For the first time in the last two weeks, I actually have nothing pressing to do right now (well, other than answer the e-mail in my Inbox (which I probably should be doing right now instead of writing this (but, I am afraid that an e-mail response right now would end up being nothing other than a long series of parenthetical asides since I seem to be having a hard time sticking to the subject (then again, since I just started writing, I guess there isn’t really a subject yet from which to digress)))). So, it seemed like an opportune time to get to a book review, since there is now a growing stack of books waiting to be reviewed right here next to my computer.
And so, a review of my favorite Christmas Gift:
Lee Bermejo, Batman: Noel
Janet bought this for me. She actually went into a bookstore and walked into the comic book section just to buy me a gift. I have no idea how she gathered up the courage to do so. And then, faced with an array of comic books, she chose this one. I am very happy to report: she chose wisely. An utterly wonderful comic book.
The book is remarkably clever, actually. There are two levels to it. At one level, it is Charles Dickens’ son retelling A Christmas Carol. The son acts as a narrator, relating the story as he heard it from his father. The son adds in a wealth of asides, noting where the story makes sense or not, editorializing along the way, adding notes about the characters. If you just read the narrator, it would be an interesting take on the story of Scrooge. But, since this is a comic book, there are pictures throughout. And the pictures are a story of Batman. If you ignore the narrator, you’d get a standard Batman story. Overlay the two, and it is one of the most creative comic books I have read. Combing the narrator and the comic book story, we get Batman as Scrooge, meeting the four ghosts, and finding redemption in the end. And until the book cheats on the very last page, it does a fantastic job keeping the narrator and the Batman story independent entities which feed into each other but are never blurred. (The last page blurs that line when the narrator morphs into a character in the story—it showed a serious lack of conviction by the author—he’s just pulled off a clever feat an then he feels the need to get cute which lessens the achievement. It makes one want to shake the author and tell him to have more courage.)
In terms of thinking about Batman, who is probably the most psychologically interesting canonical superhero (indeed, it’s hard to think of who even rivals him for that title), the book does a great job at blending the fun-loving Batman of the 60s (think Adam West) with the dark Batman of the 90s (think Frank Miller) by painting the transition as similar to the difference between Scrooge’s youthful self and his older self. By the time we get to the hardened Batman, we find someone willing to sacrifice an innocent life to pursue the Joker. It’s easy to imagine Batman reaching that point. And then it’s an interesting exercise to imagine how Batman might awaken from this darker self to recover his purer incarnation.
The book has now become a new Christmas staple. It’s nice to think that I have a Batman story to look forward to rereading ever December.
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