The Twelve Days of Who's Who! Part Five: from Night Slayer to Prof. Milo (1985-1989)
Holy crap, I'm not even half-done yet?
Disclaimer for scans.
I'd prefer to call him "Mr. Zip-A-Tone," but that's just me. As I've never read the majority of Anton's storyline, I don't quite feel qualified to judge the character. Thankfully, MightyGodKing has already done so for me, whereupon he makes great observations about the school of thought that goes "Hey, let's create an ANTI-Batman!" Which is to say, yet another of the "Like Batman, But Evil" characters we've been seeing sprinkled throughout these profiles. The fact that he "traveled in the Orient" puts him a bit closer than others, although...
Wait. I'm fuzzy on my Batman history. At this point, did Bruce travel the world to train himself? I'm not sure if writers came up with that one yet! From one origin story I have around 1981, it looks like Bruce stayed in Gotham the whole time. Man, did Night Slayer's origin help influence the globe-trotting Post-Crisis Bruce Wayne that we've seen depicted all the way up to Batman Begins and beyond? That's one legacy, I guess.
Too bad the character himself seems rather insufferable, but that's par for the course when his stories go hand in hand with...
I've only read a couple issues of Doug Moench's Nocturna saga, but what little I've seen has made me roll my eyes so hard that I'm amazed I haven't seen my own brain yet. In case you couldn't tell from both her and Anton's bios, these characters love THE NIGHT. No, they're obsessed with THE NIGHT. They take THE NIGHT very, very seriously. They are walking philosophical treatises on THE NIGHT. If I read any Nocturna appearance, I expect to see at least a dozen moments like this, just to show me how very, very into THE NIGHT she is.
More than that, this pair is a perfect example of how today's biggest villain can become yesterday's nobody. When I recently tracked down this Batman role-playing game sourcebook from the mid-80's (why did I think Harvey's stats would be interesting? Why?!), I was amused to see that Night Slayer and Nocturna were given HUGE profile pages befitting the greatest threats, while much smaller profiles were given to the likes of Hugo Strange, Poison Ivy, and Killer Croc, who only a couple years earlier was himself in the "new ultimate Batman villain" role. Of course, these days, Night Slayer and Nocturna are barely footnotes, and while Croc ain't the big boss he originally was, at least he's still around. So it goes with superhero comics.
I am still curious to read the Nocturna saga, although every single appearance I've read so far has made her out to be a hilariously overwrought and charmingly awful character who espouses about "The NIGHT!" every five seconds. Also, she travels in a hot air balloon. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is NOT silly about a villain in a hot air balloon. Seriously, read that profile and tell me you don't giggle at every mention of the words "hot air balloon." You can't, right?
That said, I really do wish that Bruce Timm and company were able to follow through with their plans to introduce a Dala-like vampire Nocturna to B:TAS because... well... yowza. Yeah, if her episode had ever been aired, I can imagine that she would have led to the sexual awakening of many a young boy. And girl, for that matter.
Y'know, I think "Evil Alfred Pennyworth" is a concept worth exploring in a modern context. At least, in an Elseworlds or something. At the very least, his personality should resemble Alfred in some way, which the Outsider did not. God help us if he ever unleashed his dry sarcastic wit for evil rather than good! So I was kinda excited by the prospect of the Outsider's return in the pages of Flashpoint until I learned that he wasn't Alfred, but an original character. Well shit, man, what's the point? I guess that was foolish of me, expecting that any part of Flashpoint to be worthwhile. I know Flashpoint: Batman: Knight of Vengeance is still really popular, hailed as a Batman masterwork and a powerful depiction of Martha Wayne, and and yeah, no, fuck that. So I guess it was too much to expect something interesting to be done with the Outsider again.
Question: does anybody know what story it was where we first learned about the Penguin's backstory with his father dying of bronchial pneumonia and his mother insisting that he carry an umbrella?
