The Secret Comic Book Origins of the Nerds That Geek - Joel's Story: Part 3

Written by Joel T. Lewis

'Batman' #531 - 'The Deadman Connection' Part 2: 'Cult of the Mummy'

This is the issue that is perhaps the most difficult for me to analyze because it was the one that did the least to hold my hand in a narrative sense. I didn’t know who Boston Brand was, what Deadman’s powers or origin were, why Batman was travelling to Machu Picchu, or what the strange skeletal specter dressed in red (Deadman) was doing possessing a body that proceeded to get more and more bullet ridden, and fly infested. I know now that a group of mercenaries discovered a hidden Incan city near Machu Picchu and took control of the city’s treasure by claiming to be Incan deities. Doubting the postured holiness of these new invaders, the Shaman of the Incan descendants then sent the spirit of one of their ancestors to Gotham for help where the limbo-cursed former acrobat Boston Brand (Deadman) and Batman were puzzling over Gotham’s sudden influx of strange ancient artifacts. Brand mistakenly gets his current corpse host murdered trying to save the wrong people, and teams up with the Dark Knight to investigate the origin of the artifacts and the Incan spirit who compelled one of the traffickers to take his own life.

Though this arc is only three issues long, much of the necessary exposition for the narrative comes from the first issue, an issue I’d never seen before this week. So needless to say, I was lost in this issue from the jump, but then author Doug Moench didn’t help matters any on page 3 when he flexed Bruce Wayne’s rather large frontal lobe. Mr. Moench, cruel man that he is, wrote a meticulously nuanced analysis of the quantum mechanical basis for both the ‘Holographic Theory of the Universe,’ and the ‘Principle of Non-Locality.’ To be honest dear reader, I’m not sure if I ever read all the way through this lengthy jargon riddled exchange between the Dark Knight and his butler. But in retrospect, this sequence establishes both Bruce Wayne’s sizable knowledge on even the most obscure of scientific theories and the well-reasoned analysis on which he’s based his belief in, (or perhaps his willingness to entertain the notion of), the supernatural elements at play in this arc. Batman is a logical being, whose detective mind and critical methodology are securely fastened to a world explained by science, so his reasoning out of the possible scientific justification for the existence of what you and I and Boston Brand would call Ghosts points to the flexibility of intellect and imagination of the caped crusader in dealing with the supernatural.

Despite my confusion, the visual strength of this issue, and the skilled storytelling that Kelley Jones’ artwork accomplishes in conjunction with (and sometimes despite) Moench’s effusive prose, taught me the value of art’s role in a comic book. The height of Batman’s ears in this book and the wide feathery texture that Jones gives his cape are images that will endure in my mind forever. Batman is dripping with cape, engulfed in it, swallowed up in it, but it also seems like an extension of his body. The bizarre surreal musculature of Deadman and Batman and the bluish decaying detail of the corpse Brand has been possessing are executed to perfection. 

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This issue also sports a pretty unique page layout as Batman engages in a philosophical debate over the nature of symbols, demons, and evil with Chimu, the Incan Shaman who he asks to lead them to Machu Picchu. As the lines of their conversation in translated Spanish play out over the vast white space in the middle of the page, the only figures on the page are the stoic portraits of the Bat and the Shaman that bookend the conversation. The use of the prose splash page here is pretty unique and very effective in its contrast in color and tempo compared to the rest of the book.
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In the measly 8 panels in which he appears in his spectral form in this issue Deadman left quite the impression. The alien dome of his skull and the unnatural curling of his spine in that vibrant red costume is so surreal and grotesque an image that you can’t help but look, and look for him again as you turn the page. The irony of so flamboyant and scary a character being invisible to the living observer is not lost on me. The small panels that show the Deadman in action are devilish in their simplicity as he extends a pale thin hand into a machine gun toting grunt’s mind, making him knock himself out. Also that final image of Brand re-entering his borrowed corpse, toothy skull first is one that has haunted and delighted me for years.

Wordy, heady, philosophical, and visually spectacular, issue 531 expressed to me the power and flexibility of comic books to accommodate lengthy discourse on quantum mechanics and the nature of evil, while also leaning on the motion and skill of its artwork to move the story along. Though I never quite knew what all was going on in this issue as a kid, the power of Kelley Jones’ artwork kept me coming back to this issue time and again. In the fourth and final chapter of my comic book origin story, I’ll take a look at my introduction to one of the most sympathetic and terrifying Batman villains I’ve ever met in Batman: Shadow of the Bat #52. Until Next Time, Geek On!

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