Alan Grant (1) (1949–2022)

It's 1998 and the Batman writers have noticed The X-Files is really popular. So Bats gets abducted while out for a drive and spends the rest of the book trying to work out if aliens are real.

Alan Grant never quite squares that with the fact Batman has met tons of aliens (not least Superman), but I don't care: for this story, Batman needs to be a sceptic and so a sceptic he will be. The DC Comics universe has always been pretty plastic anyway.

I love it when Batman gets shoved into some faddy show more new format, whether it's Predator crossovers, kung fu action, or UFO conspiracy thrillers. There's something endlessly appealing about grumpy old Batman, whose ambition is to take down crime in Gotham City, getting dragged into these gimmicky fun adventures against his will. You wanna be a hero? Well you're gonna have to have some fun, boy!

And in the 90s that meant getting a probe up your bum (fun fact: reports of alien abductees being anally probed only became common after colonoscopies were introduced in the 1960s). This was the same year Lara Croft went to Area 51 and climbed aboard an alien spaceship. As well as The X-Files there was the famous 'alien autopsy' video in 1995, Men in Black in 1997, and any number of indulgent documentaries. (The UFO fever seems to have petered out after 9/11 gave the conspiracy theorists something else to worry about – though not before the 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult tragically committed group suicide in the belief their souls would board a passing alien spacecraft.)

Anyway, there were a lot of people getting very worried about this stuff in 1998. As Batman proudly tells Alfred: "According to what I've accessed on the internet [sic] the UFO phenomenon appears to have been with us for virtually all recorded history!" Presumably he also found out a lot about the Grateful Dead and some pretty lo-res pornography. (I hope he doesn't still try and solve all threats to Gotham by just googling them...)

But I love it. I love the po-faced, zeitgeist-riding madness of it. I love it slightly less when it goes a bit psychedelic around the midway point and a floating hippie begins throwing illusory Bruce Lees at the Caped Crusader, but it did remind me of Batman: Arkham City – and I love that. show less

I see this as almost an alternate reality artifact wherein Neil Gaiman was a fairly decent comic book superhero writer laboring in the shadow of Alan Moore instead of the major fantasy writer he showed himself to be through Sandman and his subsequent novels. Thank goodness this material is just a footnote and not the road taken.

A bumper collection featuring twelve stories about the pretty young Psi Judge from 2000AD. The stories vary in length and come in the episodic style of British comics. This is a good thing as having to fill twenty pages, say, can lead to padding. Here each story is only as long as it needs to be.

The British origins also mean a blessed lack of soap opera themes. Instead there is black humour as in ‘Four Dark Judges’ when Judge Death is slaughtering the residents of the Ronald Reagan show more Block for the aged and infirm. ‘Dodder for it!’ cries an alarmed oldster. Alan Grant scripted most of these stories but John Wagner co-wrote the first three. Whoever’s responsible it’s a great line. The Dark Judges are from an alternate dimension and decided long ago that since only living people committed crime eradicating all life was the best policy. Logically they should have committed suicide once that was done. Instead they came to our dimension. They were defeated and this is their return. The second tale ‘The Possessed’ features demonic possession, which I find odd in a science-fiction setting but it was well done.

There are thirteen stories and to go through them all one by one would involve a tedious repetition of superlatives. Suffice to say they are all good and several are excellent. A short tale about Judge Corey and a whale entitled ‘Leviathan’s Farewell’ is probably the best in the book and also the best story of any kind I’ve read for a while. It should have won awards. ‘Engram’ is a longer story which gives us and Anderson revelations about her childhood. Very moving stuff for a ‘comic’.

Alan Grant does have fun too. ‘Triad’ features a murderous skeleton and the Block Ness monster so Anderson has to consult the Department of Fortean Events. ‘The Random Man’ has a chap who throws dice to decide what he will do next. Unfortunately the dice keep telling him to kill people. Anderson catches up with him in Luke Reinhart alley, for where Grant riffs and spoofs on other writers work he does acknowledge it.

‘Prepare to die, fleshy one!’ shouts killer ‘robot’ Bill as he attacks the Judge. This is unkind and untrue for she is slim and lovely. Bill, a.k.a. ‘The Prophet’ believes he is the chosen one, preparing the way for those who will come after by killing all the fleshy ones. Bill is bonkers but the story is fun.

The art is at least 80% of the graphic novel form, I think, and a great story won’t get transmitted without pleasing pictures. Happily Wagner and Grant are well served by the numerous talents gathered here. Brett Ewins deserves honourable mention for the first two tales and David Roach does a bang up job on several others. The honourable exception to my enjoyment was Carlos Ezquerra, though he only drew ’The Random Man’ so there wasn’t much of him. He’s honoured because he co-created Judge Dredd and the whole look of Mega-City one but I personally don’t much like his style.

2000AD has made a huge contribution to the genre over the last few decades and these bumper collections offer an excellent chance to grab the best of it at bargain rates. They are an Essential Showcase (geddit?) for the best of British and this one in particular is a really good read.

Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/ show less

I'll get a few negatives out of the way. The art style isn't nearly as impressive as Hush, Court of Owls or a few of the other Batman Graphic Novels I've been reading. The writing is pretty campy and classic, lots of stuff that would fit right in with the campy 1960s Batman, so if you're not down wit that, I don't blame you.

With that said, this was really compelling. The tension keeps going, and Batman's inner monologue makes you want him to go take a 3 month nap and immediate medical show more attention. Bane's plan really wears Batman down, and you along with him. The end 20 pages are just incredible, iconic and classic for a reason. I would say the overall structure is really strong and easy to follow. There's a reason they adapted this for Dark Knight Rises, Bane is a fun, intimidating villain. show less