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 Bob Kane’s creation can be seen as a combination of Dracula and Sherlock Holmes – two iconic characters that were both conceived in the late nineteenth century - so it is natural that this Age should feel like Batman’s spiritual home. Still, there is a lot of fun to be had with these tales.
Reviewed by Paul Kane
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight
by Brian Augustyn, Mike Mignola, Eduardo Barreto, and P. Craig Russell
DC Comics
October 2006, Paperback: 112 pages, ISBN: 1401211534
The present volume contains two seminal Elseworlds stories: “Gotham by Gaslight” and “Master of the Future” (originally published in 1989 and 1991 respectively). For the uninitiated, it should be explained that “Elseworlds” is a sub-genre of comics specific to DC that involves placing superheroes in different historical periods or in imaginary worlds - just as, in Shakespeare adaptations, one might make Macbeth a gangster or recast The Tempest as a sci-fi movie (as occurred with Forbidden Planet). The official DC Comics definition states that: “In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places – some that have existed or might have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist.” One advantage of the device is that it allows for the imaginative reinvention of a superhero, but one has to conclude that that doesn’t quite occur here with Batman.
The reason for this is that both stories are set in the Victorian Age, and one feels that Batman fits into this time and place rather too easily. And this is, in a sense, hardly surprising. Bob Kane’s creation can be seen as a combination of Dracula and Sherlock Holmes – two iconic characters that were both conceived in the late nineteenth century - so it is natural that this Age should feel like Batman’s spiritual home. Still, there is a lot of fun to be had with these tales.
The first one, “Gotham by Gaslight”, opens in Vienna in 1889 as Bruce Wayne is recounting a recurring dream - the nightmare of the night when he witnessed his parents’ murder - to Sigmund Freud. We then move on, by ship of course, to Gotham, where the main story pits Batman against Jack the Ripper, the archetype of the serial killer. Much of the artwork here has a murky atmosphere and ambience that suggests (I could say gaslight, but I’ve never experienced it, alas) a Hammer horror film or Robert Louis Stevenson’s Edinburgh. Gotham is a hope-bereft city of desolate fog, taverns, cobbled streets and ladies of the night.
The sequel to this story, “Master of the Future”, is somewhat different in tone. It is 1892 and Gotham stands on the eve of a new century. When the city’s Mayor decides to host a fair (rather like London’s Exposition of 1851) to explore what the future will bring, he inadvertently attracts the attentions of Alexandre LeRoi, a dirigible captain (ironically?) whose aim is to stop technological progress because of its inherent ecological perils. This story must have tapped into one or two millennium fears on its first publication, and LeRoi is as flamboyant, extravagant and insane a villain as Batman has ever faced. The artwork in this tale (as e.g. in the bare–knuckled boxing bout that begins it) is as bright as boiled sweets in a bag, and there are some deft touches too. For example, one panel shows a portrait view of Bruce Wayne (having longer sideburns and looking rather like Stewart Granger, as per the fashion of the day), with the shadow cast by his head being a silhouette of a horned, masked Batman.
On the whole, the two stories here are fun and entertaining and have their own pleasures; and these are not negligible. But it is a disappointment that there is no radical reworking of Batman’s persona, such as one might hope that the Elseworlds genre would enable. This volume is a qualified success, then, but perhaps evidence of a missed opportunity too.
About the reviewer: Paul Kane lives and works in Manchester, England. He welcomes responses to his reviews and can be contacted at pkane853@yahoo.co.uk
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