Last night, I finished reading Batman '89 (2022, published by DC Comics), by Sam Hamm (writer), Joe Quiñones (artist), Leonardo Ito (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer).
Reprints material originally released in single issue comic books format as Batman '89 #1-6 (October 2021-September 2022). (Was originally announced to be a DC "Digital First" release starting in July 2021 and to run for twelve digital comic book chapters in that format prior to appearing in print, but the smaller digital release chapters apparently didn't end up happening.)
This hardcover collected edition has a cover by Joe Quiñones, and also original issues cover art by Joe Quiñones, Jerry Ordway and Steve Oliff, Taurin Clarke, Mitch Gerads, Lee Weeks, Babs Tarr, Adam Hughes and Julian Totino Tedesco. Also includes a nine page "Batman '89 Sketchbook" by Joe Quiñones.
Buoyed by the success of recent newly released original comic book series based on the 1966-1968 Adam West "Batman" television series (under the title Batman '66) and 1975-1979 Lynda Carter television series (Wonder Woman '77), DC Comics took things to the next logical step and ventured in 2021 into telling original adventures of their two greatest motion picture renditions of their Superman and Batman characters, namely the Christopher Reeve Superman: The Movie (1978) and Michael Keaton Batman (1989) versions.
Prior to this, DC's only comic books featuring the Reeve and Keaton versions of their characters were single issue movie adaptations of Superman III (1983) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)—there were no comic book or novel adaptations of Superman: The Movie (1978) or Superman II (1980) due to the deal made between Warner Bros. and original movie story writer, Mario Puzo—and single issue comic book adaptations of Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) (and also the two subsequent Batman sequels that didn't star Michael Keaton, Batman Forever (1995) and Batman and Robin (1997). (These single issue comic book adaptations all came out in the same years as their respective movies.)
Batman '89, this new story by Hamm, Quiñones, et al., clearly takes place after the events of Batman Returns (as not only is Selina Kyle--the Michelle Pfeiffer version of the character--a major character in this story but they also make reference to events that occurred in Batman Returns). However, this must take place in a universe or timeline where events then led directly into this story rather than into the following two Joel Schumacher directed Batman films, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, as will become clear in my plot summary.
Before that, however, I should mention that Sam Hamm, who wrote this, is the same Sam Hamm who co-wrote the screenplay for the Tim Burton directed Batman 1989 film. (Or, rather, wrote the initial draft chosen to be filmed. The script then received rewrites by Warren Skaaren and other writers.) So, unlike the Superman '78 comic book, Batman '89 does actually have a creator who has direct ties to the actual film. (Hamm also received a story credit on Batman Returns for two early script drafts he wrote but director Burton then replaced Hamm with script writer, Daniel Waters, and little of Hamm's story contributions remained in the final film.)
Hamm's Batman '89 story focusses on one of the plot points he had included in his early unused Batman Returns scripts, that of Harvey Dent's (played by Billy Dee Williams in the first movie) descent into the villain, Two-Face. Here, he is still Gotham's district attorney, and he is leading a campaign to capture and prosecute the Batman as an out-of-control vigilante, and for removing Jim Gordon as Police Commissioner (despite Dent at the same time being in a romantic relationship with Jim Gordon's daughter, police sergeant Barbara Gordon). Dent is friends with Bruce Wayne, who Dent (of course) does not know is Batman.
At the start of the story, Wayne (as Batman), makes a serious mistake, leading to the death of an innocent teenager (the police accidentally shooting the teen while firing at him). This leads to additional anti Batman sentiments. Another masked vigilante protecting the poorer denizens of Gotham, this one a black teenager named Drake Winston, at first is antagonistic towards the Batman. (He wears a version of the Robin costume although the only reference to anyone calling him that is two kids in the background discussing what Batman had called him. One says he heard Batman call him "Robin", like in Robin Hood. The other says, "Naw, dumbass! He said the dude was robbin' the store." "Oh... that makes sense." And, at the end, Bruce asks him what he should call Drake and Drake replies, "Well... You're a bat guy, I'm a bird guy... So, I'm think'... The Avenging Eagle." Bruce: "'The Avenging Eagle'..." Drake: "It's not final. I'm still deciding...")
Dent, (again, of course), has an accident that freakishly disfigures the left side of his face, this time in an automobile repair garage fire (that I've already forgotten just who set on fire, just that there were a lot of bombs going off all over Gotham) that Dent runs into to try to same Winston, who Dent believes is still inside. There are also scenes prior to this showing Dent already fixated with tossing a coin (although it's a trick coin with two "heads" sides).
