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Saturday, July 03, 2010

Batman: The Widening Gyre #3 - Dec. 2009

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Comics Weekend "Things Fall Apart" by Kevin Smith, Walter Flanagan, and Art Thibert.

Last Christmas, I was at my LCS (All Things Fun) for its last minute holiday sale they have every year. I was wandering around the store, looking at books I normally wouldn't consider buying, but ATF was having a big sale so I was willing to experiment a bit.

I'm not sure why I picked up this issue of Batman: The Widening Gyre, but I did, and I was pleasantly surprised to see this on page 17:
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After Bruce shushes Aquaman away, he has a flashback to some previously unseen battle between him, the Teen Titans, Aquaman, and Black Manta and Ocean Master.

He ends up having a fight with Robin, and which point his thought are interrupted by Silver St. Cloud, who he is having the romantic getaway with:
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The book was on sale for only a buck I think, and I'm always willing to spend that when Aquaman (especially Classic Aquaman) makes an appearance.

After I got home and read it, I wasn't too big a fan of the story (and I absolutely loathe the "Robin calls you Deedee?" joke), so I didn't have any interest in the other issues. I'm betting, by the tone of his cameo, that this is the only issue of the mini Aquaman appeared in.

Still, a nice little slice of life scene between Arthur and Bruce!

11 comments:

Bribaby said...

So why DOES she call him "Deedee"?
I can understand your antipathy; you have to tread carefully when using humorous exchanges between beloved comic book figures over which fans have proprietary feelings. But at least Arthur's not grim and scowling here, right? That's gotta be worth something. And I like his perplexity regarding someone swimming "just for fun." When it's your main mode of locomotion, you probably wouldn't look at it that way.

David J. Cutler said...

Yeesh, poor job of capturing the characters voices here. Both come across as frat boys or something stranger. Batman says "g'bye?" I think the "for fun" is more disbelief at Batman doing anything recreationally.

This story must be out of continuity? Or ahead in continuity? Like, a year or two from now? Aquaman was missing a hand by the time he discovered Batman's secret ID, wasn't he? During Mark Waid's brief run on JLA? I'm 99% certain.

Rick L. Phillips said...

I love the slice of life part. What I don't understand is when Silver says she will tell Jack Ryder what Bruce does at night and calls him Dracula. That seems to show that she knows he is Batman. Last I read she still didn't know he was Batman so when and how did she find out?

Randy said...

Read the Batman: Strange Apparitions TPB. It reprints the entire Englehart/Rogers Detective Comics stories. Silver St. Cloud does indeed know that Bruce and Batman are the same person. And she deduced it all by herself in a very clever way.

Personally, I never read this story. Mostly because I didn't care much for Smith/Flanagan's first Batman story. This Aquaman appearance makes me want to check it out now though. The humor doesn't bother me so much. It just strikes me that its just a friend ribbing another the way that friends/co-workers do. Sometimes you just don't like it after awhile.

As for continuity, Kevin Smith usually plays fast and loose with that in his stories. You shouldn't worry about where his stories fall. That's probably why it was its own series instead of done in something like the Batman series.

Rick L. Phillips said...

I read those Englehart/Rogers stories before when they first came out. I did miss an issue or two so it must have been an issue that I missed.

Luis said...

Silver St. Cloud??? I just GOTTA get this issue.

Wings1295 said...

I like it, at least as a classic Aquaman appearance goes. And I like that Batman isn't super-pissy. He seems to give Arthur some leeway with his questions.

rob! said...

Bribaby--I don't mind the humor at all, I just don't like that one joke re: Batman and Robin being gay. Aside from it being a very non-Aquaman thing to say, I think its just a cheap, lazy joke.

Other than that, I like the whole sequence.

Aquamariner! said...

I like Kevin smiths writing but this story is bad beyond belief. It doesnt seem like he gets the characters AT ALL here.

Diabolu Frank said...

I've got no use for Kevin Smith, but it's nice for Batman to be the butt of Aquaman's joke, for once. Plus, Martian Manhunter did some actual detective work to determine Bruce was a functioning heterosexual!

Anonymous said...

Uh, the joke isn't that Batman & Robin are gay, it's that Batman is trying to hide the fact that he has a girlfriend, and Arthur is mocking him for his word choice. You're reading a lot into that to think it's a gay joke.