The third deals with the origin of the Riddler, drawn by both one of comics’ great stylists and one of its great lost talents, Bernie Mireault, whose mastery of bathos is evident here. There’s an ordinary tale of a TV producer making a documentary about Gotham’s villains, lacking a dynamic sparkle as drawn by Mike Hoffman, and rendered even more awkward by missing two of the segments it originally framed, written by other creators. The remaining work dates from the late 1980s and displays Gaiman as a writer of great promise and one able to switch tone, which is far rarer than it ought it be. Bisley appears to have been looking at Kevin O’Neill’s art before picking up his pencil. They cast Batman and the Joker as actors playing roles, a theme that recurs in the title story, and says almost as much about Batman in seven pages as the title story does in over fifty. Perhaps that’s because Gaiman said everything he wanted to say about Batman in 1996 when collaborating with Simon Bisley. While a deliberate contrast, nor is it the memorable epitaph that Moore supplied for Superman. Despite some poetic touches, though, it’s unlikely to live up to Gaiman’s hope in the introduction that it will survive the decades as the final Batman story.

For all that, it’s extremely bitty, with some nice elements that you wouldn’t see in a standard Batman comic, the beginning car parking whimsy for one. It’s further an odd leap of logic to imagine Batman’s friends and allies would willingly mix with those who’ve tried to kill him time and again, but Gaiman’s tour de force is the exploration of dreams, isn’t it? One after another delivers their impossible memories of Batman, the friends considerate and loving, the enemies deceitful, yet respectful, each contradicting the other as they claim to be responsible for Batman’s demise or present for his final moments.Īdam Kubert’s illustration is excellent in matching the assorted moods, sometimes deliberately aping other artists, sometimes instructed by script as Gaiman toys with the myth of Batman. The title feature is deliberately structured as a darker reflection of Alan Moore’s earlier ‘Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?’, a similar eulogy for a temporarily deceased icon, and one immediately inviting comparison. Most dates from the late 1980s when he embarked on a comics writing career. How do you create a Neil Gaiman graphic novel from just two comics? You weld the 2009 comics to any Batman associated material produced by Gaiman.

The title poses a question, and the content set one for DC.

Whatever happened to batman