I've noticed that the Penguin seems to have gained a strange perception by many writers (including Denny O'Neil and the show creators of TAS, according to their original Norman-Bates-esque plans for the character) as being a Mama's Boy, and I suspect that it's traced back to this origin. And yet, I don't really get it, mainly since his mother was never a presence in his adult life in any stories I've read, nor has her memory ever haunted him in any significant way. And yet, the Mama's Boy perception is just one of the reasons why the Penguin is unduly hated/misunderstood by so many writers and fans, something which persists to this day. I just don't get it.
As for his origin here, I like that the Penguin originally did not go into crime, nor even engaged in violence, until he was pushed into both severe debt and the loss of his beloved birds. I could see that being the last straw, the Breaking Bad moment that gives this repressed, unpleasant man an excuse to indulge in his darker side. He probably was always intrigued by crime, but that was the moment he finally felt free to go for it. Oh man, I'd love to see that Penguin story! Like Walter White's transformation from Mr. Chips to Scarface, I'd love to see the eloquent, put-upon romantic turned slowly transform into a ruthless, self-made master criminal after being robbed of his livelihood and his only friends by an uncaring city.
It would give the Penguin a sympathetic origin that would set him apart from the other, more insane rogues, and showing him claw his way to power would beautifully serve to show just WHY he should be considered one of Batman's very greatest foes, as many have forgotten over the decades. No more of this poor-man's-Kingpin stuff, it's rendered him impotent and inert! I want grand, dashing, ruthless master criminal Ozzie again!
Of course, this origin I find myself suddenly desiring won't quite work with his current (?) Post-Crisis origins, which showed his transformation to ruthlessness happening earlier in life:
This time(line), it's personal. By giving Ozzie a single antagonist, his breaking point now occurs in adolescence, pretty much turning him from a shy kid into a ruthless little bastard by the time he's eighteen. The story this all takes place in is Alan Grant and Sam Keith's The Killing Peck, from the must-own classic Secret Origins Special (the moving Two-Face story from which I've reviewed here), and it's now the definitive Penguin origin, for better or for worse.
I'm still very fond of this origin, particularly with how it opened the door for my very favorite Penguin story, Penguin Triumphant, but... I dunno, maybe it's the current Penguin: Pain and Prejudice storyline, but I'm exhausted with dark, gritty, grotesque Penguin stories and origins. I want some flair back in the character, damn it!
Oh, Poison Ivy: such a non-character who endures pretty much expressly on her hotness. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Pam, but there's just kinda nothing even there to like nor dislike. I mean, what's her motivation? Why did she decide to turn to crime after gaining an immunity to poison? Why did she decide to even call herself Poison Ivy? Is she a career criminal, an ecoterrorist, an obsessive Batman stalker, a man/humanity-hater, an ill-used woman who just wants to be left alone with her plants, or something else? While her 80's-era profile here doesn't paint a picture of a complex character, she's only gotten more muddled over the past twenty years.
I'll say more about what I mean in a second, but first, something else I'm wondering: why is she apparently covered in marijuana leaves? I mean, poison ivy leaves don't look like that. Nor do any other leaves, to my recollection. As for the art itself, Steve Rude is usually an amazing artist and stunning inker, but man, he wasn't on with this piece. And poor Pam, even in her revised, Post-Crisis profile, she still doesn't fare too well with artists:
Ugh. What an ugly piece, so stiff and flat. Why's she looking up at her own crotch? Is she also wondering what's up with the pot leaves?
I'd have figured they would have gotten Mark Buckingham to draw this bio. After all, he was the one who drew the Gaiman-written origin that they're using here, which tied it with Jason Woodrue because Neil Gaiman was in his period of "ride Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing coattails at every opportunity and look like a genius to fans who don't know any better." I love Neil and I love Sandman, but people need to realize that most good ideas he had back then were taken directly from Moore and SotST.
