Erik Tramontana reviewing 1988's The Weird mini-series

In the course of my ongoing Justice League International reread, I saw ads for a series I’d never heard of called The Weird. I was a little hesitant at first, but Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson, the creative team that gave the world Batman: The Cult? I couldn’t pass this up. So I bit the bullet and got the series on ebay for $3.50 plus shipping. Why such a low price, I wondered, and why haven’t I ever seen a collected edition before?

Turns out, it’s complicated. This series has phenomenal Bernie Wrightson superhero art, some of Jim Starlin's trippiest concepts ever, and yet it somehow remains excruciatingly boring. If you cut the fat and trimmed this four-issue miniseries into an 80-Page Giant, we’d likely be talking about it in the reverent tones we reserve for early Vertigo, but -- as it stands -- it is more of a curiosity of Post-Crisis "Throw Everything Against the Wall and See What Sticks" DC. Join me as I learn Who Is... What Is... THE WEIRD.

In the slums of Metropolis, a guy is doing some sort of occult ritual in his seedy apartment. The ritual somehow causes a huge explosion of light over the city.

Superman investigates and discovers a construct of pure energy. He tries to touch it and the entity knocks him backwards three miles, in the first of many physical comedy routines peppered throughout the book. Captain Atom and J’onn J’onnz show up to check it out, bringing the rest of the Justice League with them.

A note in the beginning of the issue says that the story takes place before Justice League International v1 #7 (1987), which explains why Doctor Fate is still with the team.

Fate and Guy Gardner can’t figure out what the being is, and it is resisting the Green Lantern ring’s probe, so Guy turns up the juice a bit. The energy being explodes again and blacks out the city (and Blue Beetle’s Bug along with it), and knocks Guy unconscious.

The construct splits into two smaller pieces and looks as though it is about to attack the city. One of the pieces floats around the GENEX genetic research lab, while the other lands in a funeral home and disappears with the body! Batman thinks the creature is trying to build itself a body to contain its energy, because Batman is a scientist. The creature blows up a chunk of a building but disintegrates the rubble before any can reach the ground and hit an innocent bystander.

Guy tries to contain the being inside a forcefield, only to have it emerge as if from a cocoon minutes later, in this psychedelic two-page spread:

And what emerges is this:

No, it’s not EC Comics Horror Host The Old Witch, this handsome devil is The Weird himself. The League brings the now-humanoid creature to STAR Labs and discovers that its organs are not yet fully-formed even though he appears to be an adult. Superman uses microscopic vision to determine that its alien molecular structure is unstable as an atomic bomb, and the reaction could level Metropolis at any moment. Beetle pulls a 'Cisco Ramon' and names the creature.

Guy is wrong here. It is NOT a good name.

Batman wants to take The Weird to Mars for study, but The Weird won’t allow himself to be apprehended. The Weird walks right through Guy’s ring constructs in another physical comedy routine, and then Doctor Fate tries unsuccessfully to teleport him away.

The Weird eludes the League embarrassingly easily and shows up at Jason Morgan’s apartment (remember, the half-face guy casting spells?) but Morgan isn’t home. Morgan isn’t home, so The Weird goes to check in on the family of the dead guy from the funeral home. The little kid sees him and says “Dad?”

END OF ISSUE ONE, and if the whole thing ended here the story would be all the better for it. I LOVED this first issue. It’s funny, it looks great, it’s intriguing -- it reminded me of the early issues of The Sandman, when Martian Manhunter or John Constantine would show up to help the reader make sense of this strange new comic. Plus it’s got the great Todd Klein on letters, just as The Sandman did throughout its run. But, unfortunately, here on Earth-Prime the series went on for three more issues.

Issue two picks up where we left off, as TV reporter Lance Armstrong (ha!) explains what happened in issue one. Military guys ask Superman to find The Weird and also please don’t mention that he has an unstable molecular structure that could blow up Metropolis or maybe even the world.

Batman does a bit of Bwa-Ha-Haing, but it’s Batman so the joke doesn’t really land (picture Lieutenant Holt on Brooklyn 99):

The Weird flies Billy to the beach for some father-son bonding.

Billy drops some next-level 1980s slang:

The Weird explains that Billy’s Dad’s body is his host -- he has all of his memories and looks like him, but is something bigger than before. The Weird has super strength, can alter his molecular density, and can affect energy. Then there is like seven pages of wacky exposition.

