, which pits Warrant against a foe that resembles a pedophile cosplaying as Dr. Strange, apparently wasn’t enough to turn the tide in Warrant’s favor. Sadly, we’ll never know the outcome of Warrant’s epic battle with the Fold. I can’t imagine why the comics reading public of 1994 didn’t want more of a character that’s essentially a cyborg Gambit, but sometimes the fates are cruel.

Tabula Rasa

Credits: Mike Lackey (writer), Sergio Cariello (penciler/letterer), Keith Williams (inker), Bob Sharen (colorist)

The Plot: The Black Cat discovers the Black Fox stealing jewelry from her apartment. He claims he’s been hired to return it to its proper owners. After pursuing him she decides to let the Black Fox go, content that the last vestige of her criminal life is gone.

I Love the ‘90s: Black Cat remarks that she wants to settle down with the latest Fabio romance novel.

Review: This is pretty amusing, and the art has a cartoony charm that I like. Mike Lackey’s interpretation of the Black Fox feels a little off (he speaks like a walking thesaurus, which seems like a great exaggeration of his established characterization), but the story remains a fun, quick read. A footnote reminds us that a Black Cat miniseries is coming from Terry Kavanagh and Andrew Wildman, but I doubt it was as entertaining as this back-up.

The Power of Resistance

Credits: Joey Cavalieri (writer), Vince Giarrano (art), Steve Dutro (letterer), Bob Sharen (colorist)

The Plot: The Prowler fights the Resistor, a former AIM scientist that’s using local gangs for labor. He recognizes one of the young gang members as a friend of his brother’s. After defeating the Resistor, the Prowler warns the child to make the right choices from now on.

Review: Obviously this is a fairly generic set-up, but I imagine Joey Cavalieri probably would’ve gotten something out of the concept if he had enough room to flesh out the story. I don’t think the little kid Prowler’s so concerned about is even named in the story, which gives you some idea of how rushed the execution is. The art ramps up the excitement a bit, with a style that’s a mash-up of Sam Kieth and early Jae Lee. Looking at this back-up, I wonder why exactly Marvel created a new hero to serve as a Spawn clone, when Prowler was already there with his McFarlane friendly costume and cape. I imagine Spider-Man completists would’ve felt more compelled to buy a Prowler series than a Nightwatch one anyway.