I'm not going to try to summarize the story past this point except to say that Selina Kyle is also present in the story as both Kyle and as Catwoman, that Barbara Gordon is most of the time being pulled in various directions (her love for Harvey Dent, for her father, and her duty as a police sergeant).
There are some nice moments in this story, like showing how Bruce ends up with a giant penny in the Batcave (as in the comics), and his scenes with Winston at the mansion and in the cave.
The Harvey Dent stuff isn't as interesting (despite my always having been at least a bit curious as to how things would have gone with they'd stuck with Billy Dee Williams as Dent in the movies instead of re-casting the part in Batman Forever with Tommy Lee Jones). For one thing, we've seen the origin of Two-Face story told so many times by this point both in the comics and also in the various animated television series and films (Batman Forever and The Dark Knight) that it's very hard to bring much of anything new that that story. And the seeds here to Dent's dual personality both prior to the accident and also after it are just not particularly convincing.
(There is an interesting moment, however, during a hallucination sequence where Dent believes it is many years later and he is governor and Barbara Gordon is the new Gotham police commissioner. She explains to him that he was right, that "Bruce Wayne flipped" and admitted to being the money man behind "a small army of mercenaries" playing as Batman. She shows him four photographs of men in the Batman costume without their masks and they are clearly meant to resemble fellow Batman film actors Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck.)
So, the story comes across as pretty average due to this and also due to Hamm trying to fit too much into it (Two-Face, Catwoman, the introductions of both Barbara Gordon and Drake Winston/Robin).
The art is what I would call "good overall but not great". Quiñones art here is more of a traditional movie adaptation style in the sense that it's drawn pretty much like he would draw any comic (I'd imagine) just with the faces just generally (sometimes vaguely) resembling the actors (unlike the Superman '78 art by Wilfredo Torres which looks so much like the Superman movies that he had to have been making extensive use of photo references for the facial likenesses and even for characters posing like when showing Superman in flight).
I generally like both styles. Torres's Superman '78 comes across as more visually exciting to me, though, than Quiñones's does. For one thing, Hamm's plotting is much "denser" here than Robert Venditti's Superman '78's, as Quiñones' pages are crammed full of lots of little panels (many of them six or seven panels to a page). So, there's a lot more going on per page here than in Superman '78, but there are also fewer exciting moments, visually speaking.
And, I hate to say it, but Quiñones' art is done no favors by how dark the artwork comes across in this story, the fault I suppose I have to put upon color artist Leonardo Ito. Now, I get that he was probably going for a tone reminiscent of the 1989 Batman film. However, his colors are *so* dark here in the many exterior night scenes and while taking place in the Batcave as to make much of Quiñones line art nearly impossible to make out. It's possible that this is some sort of production issue and not that of Ito's coloring (there are also a couple panels showing computer screens that are so small that it is impossible to read what's on the screen; I suspect this is a hold-over from when they thought this was going to be a "Digital First" release, where one would be viewing the story panel-by-panel enlarged to the size of one's phone or computer screen).
There is a lot of potential here and I suppose that Batman '89 is probably a must read for die hard fans of the 1989 Tim Burton Batman movie. (Comic book direct market sales charts were still coming out at the time the first issues of Batman '89 and Superman '78 were coming out and, according to what I saw there, Batman '89 #1 was ordered by comics shops and online comics retailers by around one hundred thousand copies more than they did Superman '78 #1. Both first issues had many variant covers, so I have to presume it was just the general "Batman is cooler than Superman" mentality driving this, plus the fact that the Christopher Reeve Superman movies are cultural touchstones for comic book readers roughly my age (I turn 51 in three weeks; I was six years old when Superman: The Movie came out in 1978 and eight when Superman II in 1980) while the Michael Keaton Batman serves the same for a slightly younger generation just turning forty and I have to assume there are probably more forty-year-olds still buying monthly comic books than there are fifty-plus-year-olds. (I was seventeen years old when the 1989 Batman movie came out, so part way through high school. To me, the Michael Keaton Batman was a really cool new film but I never really thought of Keaton as *the* Batman actor of my generation as I had earlier with Christopher Reeve and Superman).
I gave Batman '89 three out of five stars on GoodReads. I really hope that we get to see more of these Batman '89 and Superman '78 comics as both have potential for even better stories going forwards (and both have their own built-in audiences, the fans of the films). However, based on the previous similar tie-ins DC has done (Batman '66, Wonder Woman '77, and the CW "Arrowverse" tie-in series), they all seem to have pretty short runs. I believe Batman '66 ran for the longest and most issues, including quite a few crossover mini-series with other tv characters like the Green Hornet, Steed and Mrs. Peel (the 1960s tv "Avengers"), the "Man from U.N.C.L.E.", and Lynda Carter's "Wonder Woman '77".
—David Young