There are these energy beings, you see, called Macrolatts and Zorolatts, and The Weird was a Zorolatt. He hated his crappy life being subservient to the Macrolatts, so he came to Earth where he’d be powerful, using this dimensional bridge. So far so good.

“The Jason” is one of the bad guy Macrolatts who merged with a skid row bum so they could stabilize the dimensional bridge.

The Weird liked Earth enough to try and stop the Macrolatts from taking over so he jumped through after them, wrecking the bridge in the process. "The Jason" must be prevented from re-opening the bridge.

The Weird leaves Billy and flies off to confront The Jason but is stopped by Superman. Superman chases him through Metropolis in some scenes of top-notch physical comedy. The Weird causes a building to collapse on Superman to buy himself some time.

The news is now reporting that The Weird is unstable and highly dangerous. The Weird wastes no further time confronting The Jason at his apartment.

They do battle in Jason’s apartment bathroom. The JLI are on the scene! During the fight there’s an explosion and Guy is prevented from getting in. Doctor Fate uses protective spells to save the civilians.

The Jason puts an energy shield up around the building to prevent the outsiders from interfering in the fight.

During the battle, Jason tells his sob story -- dead dad, drunk mom murdered, nothing ever good enough, homeless, garbage man, prison, booze -- until the Macrolatts promised to make him as special as he’d always believed himself to be.

More physical comedy ensues.

The Weird tries to reason with Jason but it’s no use. Jason traps him in a bubble and tries once again to open the dimensional bridge. The Weird realizes that if he goes critical mass then he could blow up the bubble -- and a chunk of Metropolis with it. He decides it’s worth the risk.

Two Macrolatts make it through the portal.

Sadly, The Weird realizes he must kill The Jason to save the Earth. He dies right around the same time as my enthusiasm for this miniseries.

Meanwhile, Superman gets hit with a bolt of energy while flying, and, bizarrely, Nuklon from Infinity Inc disappears (Nuklon’s sudden appearance makes me wonder if this story was originally intended for the Satellite Era League, with Firestorm playing the Nuklon role. As is, it’s a weird and jarring intrusion on a fairly self-contained story).

J’onn becomes tangible and knocks out The Weird. Batman instructs Guy to take him off-planet, but suddenly Superman and Nuklon are possessed by Microlatts!

There’s a big fight with Supes and Nuklon vs the Justice League. The Weird is all, "we can’t defeat the Macrolatts and it’s pointless to even try," and frankly I agree with him. I could not care less about any of this at this point. Batman and Superman have a Dark Knight Returns style throw-down that nearly kills Batman and it’s like 'Meh'.

Macrolatt Superman and Nuklon rage through the city. The Weird bows down before them and knocks out Batman to demonstrate his loyalty to his Macrolatt overlords. The Weird offers to let the Macrolatts absorb him and assist in their takeover, all they need to do is reach out and touch him but…

meme from imgur.com. original creator: unknown

The Weird absorbs the Macrolatts and prevents the invasion. Unfortunately, he still has that pesky unstable molecular structure.

The first thing he does is build a giant ship in a bottle, as a gift to Billy. They have a tearful goodbye.

The second thing he does is ask the JLI to take him to an empty planet to die.

He goes nuclear.

THE END

Well, that’s over with. It started out so promising, but by the time I got to issue 3 it became a total slog. I would love to know the behind-the-scenes of this story because I have a million questions.

 I wouldn’t recommend reading the story, necessarily, but if you happen to find a copy of Mystery in Space Vol 2 at the library or flea market by all means pick it up and flip through. It’s worth a look for the Looney Tunes-esque action slapstick fight scenes, and for the bizarre spectacle of seeing Justice League International in a Karen Berger proto-Vertigo comic. It’s no Infinity Gauntlet or Cosmic Odyssey (and it’s definitely no Batman: The Cult), but it is trippy Jim Starlin sci-fi so how can you lose.

You may NOT remember seeing The Weird on your local spinner rack (or even in the comic book shop you frequented), but you MAY remember this full-page appearing in various 'comic journalism' publications (notably Amazing Heroes):

the ad had the same art as the cover of The Weird #1 (1988), which was illustrated by Bernie Wrightson.

-Erik

Erik Tramontana is a teacher, a dad, and a lifelong Batman fan. He blogs about 1990s DC comics at jlaclassified.tumblr.com, and we're really grateful that he writes these amazing reviews for us. View more of his DC in the 80s reviews.