And even still, while Gaiman added whole new elements to her origin, he nonetheless neglected to give her what she still lacks: a frickin' MOTIVATION. Like, okay, it's great and all that you've made it so that she was obsessed with Batman even before she was "changed" by Woodrue, but, um, WHY was she obsessed with Batman? What did he mean to her? Why did she care so much? Since she ends up tangling with him on a regular basis, addressing these questions actually matters!
That said, Gaiman's post-Moore take on Poison Ivy had potential for growth (hurr) with subsequent stories such as John Francis Moore's Hothouse and Batman/Poison Ivy, but I fear that was sabotaged by two other prominent Ivy appearances: 1.) B:TAS, which established her as an ecoterrorist, and 2.) Jeph Loeb, who wrote her as a pure seductress-for-hire whom "NO MAN CAN RESIST," as she'd remind you over and over again. Both of these popular takes further mucked up how Pam is viewed, and thus ensured against any solid character foundation to build upon.
Good ol' Hugo! I love him so... even if the way he's drawn here makes him look like a villain from a Sonic the Hedgehog game or something. Maybe he's more Dr. Wily, I dunno. Either way, this piece by Denys Cowan is presumably meant to tie into Doug Moench's wonderful Down to the Bone, a forgotten gem with features one of Hugo's greatest achievements. Most importantly, I'm heartened to see the profile open with describing Hugo as "one of the first and greatest of The Batman's foes," because damn straight. Also, gotta love his cocked eyebrow of evil, there. All good villains worth their salt should know how to cock their eyebrows in appropriately rakish ways.
Man, I love and miss Mike Zeck of the 80's, although here he looks like he's really trying to ape Neal Adams. Either way, I don't think Milo has ever looked better. He just seems so pleased, but in a casual, not-evil way, as if starring in his own sitcom.
I always loved the mundane evil of villains like Milo, whose best appearance was as essentially the original "insane evil administrator of Arkham" in this great story by Wein and Novick. It's a shame that nobody does anything with guys like Milo and Dr. Moon anymore (although Justice League Unlimited came the closest by having both of them and Hugo Strange working at Cadmus. They may be evil sociopaths, but they're also on government payroll!), but I suppose the "evil chemist Bat-villain role" is pretty much take up by Scarecrow these days. It's a shame. There's room for all manner of mad scientists in Gotham, even ones who don't wear crazy costumes but who do sport questionable hairstyles!
Incidentally, I forget if Wein or anybody else addressed just how Milo managed to survive getting mauled seemingly to death by the werewolf, Anthony Lupus. Either way, between the mauling and being temporarily driven insane, Milo is a guy who's gone through a lot, which may explain why some of his recent appearances in Batman: Joker's Apprentice and 52 randomly depicted him as a decrepit old man all of a sudden. However, I understand that he's recently returned back to his former appearances, so hopefully we'll be seeing more of Milo in the near future.
Disclaimer for scans.
I'd prefer to call him "Mr. Zip-A-Tone," but that's just me. As I've never read the majority of Anton's storyline, I don't quite feel qualified to judge the character. Thankfully, MightyGodKing has already done so for me, whereupon he makes great observations about the school of thought that goes "Hey, let's create an ANTI-Batman!" Which is to say, yet another of the "Like Batman, But Evil" characters we've been seeing sprinkled throughout these profiles. The fact that he "traveled in the Orient" puts him a bit closer than others, although...
Wait. I'm fuzzy on my Batman history. At this point, did Bruce travel the world to train himself? I'm not sure if writers came up with that one yet! From one origin story I have around 1981, it looks like Bruce stayed in Gotham the whole time. Man, did Night Slayer's origin help influence the globe-trotting Post-Crisis Bruce Wayne that we've seen depicted all the way up to Batman Begins and beyond? That's one legacy, I guess.
Too bad the character himself seems rather insufferable, but that's par for the course when his stories go hand in hand with...
