BATMAN CHRONICLES #6: Shadow Job

[starwolf_oakley]

BATMAN CHRONICLES #6 were flashback stories. The first was about Ra's al Ghul in the 1500s. The last was about the founding of Gotham City. The middle story was about the "education" of Bruce Wayne.
After the cut, some thoughts about the "education" of Bruce Wayne.





Harvey Harris is an interesting part of the Bat-mythos. He appeared in the Silver Age story "When Batman was Robin" in DETECTIVE COMICS #226 training a 10-year-old Bruce Wayne. Post-Crisis, he appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS ANNUAL #2 with a young Bruce Wayne fighting the KKK.



Bruce was always good at jumping through closed windows and scaring criminals. I wonder how he practiced that.

ALFRED: Well, we have everything we need to make large sheets of rock candy, sir.
BRUCE: Good. Now we're going to make them the size of a warehouse window for me to jump though.
ALFRED: Okay...





Homer Brown is a character in the radio sitcom The Aldrich Family.

I wonder if this is before or after that "Man Who Falls" story when Bruce learned the ways of the ninja from Kirigi.

Are there many "Bruce Wayne in training" stories? "The Man Who Falls" is the big one that influenced "Batman Begins" and various "Issue 0" stories. But something like "Bruce solves crimes with an expert detective while in college" has potential.

Comments

[bewareofgeek]

If memory serves, Franklin Dixon wrote the Hardy Boys.

Also, Harvey Harris, in one universe, had a daughter named Wendy. As in "Wendy & Marvin".

[icon_uk]

Yup Franklin W Dixon...

I could make an obvious comment about young Bruce Wayne reading stories about young men getting into trouble and tied up, but that seems to be rather easy pickings.

[randyripoff]

Hmmm....I read a lot of those stories when I was a kid, including different novels with the same names from several generations. As my faulty memory recalls, it was Chet getting tied up much moreso than Frank and Joe. After all, he was the pudgy one who was out of shape. The others would have put up too much of a fight, especially Biff.

I remember maybe a little too much about those stories...

[icon_uk]

You and me both sweetie... I could cite a long list of examples, but I'd be better pointing you towards this post.... and this one. :)

[halloweenjack]

IIRC, National Lampoon did a brief parody of the Hardy Boys in which Chet gets tied up by Frank and Joe, and even their dad gets involved, IYKWIMAITYD.

[icon_uk]

Whereas in "Confessiosns of a Teen Detective" in which Nancy tells her REAL life story, (including, eventually, why Ned Jr looks not a lot like Ned) whenever she meets up with Frank, it's always to look for a missing Joe, who is always found bound and gagged under one pretext reason or another.

[lieut_kettch]

Dangit! I missed the Hardy Boys reference! I thought the reason Bruce was calling himself Frank Dixon was because it was either that or "Chuck Miller."

[speedingtortoise]

Oh god, this was painful to read for me. It was just so freaking on the nose.

"I knew it was the kid and he still had me scared spitless"
"This kid's gonna be the best of us all"

I love Batman, and I definitely don't fall into the crowd that has grown to dislike the "Bat-god," but this was just so heavy handed (imo) :p

[icon_uk]

I don't see this as Batgod type praise though, to me the Batgod is when he has casually learned martial arts that work against superstrong shapeshifters, or has a handy contingency plan for... I dunno, Darkseid empowered cockroaches eating the Capitol Buidling.

This is a detective appreciating that this kid will be the best detective, and Batman being the best detective is something I think SHOULD be his primary skillset. There's a reason Ra's Al Ghul calls him "THE Detective".

[speedingtortoise]

Fair enough point (and now I really want to see Darkseid empowered cockroaches in a comic), but it still grates on me.

I guess I just prefer seeing Bruce being less-than-perfect as he trains towards being the Batman. And since I have never read this book in its entirety, I'm sure that appears earlier.

[md84]

When writers aren't going all "Bat-god", it's usually been brought up (prior to the reboot) that Bruce is outmatched by his allies in different fields. Dick's a better natural leader and acrobat, Cassandra's a much better fighter, Barbara's more tech savvy, and Tim's a better detective. What makes Bruce stand out is 1) he's highly skilled in many fields and 2) None of them are as good at scaring the crap out of bad guys.

[starwolf_oakley]

The rest of the story has similar narration that's a bit heavy-handed.

I thought when fans used the term "Bat-God," they meant "The Scary Bat-God that Lives in Bruce Wayne's Head."

[speedingtortoise]

That very well could be, I may not have used the best term for what I was trying to get across.

[starwolf_oakley]

Well, Bat-God is close when we get to "Batman has a plan for anything and everything because he's Batman" territory. Or "How was Batman able to do that? Because he's Batman." I'm not sure it is the "exact" term, if there is such a thing.

[zapbiffpow]

Not bad. Awesome to see Bruce training with a man of the streets: a nice change from his ninja / ancient society / criminal-undercover-shtick type education.

Bruce's face looks strange at times, though. It seems to change panel to panel.

[starwolf_oakley]

Batman Begins is really good, but I think Young!Bruce would be more interested in *capturing* criminals than *understanding* them. Bruce trying to understand criminals doesn't even do anything in the Dark Knight trilogy.

In retrospect, in Batman Begins, Bruce says he started stealing food when the alternative was starving. Ra's Al Ghul/Ducard says if you create enough hunger, everyone becomes a criminal. And in Judge Dredd, Rico says "Guilt and innocence are simply a matter of riming."

[zapbiffpow]

I assumed he'd take down the criminal gang after learning all he could, like one of those backup stories in Zero Year where he drove one of the international underground's best getaway drivers straight into a police collar.

[mrstatham]

I think part of the problem with the manner in which Bruce 'understands' criminals in the DKT is that they push the sense of escalation in TDK without even letting us properly see how well he succeeded prior to Joker appearing. Batman clearly understands the likes of Falcone and Maroni enough and is able to work with Harvey and Gordon to keep them off the streets, but he - like the mob who sets him loose - doesn't understand the Joker, and... That's basically brought up once before Alfred sets him toward the notion of 'some men just wanting to watch the world burn'. And that - curiously, is treated as all Batman needs to know about the Joker. TDKR, as much as it's my favourite of the three, has Batman essentially abandoning his knowledge and understanding entirely and trusting a criminal *not* to lure him into a trap, or at least not considering the possibility.

[silverhammerman]

I like the art here, Dave De'Antiquis and Kevin Somers did a good job. It's got a bit of a Batman: Year One look, so I'm curious if that was a recent release at the time and they were deliberately aping it.

[starwolf_oakley]

This was from 1996, about ten years after YEAR ONE.

[bradygirl_12]

Aww, so Bruce is a 'Boy Wonder'! ;)

[icon_uk]

Sort of a nod to the pre-Crisis DCU where Bruce had created and worn the Robin costume for himself, whilst training with Harvey Harris, who also called him the Boy Wonder.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Well, I definitely like this more than his run on Dreamwave's Mega Man.