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-Mark Belkin's interview with Jim Starlin at the 2018 Albany Comic-Con

Jim Starlin talks with Mark Belkin about DC in the 80s

Jim Starlin is a living legend who is responsible for some of the most well-known characters and stories in comic book history. His list of stories include Batman: A Death in the Family, Infinity Gauntlet, Cosmic Odyssey, The Death of Captain Marvel, and the space opera era of Warlock. The timeless characters he has created include Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, and Mongul. We were lucky enough to catch up with Jim at the 2018 Albany Comic-Con where we ONLY asked him about DC in the 80’s, and avoided asking about any upcoming movies that may be coming out in April of 2018.

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Mark: Hello, I'm here with the Legendary Jim Starlin at the Albany Comicon, and we're excited that Jim has agreed to speak to DC in the 80s. One of the first things you did, while working at DC comics during the 80s, was introduce Mongul in 1980. It was in a Superman/Martian Manhunter story from DC Comics Presents #27. Could you talk a little bit about creating Mongul and what you saw him as?

First appearance of Mongul

Jim: Well, it was my first chance at doing anything with Superman, and Julie Schwartz was the editor. Julie was an old school editor -- a legend in his time -- and he was coming around to the end of his career at this point and was just trying to 'play it safe'. I was just starting my career and had no idea what 'play it safe' meant, so I was trying to stretch things with Superman as much as I could as soon as I got in there.

Things like Mongul and Warworld (which was a giant planet filled with over-sized missiles and etc), and as we went along I kept trying to stretch it out further, and -- y'know -- every month I would have a new scripter (Julie had someone else scripting my plots) -- at every month it was a new character Superman had to interact/team up with.

We finally got to a point where we had Superman team up with Spectre. And then I thought "well this is where I've got to have Superman meet God"... but I couldn't tell Julie that! I was working with Len Wein on this particular story (if I recall correctly), and when I turned in the pencils and that, Len went "This not what you told Julie!" And I went "No, but watch... we'll get it through there." So Len and I went it and Julie looked through the pages and goes "Y'know... I don't remember this..." and I went "yeah! we talked about it...". Julie said ok and it went through, and Len was passed out with relief. So we had Superman meet God and it went through without any trouble.

panel from DC Comics Presents #29 (1981)

Mark: Now, going back to Mongul... you wanted to create a villain stronger than Superman (I think I read that)... and Mongul kinda had a 'fascist bent' to him. Was it a character you saw surviving long-term? Or a one-off throw-away villain?

Jim: Well... he was sort... I wanted to do my Thanos over at DC. But once I got in there, I wanted to do something different, so we got the whole Warworld in there. I wanted somebody... a BIG villain that would really... Superman had NOT taken on Darkseid by this point... so it really was Superman taking on somebody possibly more powerful than he was. It all led up finally to the Starman cross-over -- which I ended up inking myself -- that was really just these two boxing it out and... y'know... two titans smashing up the landscape and having a great time doing it.

DC Comics Presents #36 (1981)

Mark: So you mentioned that you had a chance to get God into the story. I feel like a lot of your Adam Warlock stories for Marvel Comics are very spiritual. The Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel, I felt there was a lot of spirituality in there as well. Is it something that you feel drives you as a creator -- your spirituality and bringing that in? Or do you just think it's a great story-telling device?

Adam Warlock vs the Universal Church of Truth

Jim: It's a lot of different things. Part of it was that my grade school years were a parochial school: religion pound into me six days a week, having to go to mass, nuns being teachers, rebelling against all of that. Later on trying to find an alternate spirituality and looking through things like Carlos Castaneda, Wilhelm Reich... just going in different directions...

Mark: Was Carl Jung part of that?

Jim: Carl Jung was part of the reading list... I was just soaking all of this stuff up. The Warlock, Captain Marvel and Thanos stories -- just about everything I did -- had some thing coming out of that. If it was not an actual spirituality, it was a story-telling device or it was a reaction to my parochial school upbringing. When it gets as complicated as that it's very hard to say "this is that, and this is that". It's a mix.

Mark: It's a part of who you are, and it comes out in your storytelling.

Jim: Yeah, what comes out is who you are, and it doesn't always make sense.

