Paul Pope

This is bright, brash and colourful, full of sprawling, kinetic action and cartoonish monsters. A young godling is sent to the besieged city of Arcopolis as part of a rite of passage to fight the plague of monsters terrorising the inhabitants. Battling Boy is inexperienced and unprepared, and Acropolis has just lost its own hero, haggard West. BB's first battles do not go well, but Haggard's daughter, out to fill her father's shoes, may be who he needs.

This is the first volume is what's show more clearly set to be an epic of monster-fighting and evil-bashing. Pope's unique style, combining manga and European sensibilities to deliver cluttered visual chaos has a personality all its own, and this is a wild, funny, and over-the-top graphic novel for all ages. show less

I normally loathe or at least dislike superhero stuff, no matter how hard the creators try to subvert the tropes of the genre, but for whatever reason I had great fun reading this.
Whether it's the art style, the dream-like setting or the sense of humour that, amazingly enough, connects, I don't know - but I really hope there's another volume. I enjoyed watching "Battling Boy" and his growing pains after being thrust suddenly into the role.


(MILD SPOILER: I feel like what he needs for future show more adventures is a badass, sturdy jacket. Oh well, time to go find out if they released any more.) show less

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

It's been fourteen months since I kicked this whole Batman project off by reading Batman: Year One, but for Batman it's been 99 years, as I'm wrapping up with Batman: Year 100. In the future, America seems to be a wasteland ruled over by tyrants, but the Bat-Man of Gotham, the last of the superheroes, still stands for justice, along with the few who aid him, including a new Robin. The story is ostensibly about an show more overcomplicated murder mystery, but it's really about what Batman stands for: standing up and saying "no" to unjust systems.

Paul Pope both writes and draws the whole book, and I found myself engaged more by his unique visual style than by his writing. His Batman is a terrifying enigma, seemingly over a century old but as full of energy as ever, and his Gotham is a bleak dystopia where the Gotham City Police Department seems to operate out of a pile of trash, and the rest of America doesn't seem much better off. He establishes the grotesque nature of this world perfectly, from its attack dogs to the tragic ways that even criminals are treated in the future. But the story itself felt somewhat rote to me, and what the ending conflict turns out to be doesn't really resonate thematically with what Pope is trying to say about Batman.

One thing that I did, of course, really like: Jim Gordon. This Gordon is the grandson of the original Commissioner Gordon (by Barbara? James Junior? it's not really clear), but when the story begins, he doesn't even know that the Bat-Man of Gotham isn't a myth. A big part of the story is his growing realizing of who Batman is and his growing disaffection with the unjust circumstances within which he is expected to impart justice. One ordinary man with nothing but his own courage to support himself: of course I liked it.

There are a couple other "Bat tales" by Paul Pope tucked into the back of this deluxe edition: "Berlin Batman," "Teenage Sidekick," and "Broken Nose." "Teenage Sidekick" is pretty disposable (Batman both likes and needs Robin, did you know?), and "Broken Nose" isn't deep, but it is amusing (it's about the first time Batman ever got a broken nose).

"Berlin Batman" is the real triumph here, revisting Batman's actual year one of 1939 and imagining what he would have been like if he had been from Germany. Pope revisions Bruce Wayne as Baruch Wane, a wealthy Jewish socialite who takes to the streets as Batman to stand against the injustices of the Nazi Party. This was published a few years before Batman: Year 100, and I wish it had come first in the book, too, because what Batman means to Pope is clearer here: Batman is a symbol of resistance, because he stands for the right to privacy. Pope says in his introduction to the tale: "Does a superhero have a right to a secret identity? In a police state, the answer would have to be NO." But it's just not about superheroes; Batman rescues an economist (a real man, named Ludwig von Mises), whose arguments disagree with Nazi doctrine, and helps him get to America. Mises has the same right to privacy as Batman, the same right to be left alone. There's a great scene where Baruch's father tells him about the eternal struggle between government and governed:

FATHER: ...in our world you can only be the master or the slave, the donkey toiling in misery, or the rod breaking its back!
BARUCH: No, Father! I don't believe it!
FATHER: What will you choose to be, child?
BARUCH: I-I'll be a third thing!

But the Berlin Batman finds that third way, and the hope that there might be something other than oppression, that individuality can be the triumph of the day. "Berlin Batman" draws out more directly some of the themes that were implicit in Year 100, but got lost in its apocalypse-virus climax.

Batman "Year One" Stories: « Previous in sequence show less

I enjoyed Paul Pope's grungy take on the Batman. It is set in a future American police state in Gotham City. The city sprawls forever like L.A. in Blade Runner, but is more run down and ramshackle. There's little sign of modern technology except for the flying surveillance craft and their searching infrared beams. Pope's thick, lurid style adds neon afterglow to a dark city. A lot of comics artists shy away from depictions of sounds these days, but Pope seems to revel in them, splatting and show more spurting sounds across his frames, even obscuring the contents -- and it works.

This Batman is a fugitive with Bruce Wayne's ingenuity, but little sign of his wealth. He is the last 'Double U' -- unclassified and undocumented. The corrupt and powerful Feds want to catch him when he witnesses a conspiratorial police crime. Batman has a team to help him: Robin, and a computer hacker called Tora, and her mother, a doctor who is also connected with Commissioner Gordon (grandson of the original). Gordon gets involved when the Feds demand all information his department have on the Batman.

The story focuses on action and leaves out some background, for example what it's like living in this future state if you aren't a superhero? The biggest unexplained detail (and the biggest plot hole) is how exactly *has* the Batman survived all this time? Nevertheless, a highly enjoyable take on Batman, perhaps a little closer to V for Vendetta (or Superman Red Son) in that the enemy is a corrupt state (and possibly an international terrorist organisation) rather than a crazed supervillain. show less