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scans_dailyIssue #1076'd teased his interest in Batman's current internal conflict (with " his darkness ", Barbatos).
In #1080, he'd set out in service of that interest. He knew that Talia al Ghul'd taken the Bat out of Gotham to save him from the Orgham family - he knew their destination.
He traveled, with Eduardo Flamingo in tow to take care of Talia and her minions, there - the desert called Aras.
He was there when Bruce Wayne awoke to his situation.
" You died. "
(An organic evocation of The Godfather.)
" Gotham has already begun to forget. "
That was the super-normal dimension of the Orghams' work - the eclipsing of a symbol.
Renee Montoya, the Question, grappled with it in Gotham as she pursued her own investigations:
She was following that woman, the mother of GCPD detective Nash.
Nash'd gone missing after his partner Fielding'd been killed - by him, working for the Orghams, in #1075.
Renee didn't know that - she just knew that Detective Fielding'd been killed on a job she'd given him, and that the missing Nash'd been his partner on that job. She was just tracking the only lead she had on the only lead she had - who was suddenly confronted by a mugger.
In the Aras, Bruce remembered the symbol that he was as he fought the Orgham's azmer externalized.
' This fight he can win. He is the Batman, after all. '
At the end of the day, spent, he found a tree - a cold tree of anguished bodies.
He also found someone seeming warm and alive, who spoke to him.
Back in Gotham, having got a lead from Nash's mother, Renee listened to the city speaking to her.
(The green smoke's some Question gas.
The " city speaking " narration's more a Vic Sage thing than a Renee thing, but it still works here - if nothing else, she's just making her internal monologue an interlocution.)
She found her way to the neat suicide the Orghams'd arranged for Nash - and knew that it was too neat, that the truth she sought lay beyond it.
In the Aras, Bruce listened to truth from his friend by the tree: " There is only one way out of the desert..
" Find yourself. "
(Farhad's from the story Talia told back in #1064 - a hero of legend set up as a parallel to Batman.
This is that legend being real, and Bruce meeting him.)
Bruce went on ' armed with new hope.
(" foreign, unpossessed place " is verbatim from Italo Calvino's " Invisible Cities ", on a traveler coming to understand his past as he met new things in the present: " Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.
[He] enters a city; he sees someone in a square living a life or an instant that could be his; he could now be in that man’s place, if he had stopped in time, long ago; or if, long ago, at a crossroads, instead of taking one road he had taken the opposite one, and after long wandering he had come to be in the place of that man in that square. ")
Doctor Hurt greeted him: " Welcome, my boy..
The backup story also involves Doctor Hurt - it's people whose lives he'd touched, meeting in a support group.
There was a woman he married and left.
There was a man who wanted to be a superhero, and found a mentor in Hurt.
" He stood with me on a midtown rooftop. He smiled proudly as I raised the grapple line he'd made for me so I could move across the city the way Batman does. "
There was a man whom Hurt didn't disguise his ultimate intention towards: " I was kidnapped and tortured with rites of exorcism. "
The group collectively realized that the author of their miseries was Dr. Simon Hurt.
(Doctor Hurt's presence in the main story seemingly makes the conclusion of this backup a bit foregone, but it's still a good read.
The main story's two interwoven ones - sixteen pages starring Batman and six starring the Question.
Pagecount here for the former's just under 5 and 1/3rd - for the latter, it's just under 2.
Writing on the whole main's Ram V. Art for the Batman part's Riccardo Federici - art for the Question part's Stefano Raffaele. Colors on both're Lee Loughridge - letters're Tom Napolitano.
The backup's 8 pages - the pagecount for that's 2 and under 3/10ths. Writing's Dan Watters, art's Hayden Sherman, colors're Triona Farrell, and letters're Steve Wands.
This is all from January 2024's Detective Comics #1081, published by DC.)
In #1080, he'd set out in service of that interest. He knew that Talia al Ghul'd taken the Bat out of Gotham to save him from the Orgham family - he knew their destination.
He traveled, with Eduardo Flamingo in tow to take care of Talia and her minions, there - the desert called Aras.
He was there when Bruce Wayne awoke to his situation.
" You died. "
(An organic evocation of The Godfather.)
" Gotham has already begun to forget. "
That was the super-normal dimension of the Orghams' work - the eclipsing of a symbol.
Renee Montoya, the Question, grappled with it in Gotham as she pursued her own investigations:
She was following that woman, the mother of GCPD detective Nash.
Nash'd gone missing after his partner Fielding'd been killed - by him, working for the Orghams, in #1075.
Renee didn't know that - she just knew that Detective Fielding'd been killed on a job she'd given him, and that the missing Nash'd been his partner on that job. She was just tracking the only lead she had on the only lead she had - who was suddenly confronted by a mugger.
In the Aras, Bruce remembered the symbol that he was as he fought the Orgham's azmer externalized.
' This fight he can win. He is the Batman, after all. '
At the end of the day, spent, he found a tree - a cold tree of anguished bodies.
He also found someone seeming warm and alive, who spoke to him.
Back in Gotham, having got a lead from Nash's mother, Renee listened to the city speaking to her.
(The green smoke's some Question gas.
The " city speaking " narration's more a Vic Sage thing than a Renee thing, but it still works here - if nothing else, she's just making her internal monologue an interlocution.)
She found her way to the neat suicide the Orghams'd arranged for Nash - and knew that it was too neat, that the truth she sought lay beyond it.
In the Aras, Bruce listened to truth from his friend by the tree: " There is only one way out of the desert..
" Find yourself. "
(Farhad's from the story Talia told back in #1064 - a hero of legend set up as a parallel to Batman.
This is that legend being real, and Bruce meeting him.)
Bruce went on ' armed with new hope.
(" foreign, unpossessed place " is verbatim from Italo Calvino's " Invisible Cities ", on a traveler coming to understand his past as he met new things in the present: " Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.
[He] enters a city; he sees someone in a square living a life or an instant that could be his; he could now be in that man’s place, if he had stopped in time, long ago; or if, long ago, at a crossroads, instead of taking one road he had taken the opposite one, and after long wandering he had come to be in the place of that man in that square. ")
Doctor Hurt greeted him: " Welcome, my boy..
The backup story also involves Doctor Hurt - it's people whose lives he'd touched, meeting in a support group.
There was a woman he married and left.
There was a man who wanted to be a superhero, and found a mentor in Hurt.
" He stood with me on a midtown rooftop. He smiled proudly as I raised the grapple line he'd made for me so I could move across the city the way Batman does. "
There was a man whom Hurt didn't disguise his ultimate intention towards: " I was kidnapped and tortured with rites of exorcism. "
The group collectively realized that the author of their miseries was Dr. Simon Hurt.
(Doctor Hurt's presence in the main story seemingly makes the conclusion of this backup a bit foregone, but it's still a good read.
The main story's two interwoven ones - sixteen pages starring Batman and six starring the Question.
Pagecount here for the former's just under 5 and 1/3rd - for the latter, it's just under 2.
Writing on the whole main's Ram V. Art for the Batman part's Riccardo Federici - art for the Question part's Stefano Raffaele. Colors on both're Lee Loughridge - letters're Tom Napolitano.
The backup's 8 pages - the pagecount for that's 2 and under 3/10ths. Writing's Dan Watters, art's Hayden Sherman, colors're Triona Farrell, and letters're Steve Wands.
This is all from January 2024's Detective Comics #1081, published by DC.)