Mark: Did you ever get a chance to explore something in your storytelling that almost spoke back to you about something you didn't see about yourself -- almost like a Grant Morrison or Rick Veitch sort-of-thing? Them writing something and then realizing afterwards that they were speaking through something... or that something was speaking through them. Have you ever had that experience?

Jim: Probably with the Death of Captain Marvel more so than anything. My father had died of cancer a year before, and I hadn't quite worked all that through, but I did better than my brother who bottled it up all this time. But as I was working on that story and afterwards, I said "Oh! This is the cheapest therapy a person could find."

Mark: ...They're paying you...

Jim: Yeah! And it went through about 9 printings or something...

Mark: It's a wonderful graphic novel and probably one of MY favorite Marvel stories of the eighties.

Jim: Thanos is my favorite character, but the Captain Marvel stories were my favorite stories.

Mark: Fast-forwarding a little bit, you got to work with the New Gods in Cosmic Odyssey with Mike Mignola. It's very exciting and still remembered by many fans as one of their favorite stories of the eighties (at least for me). Now, you got to do a little bit of New Gods after that. How was it working on that? Were you excited?

Jim: I was excited -- I always liked the New Gods. Y'know, Kirby was one of *my* Gods. So, Mike [Mignola] and I, they [DC comics] approached us -- they had a book called "The Books of Magic" which apparently mapped out their entire sorcerer/magical/fantasy worlds of DC, and they wanted something like that for their science-fiction. Y'know, I thought about it for a while and then decided that I didn't really want to do that, but I had a good story and I wanted to tell THAT story. And they sort of forgot about it -- y'know, I'd turn in plots and they'd approve them -- and they sort of forgot about the fact that they wanted this map of their science-fiction universe until, I think, Mike had two issues of it done and they suddenly realized that I had gone off the rails on 'em. They were really pissed off about it...

Mark: Oh, they were?

Jim: Oh yeah. Quite. And so they actually dumped the book out there with very little fanfare. There was very little promotion on it. They figured it was just going to disappear -- y'know, just a loss leader for them. And they were very clear about it -- they were very upset that I had treated them that way. As it happened, I continue to get royalty cheques on that to this day. They were a little off the mark on that one.

Mark: Is that why, even though you worked on the first few issues of the New Gods spin-off, you weren't on it after a few issues?

Jim: No, that had to do with Batman. For Batman, we did Death in the Family -- which was their best-selling book that year -- but it turns out they had all these licensing (pajamas, lunch boxes, and stuff like that) and the licensing department was very mad, everybody got mad, and they needed somebody to blame -- so I got blamed. And within 3 months all of my work dried up -- in fact Paris Cullins and whoever the new writer was drew up a new first issue that came in ahead of *my* New Gods issues that I had already written. Y'know, everything just sort of fell apart at that point at DC for me, and I went back with Marvel. And it worked out okay because I went over to do Silver Surfer and the Infinity Gauntlet. So I can't complain about that.

Mark: Would the Infinity Gauntlet have been a New Gods story, possibly, have you had stayed with DC?

Jim: Well, I was going to be doing the New Gods series, and I think we had 3 or 4... we had a number of them planned out ahead of time, but once they got down on me, they said "You have to drop all these other books and finish off this Gilgamesh project you're working on. We've already paid you for one book, and we're not gonna pay you for a new project, so finish that." So I finished it and went back to Marvel.

Mark: So, was Gilgamesh II not a sort of passion project for you?

Jim: I got into it. It wasn't my original idea -- actually, Peter David had proposed the science-fiction Gilgamesh to DC. You'd have to check with Peter on this, because I get conflicting stories on this of how it happened. They approached me, but I thought they had paid him off on creating a story. I've talked to him recently and he remembers it differently.

All I know is that I got caught in the middle of whatever was going on between them -- but they approached me and I thought "well, Gilgamesh is kinda interesting" because when I first got into the business in the 70s at the cocktail parties and that, EVERYONE was talking about "let's do a barbarian Gilgamesh" and I had never read it at that point, so I finally looked it up and went "ok" and I read it and thought "that could be kinda interesting".

I wasn't into barbarians, so when they approached me about the science-fiction version of it, I said "Can I do Bigfoot?" and they said "what do you mean?", and I said that I wanted to do it more humor/science-fiction -- which is how I handled it. They seemed to be fine with it at that point. It was never one of my big sellers. I always enjoyed it and I wish they would reprint it someday, they should have the rights to it -- I don't know why they haven't. Everything else of mine is going to be reprinted. It would be nice to see that in a nice volume someday.

