The Dark Knight Rises - KnightQuest: The Crusade (Batman and Catwoman)

DECIPHERING DC

Welcome to yet another edition of Deciphering DC. Continuing our look at KnightQuest, this time we focus on the issues featured in the monthly title Batman and Catwoman. This review covers Batman #501-508 and Catwoman #6 & 7. All issues of Batman are written by Doug Moench and art by Mike Manley. The Catwoman issues are written by Jo Duffy and the art is by Jim Balent. All Batman covers are by Kelley Jones, while Catwoman covers are by Jim Balent.

It seems that the theme of the new Batman being bored because he has to deal with second string stragglers after Bane has been defeated is common to all the titles, which makes for some sort of a cohesive read. Jean Paul Valley decides that he needs an inside contact in one of the gangs seeing Gotham as a ripe target and engaging in turf wars over it. Gang leader Mercante doesn’t take kindly to being a stoolie for the new Batman. Enter Nekros, an assassin trained to the hilt by his self hypnosis techniques, and Jean Paul Valley has his work cut out for him.

Catwoman receives news from a group of environmentalists that a corrupt organization is set to use a deadly nerve toxin called Xyklon-C to wipe out part of a rainforest. The professor who developed it, Joe Underhill, didn’t know that manipulation of a harmless compound (Benzotrilene) would create such a deadly chemical. However, Xyklon-C is inert without a catalayst called Atrophane. Two hotheads from amongst the group steal the Atrophane and the professor’s notes to use it against the organization themselves. To prevent the Xyklon-C from being stolen by the environmentalists, Catwoman steals the compound and hides it elsewhere on the wharf, where Jean Paul Valley sees her.

Commissioner Gordon tells Jean Paul about the nerve agent being stolen and Jean assumes that Catwoman did it as he saw her on the wharf. HE forces himself to stop fantasizing her and keeps a close watch on the harbor. When Selina gets close enough, she understands that this isn’t Bruce. And this time, she’s returned for the Benzotrilene, the only compound close enough to Xyklon-C to ‘pass muster.’ The plan is to keep both the chemicals out of the hands of both the environmentalists and the industrialists. Fisticuffs ensue and Catwoman is captured by the police. Realising that Catwoman’s heart is in the right place, Jean Paul later helps her and resolves the situation.

Jean Paul Valley has periods of increasing instability, probably brought about by ‘The System’, the programming imbibed in him by the Cult of St Dumas. In this title, he has visions of both his father as Azrael and St Dumas giving him contradictory advice, one asking him to redeem the city, and the other to cleanse it, as part of his Crusade.

Meanwhile, Arnold Etchison (a.k.a Abattoir) who had escaped Arkham when Bane blew it up, is on the tail of Graham Etchison, one of his surviving blood relatives. Abattoir is of the belief that killing his relatives and ‘absorbing their souls into him’ gives him power. Graham Etchison is attacked by Abattoir while on a bus full of school children. Jean Paul Valley has the choice to either capture Abattoir or save the children and chooses the latter.

Graham’s father puts a bounty on Abattoir. A group of cyberpunks calling themselves Malevolent Maniaxe takes it upon themselves to recover the bounty. Ballistic, one of the ‘New Bloods’ (more on that later) also chooses to accept the bounty, leading to a three way with the Batman in the middle. Meanwhile, Abattoir has taken Graham captive and places him in a trap at an unknown location.

Now comes the turning point which determines the tone of the Batbooks for the further foreseeable future. Jean Paul Valley chases Abattoir into a refinery, which is working on a night shift and during the fisticuffs, Abattoir loses balance and dangles from a chain over a molten vat. Jean Paul is again faced by the visions, and cannot take it any more, falters just for a second and lets Abattoir fall to his death. 

By doing this, he also sentences Graham Etchison to death, as only Abattoir knew the location where he was kept to slowly bleed to death. This was the final nail in the coffin that leads Robin to decide that Bruce must come back and Commissioner Gordon to decide that the Batman is done playing nice guy.

The tone of Batman is different from the earlier Detective Comics. Here, instead of the machinery, the emphasis is on mental balance – right from the mind control techniques used by Nekros to the delusions of Abattoir to the hallucinations of Jean Paul Valley. While the assassin reference in the Nekros story as well as the cult language used by Maniaxe may have dated a bit too much, Doug Moench weaves a compelling story in these eight issues. While the Batman issues make sense on their own, the Catwoman crossover issues are necessary reading (to understand the overtly complicated storyline) and are collected in the trade as well. 

Mike Manley is as different from the earlier artist Jim Aparo as chalk and cheese (no offense to the late, great, Jim Aparo, but Manley draws a much darker Batman). His dark and moody, yet clean style suits Jean Paul wonderfully. I especially loved his Mayor Krol and Abattoir. I have never seen anyone looking as creepy as Abattoir chewing on the bones of his family in the Etchison crypt. The storyline as a whole is compelling, and appealed more to me than the Shadow of the Bat or Detective Comics issues.

Next Week: KnightQuest: The Search, where we learn what's been happening with Bruce Wayne and Alfred all this time!

And of course, don't forget the previous editions of this mammoth saga we've already covered if you're just jumping on:
Prelude to Knightfall
Knightfall Vol 1: The Broken Bat
Knightfall Vol 2: Who Rules the Night!
KnightQuest: The Crusade - Detective Comics and Robin
KnightQuest: The Crusade - Batman: Shadow of the Bat

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Aalok Joshi is a total fanboy and claims to read everything in the comics genre but American comics and Syndicated strips totally win him over. He has been reading comics since he was 5 and started off with Indrajal Comics. After his relatives started pestering him about changing his reading habits, he switched over to novels after junking his erstwhile collection. Gotham Comics, the Indian Authorized publisher of DC/Marvel brought him back in 2002 and he has stayed here ever since. 
Now concentrating largely on DC and slightly on Marvel and few selected independents, he is interested and taking steps towards writing for the genre. He also dabbles in illustration and his dream is one newspaper style cartoon per day.