Batman: Damned #1 kicks off DC’s new Black Label imprint where fans can see their favourite characters - though it’s mostly Batman - engage in more adult content. Which apparently means full frontal shots of Bruce Wayne’s junk! Yeah, that’s definitely what’s been missing from the main Batman title… and it’s also the sole reason why copies of this issue are going for bonkers money on eBay as DC have said they’ll censor that panel in future printings.
The Joker is dead - whodunit? Or more accurately: is he dead - or is Batman dead? The comic opens with Batman shot, bleeding out, then falling off a bridge while his ghostly parents wave at him. He wakes up to the TV news which shows the corpse of the Joker having fallen to his death from the same bridge… hmm…
Damned is a very suggestive title, the (ostensibly horror) story is peppered with several of DC’s supernatural characters - John Constantine the Hellblazer, Deadman and Zatanna - and Bruce’s dad flips him a coin, perhaps the fee to pay Charon the ferryman of Hades. Batman doesn’t seem to be himself either and has a breakdown in the Batcave…?
It’s a very patchy, vague story. While it’s probable that Batman is somehow in the afterlife and is being guided by an unlikely Virgil, Constantine, it’s not clear why he’s gone to Hell or how solving the mystery of the Joker’s death will do anything. There are numerous flashbacks to Bruce’s childhood where his father Thomas is rewritten as a philanderer and Bruce was apparently haunted by a teenage witch?!
But I get why it’s deliberately unfocused: to draw you in (not so much for me), place the reader into Batman’s unbalanced perspective and, most likely, mask what I suspect is a feeble plot - I mean, neither character’s really dead or will stay dead so Brian Azzarello has to play silly buggers to make this feel like less of a waste of time. Still, I didn’t find the story particularly enthralling and Constantine’s narration seemed both pretentious and over-stylised - I think Azzarello was trying for an accent but he can’t replicate Liverpudlian speech convincingly.
Lee Bermejo’s art though is faultlessly fan-bloody-tastic! He’s one of my favourite artists and every single page is gorge. I love his Batman, particularly those amazing shit-kicking boots that look so solid, but mostly for capturing the raw physicality of the character - no-one else makes you believe the power within this guy. Damned looks to be set in the same world as Azzarello/Bermejo’s last Batman collaboration, Joker, which featured more realistic takes on DC characters. Zatanna looked sexy as hell as a punky street magician and Deadman was drawn with transparent sinewy red muscles, like something out of a medical textbook, instead of his usual red uniform, which was a really interesting interpretation of his look.
This first issue hasn’t totally confirmed to me that this is going to be a great story but I’m mildly intrigued and the comic is readable enough. It certainly benefits from Lee Bermejo’s art which is the star attraction here. Given how good their Joker book was, I’m willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt but Batman: Damned #1 is still a very mediocre comic. Nevertheless, it’s succeeding in drawing attention to DC Black Label, though unfortunately not for the quality of the storytelling but for the gratuitous nudity!
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