Mark: I thought HEAVY METAL magazine would be a good place for something like that, too. Just that sci-fi with that sort of wit and the imagination. I felt it was in that spirit or in that world. I don't know if you did...

panels from Gilgamesh II #1 (1989)

Jim: Yeah, I was coming from a lot of different spots for where I was. There was a lot of things that, in the eighties, that was kind of "breaking ground". The sort-of homosexual relationship between the two main characters. Y'know, a lot of the strange political things I was just beginning to toss into my work at this point. At the same time, it was obviously esoteric -- it didn't become a big seller like Cosmic Odyssey or Infinity Gauntlet -- I still had a great time with it and still have good memories from it.

Mark: Were there any New Gods stories that you wish you could've been able to tell?

Jim: I wanted to explore more of the relationship between the bugs and the New Gods. I'm sure there were a couple other things I had in mind, but I just can't recall them at this point twenty-something odd years later.

Mark: There's this classic scene with Batman punching Orion, and he says "His name was Forager!". Were you excited to write Batman when that was given to you? Was it a life-long dream come true (like it was for some writers)?

page from Cosmic Odyssey #4

Jim: Yeah, I'd done Superman and I'd always wanted to do some Batman -- but there was always something going on. Frank Miller had done that terrific Year One, and they had someone -- I can't remember who -- writing it afterwards and sales were really going down. This was the point that they had sold off the theater rights to a producer I can't recall, so Batman wasn't a high number for them at this point. So Denny [O'Neil] asked me to do a fill-in issue... and he was kinda surprised he like it, so he asked me to do another one. By the time I'd done four fill-ins I asked "so am I the regular writer on this book at this point?". As it worked out, I started doing this regularly. I always thought that going out and fighting crime in a black and grey outfit while doing it with a teenage sidekick dressed in primary colors goes beyond child abuse... it's child endangerment, and  as you can see, it went where it went.

Mark: Well thanks so much for talking with DC in the 80s today, Mr. Starlin.



Jim Starlin just wrote a story called “Berserker”, drawn by Phil Hester, for Aftershock’s anthology book Shock. Aftershock Comics will also release a new edition of “The Art of Jim Starlin: A Life in Words and Pictures” on May 2, 2018. Starlin also has his comic-book series, Hardcore Station, available on Amazon. And you will probably see him on TV because his story is the basis for this what may be the most successful movie of the year.

Mark Belkin

Batman v1 #408: The New Adventures begin

Batman #408 takes place immediately after Frank Miller’s Batman Year One storyline (Batman #404 - #407) which, as we all know by now, was essentially the post-Crisis reboot of Batman. DC wanted you to realize the continuity of this series had changed drastically, so they made sure to re-name it to Batman: the New Adventures starting with this issue. What’s interesting is that this issue re-introduces Jason Todd to the post-Crisis DCU.

If you were reading Batman during the 80s you are probably well aware that Jason Todd debuted in Detective Comics #524 (1983). Jason Todd was introduced back in 1983 because Dick Grayson (the previous Robin) had gone on to star in his own team book (The New Teen Titans) and didn’t really fit the 'youthful sidekick' role anymore. (Dick Grayson is first and foremost a Batman character, so any control over his characterization had to go through the Batman editorial team first. Somehow, Marv Wolfman [writer of New Teen Titans] managed to get then-Batman writer Gerry Conway to agree to Wolfman’s plans for Dick Grayson.) Jason Todd was introduced as a near identical clone of Dick Grayson (ex: part of a circus trapeze family, orphaned after parents were murdered, nice enough kid) when it was determined that the Batman series didn’t really work unless Batman had a sidekick to banter with. The pre-Crisis Jason Todd became a member of the Batman Family shortly after his 1983 debut, but he pretty much disappeared after Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985.

