BATMAN: The Ballad of Jim and Sarah

[starwolf_oakley]

Sarah Essen isn't my favorite female character in the Batman mythos, but she is an interesting one. She's a good cop, loves Jim Gordon dearly, but has a problem with the whole "his best friend is a masked vigilante" thing.
Sarah's introduction in BATMAN: YEAR ONE is after the cut.



Three pages from Part 2, when she is introduced.





And here's part 3, where things pick up a bit. Also, an albino pimp get punched in the face.














And here's the resolution.








In retrospect, did Gordon think at this point if the whole thing with Sarah was a scam so he'd have to play along with Loeb? Perhaps the scene should have added "Don't start wondering if it was all a lie, Lt. Gordon. If things had gone a different route, Sgt. Essen would be standing there with a stupid look on her face."

And now I'm wondering if putting Gordon and Essen in the same "catch Batman" squad was a "double-sided honey trap" Loeb planned to get either Gordon or Essen "under control" if needed. We gripe about Frank Miller, but his stories make you think about the motivations of the characters.

Sarah Essen was reintroduced to the Bat-books, married Jim Gordon, was even commissioner for a while, and then Joker shot her in the head on Christmas Eve during No Man's Land. In the DCnu52, it has been said Jim Gordon never remarried after his divorce.

Finally, I've mentioned that Christopher Nolan should have used Sarah Essen in "Dark Knight Rises." A few posts on other boards have caused me to think "Maybe not." The best ending for Gordon there would have been him reconciling with Barbara and his children, which they probably wanted as well.

Still, Sarah Essen could appear in the next Batman movie. Various Gotham cops being annoyed their commissioner's "top civilian consultant" is a scary man in a bat costume has story appeal.

Comments

[neurotic_kitten]

Some of the images are too big and one isn't legible.

[starwolf_oakley]

Fixed! I hope.

[venatosapiens]

Batman Year One is so, so good. It's almost enough to retroactively excuse Frank Miller's hard left hand turn into crazy town.

...almost.

[captainbellman]

It's scary that in the space of a few years, he went from fully endorsing an idealistic costumed vigilante who rebels against the rich and corrupt...to ranting that Occupy Wall Street protestors were "Rapists".

[icon_uk]

I always want to like "Year One" more than I do.

Whilst on the one hand the adding in of backstory is useful, it does at times seem like it's desperately trying to be taken seriously and be meaningful, and still be about a man who dresses up as a giant bat fight crime, which is so innately ridiculous as to derail everything else.

Superhero comics can at times seem to be embarassed that they ARE superhero comics. Suck it up and embrace the absurdity I say....

[bradygirl_12]

Superhero comics can at times seem to be embarassed that they ARE superhero comics. Suck it up and embrace the absurdity I say....

Motto! All this embracing of gore and darkness is a reaction of comics creators that they're not legitimate in some way because they're 'just comics'. Some of the people working in comics are embarrassed to say that they're working in the industry.

[donnblake]

It's really not- not all of it anyways. Sandman, for example, was quite often dark and certainly gruesome at times, though I'm not sure if I recall gore as such. But it was definitely a comic- here's a link to an interview where Gaiman expresses slight bafflement at being told he writes not comics but graphic novels.

http://www.likesbooks.com/neilgaiman.html

Alan Moore, who's written some deeply dark and disturbing comics, also wrote Top 10, which revels in the absurdity of superhero comic tropes (see the ongoing supermouse problem in one of the characters' apartments).

[jcbaggee]

No, no, we don't gripe about old Frank Miller. Dark Knight Returns, Year One, Born Again...we love that Frank Miller.

We gripe about current Frank Miller, who set up shop in crazy town a while back and never moved out.

[starwolf_oakley]

(Warning, mix of political and entertainment to follow)

Some have wondered if 9/11 drove Frank Miller crazy. I've wondered if Grant Morrison, Joss Whedon and Quentin Tarantino went similarly crazy, just less overt-crazy.

Morrison said in SUPERGODS how his New X-Men run was about culture consuming the unusual and different in post-9/11 America.

The final two seasons of Buffy were very heavy drama. And neither Firefly nor Dollhouse stuck me as cheerful.

And all of Tarantino's movies after 2001 are super-violent revenge fantasies.

I know I'm straining the metaphor, and Morrison, Whedon and Tarantino haven't said Occupy Wall Street somehow hurts the War on Terror. Just putting it out there.

[citygod]

Add Chris Hitchens to that list.