If you’re going to take the guesswork out of a mystery, at least have the kindness to make it interesting. Earth 2, which continues to be one of the best titles DC puts out, has run into a speed bump with Annual #2. It’s the origin of Batman, the Batman that didn’t die during the war with Apokolips, the Batman who appeared out of nowhere, ruthless and determined to stop the recently reborn Superman. Sounds intriguing, and it would be if the origin wasn’t a rehash of an idea already covered in Flashpoint.
SPOILER ALERT
The new Batman is Thomas Wayne. Yep. Bruce Wayne’s dad, at the age of sixty-five, has taken up the Bat-Mantle. Wayne Senior has been used as Batman before, most recently in the Flashpoint series that generated the New 52. In that version, Bruce died and Thomas became a merciless crime fighter. In the Earth 2 Annual #2, Bruce Wayne was originally Batman, but circumstances get weird, and they get weird quickly.
Somebody is knocking off Falcone family members. During the kill-spree, the first Batman stumbles on the body of Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents, and who is now murdered in the same method as the Falcone victims. I give writer Tom Taylor some credit here. His creating Joe Chill as a hit man who only works with a client once, and poses as a petty thief, is a nice switch-up. Batman begins chasing down the murderous vigilante. The journey leads down a dark path where his father, Thomas Wayne, is not only still alive, but also a drug addict.
Turns out that Thomas survived the attack and faked his death so the Falcone family wouldn’t go after Bruce. Years later, for reasons that are never made clear, Bruce’s dad returns with a super-drug that gives him incredible strength and near invulnerability. After killing Chill and the rest, the original Batman discovers the killer’s identity and proceeds to walk away from being Batman. Years later, after the war with Apokolips and the death of Batman, Thomas Wayne decided to pick up where his son left off.
The problem here is not just the rather dull rehash of Thomas Wayne as Batman, but more the holes in the concept. In this issue, Bruce walks away from being Batman and has a family. Yet, even though he’s bitter towards what he did with his life for a lie, he still trains his daughter to be Robin? Thomas Wayne makes it sound like Bruce came out of retirement when Apokolips attacked, which doesn’t jive with the opening issues of Earth 2. The whole origin is also unnecessary. The mystery of the new Batman was very intriguing, and should have been left to our imaginations, at least for a while.
Robinson Rocha handles art duties, and while he’s a competent artist, he’s not Nicola Scott. Her work is singularly unique, and a defining part of Earth 2. Rocha’s style is well suited for comics, but nothing spectacular. The line work is thin, and the faces tend to run together. I did enjoy some of his panel placements, and a few perspectives he took the visuals from, but overall I couldn’t help missing Nicola Scott. The colors from Scott Hanna are okay during the darker aspects of the story, but anything in the daylight comes across blown out.
(2.5 Story, 2.5 Art)