Batman #408 starts with Robin (Dick Grayson) and Batman fighting the Joker, and Robin getting wounded and left dangling for his life - the image of Robin hanging by his legs in the ad is an exact replica of a panel found on the second page of the issue. After all action is resolved, Batman tells Dick Grayson that it’s too dangerous to be Batman’s sidekick and that Dick should move on with his life (and we get a brief cameo of Dick as Nightwing). The rest of the issue goes onto to describe Batman’s first encounter with the new, younger Jason Todd. This issue is the first in a four issue story arc that concludes in Batman #411 - the end result is Jason Todd becoming the new Robin. Max Allan Collins wrote all 4 issues introducing the new Jason Todd. He wrote one final issue before Jim Starlin picked up the title and pretty much concluded the saga of Jason Todd. Starlin managed to resolve a dangling plot-line left open by Collins’ story arc, and included what I consider the epilogue of the re-intro to Jason Todd storyline: Batman #416. In Batman #416, Dick Grayson (as Nightwing) returns to confront Batman for kicking him out of his life and replacing him with Jason Todd. In this issue we get the summarized version of the origin of the post-Crisis Nightwing (remember, Nightwing was first introduced in 1984’s Tales of the Teen Titans #43). Crisis on Infinite Earths did not affect Dick Grayson/Nightwing THAT much, however his tenure as Batman’s sidekick had been shortened to 6 years and Batman booted Dick Grayson out when he was 18 years old. Immediately after this issue we go into Starlin’s Ten Nights of the Beast story arc.

Fan reaction to the new post-Crisis Jason Todd was not that positive. Collins’ gave us a Robin that was completely different from the status quo. After the Crisis On Infinite Earths there was a chance to reboot Jason Todd and make him his own character rather than a Dick Grayson clone, and Collins decided to take a chance and try something new. Jason Todd was brash, he was angry, he was excessively violent, he charged into battle without thinking, and he had none of the traits his previous incarnation had (ex: no circus background). Anytime you try something new there is always potential of a backlash from 'purists’ - and the fan reaction to Jason Todd was one of those examples.

Collins had already written two issues of Batman prior to re-introducing Jason Todd - he wrote Batman #402 and #403 (with some assistance from Jim Starlin). Collins had previous experience writing for detective/mystery comics (ex: Ms Tree, Mike Danger, Dick Tracy) which led to him being hand-picked by editor Denny O'Neil to darken the tone of the series to set it up for Frank Miller’s Year One storyline (both #402 and #403 have excerpts of an essay Collins wrote comparing Batman to Dick Tracy). I can’t imagine following up anything Frank Miller wrote would be very easy, since Miller was the fan-favorite at the time and would've been a tough act to follow. Fan reaction to Collins’ more traditional Batman stories didn’t go so well when compared to Miller’s newly established grim-and-gritty tone. Collins quit before DC could fire him. Toys R Us would later reprint the Collins' Batman issues and repackage them with Batman action figures they were selling in the early 90s.

Collins' essays from Batman #402 & #403. Click to enlarge and read.

For whatever reason, I completely forgot everything about this story arc, and it felt like I was reading it for the first time when I finally got around to re-reading it for this review. I was most surprised that Max Allan Collins wrote it, and if I had known, I probably would’ve waited a month or two since I just wrote an article about Mr Collins (see: Wild Dog) and I normally try to space things out a bit. I really enjoyed the re-intro to Jason Todd story arc and felt like the issues just flew by as I read them (as in: it was fast-paced, suspenseful and left me wanting more). Denny O'Neil mentioned that he had scheduling problems for that book and that a few issues fell behind schedule - this becomes apparent as you realize the Jo Duffy issue (Batman #413) was a fill-in. I don’t know why Jason Todd received such a bad rap, I liked where the story was going and was curious to see how things would resolve themselves. It seemed like the other writers after Collins weren’t sure what to do with Jason Todd - some would downplay his violent angst-y tendencies, and some would disregard them completely.

There were a few continuity problems with the story arc, but O'Neil quickly explained that issue #408 was a flashback tale that occurred 3 years in the past (at the time the story was written) - and if you do some DCU math, that kinda sorta syncs up with the post-Crisis Teen Titans continuity. A popular example of everything that was wrong with the Jason Todd character was a scene in Batman #415 (a mandatory Millennium cross-over story that disrupts the whole flow of the story arc - I can imagine Starling being pretty irritated that he had to include a story about Commissioner Gordon being a robotic imposter - but I digress) in which Jason Todd wields a shotgun and starts shooting at some armed guards trying to attack them. This was absolute Batman blasphemy, many Batman fans felt, as Batman never condones the use of guns - not even for his sidekick. Despite what the 'true' Batman fans felt, I think this was my favorite scene from the whole story arc and an indicator of the direction comics would be moving in the future - pushing things to the extreme even if they didn't make much sense for the character.

This article original published on the DC in the 80s tumblr in Nov 2013.