I've only read a couple issues of Doug Moench's Nocturna saga, but what little I've seen has made me roll my eyes so hard that I'm amazed I haven't seen my own brain yet. In case you couldn't tell from both her and Anton's bios, these characters love THE NIGHT. No, they're obsessed with THE NIGHT. They take THE NIGHT very, very seriously. They are walking philosophical treatises on THE NIGHT. If I read any Nocturna appearance, I expect to see at least a dozen moments like this, just to show me how very, very into THE NIGHT she is.
More than that, this pair is a perfect example of how today's biggest villain can become yesterday's nobody. When I recently tracked down this Batman role-playing game sourcebook from the mid-80's (why did I think Harvey's stats would be interesting? Why?!), I was amused to see that Night Slayer and Nocturna were given HUGE profile pages befitting the greatest threats, while much smaller profiles were given to the likes of Hugo Strange, Poison Ivy, and Killer Croc, who only a couple years earlier was himself in the "new ultimate Batman villain" role. Of course, these days, Night Slayer and Nocturna are barely footnotes, and while Croc ain't the big boss he originally was, at least he's still around. So it goes with superhero comics.
I am still curious to read the Nocturna saga, although every single appearance I've read so far has made her out to be a hilariously overwrought and charmingly awful character who espouses about "The NIGHT!" every five seconds. Also, she travels in a hot air balloon. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is NOT silly about a villain in a hot air balloon. Seriously, read that profile and tell me you don't giggle at every mention of the words "hot air balloon." You can't, right?
That said, I really do wish that Bruce Timm and company were able to follow through with their plans to introduce a Dala-like vampire Nocturna to B:TAS because... well... yowza. Yeah, if her episode had ever been aired, I can imagine that she would have led to the sexual awakening of many a young boy. And girl, for that matter.
Y'know, I think "Evil Alfred Pennyworth" is a concept worth exploring in a modern context. At least, in an Elseworlds or something. At the very least, his personality should resemble Alfred in some way, which the Outsider did not. God help us if he ever unleashed his dry sarcastic wit for evil rather than good! So I was kinda excited by the prospect of the Outsider's return in the pages of Flashpoint until I learned that he wasn't Alfred, but an original character. Well shit, man, what's the point? I guess that was foolish of me, expecting that any part of Flashpoint to be worthwhile. I know Flashpoint: Batman: Knight of Vengeance is still really popular, hailed as a Batman masterwork and a powerful depiction of Martha Wayne, and and yeah, no, fuck that. So I guess it was too much to expect something interesting to be done with the Outsider again.
Question: does anybody know what story it was where we first learned about the Penguin's backstory with his father dying of bronchial pneumonia and his mother insisting that he carry an umbrella?
I've noticed that the Penguin seems to have gained a strange perception by many writers (including Denny O'Neil and the show creators of TAS, according to their original Norman-Bates-esque plans for the character) as being a Mama's Boy, and I suspect that it's traced back to this origin. And yet, I don't really get it, mainly since his mother was never a presence in his adult life in any stories I've read, nor has her memory ever haunted him in any significant way. And yet, the Mama's Boy perception is just one of the reasons why the Penguin is unduly hated/misunderstood by so many writers and fans, something which persists to this day. I just don't get it.
As for his origin here, I like that the Penguin originally did not go into crime, nor even engaged in violence, until he was pushed into both severe debt and the loss of his beloved birds. I could see that being the last straw, the Breaking Bad moment that gives this repressed, unpleasant man an excuse to indulge in his darker side. He probably was always intrigued by crime, but that was the moment he finally felt free to go for it. Oh man, I'd love to see that Penguin story! Like Walter White's transformation from Mr. Chips to Scarface, I'd love to see the eloquent, put-upon romantic turned slowly transform into a ruthless, self-made master criminal after being robbed of his livelihood and his only friends by an uncaring city.
It would give the Penguin a sympathetic origin that would set him apart from the other, more insane rogues, and showing him claw his way to power would beautifully serve to show just WHY he should be considered one of Batman's very greatest foes, as many have forgotten over the decades. No more of this poor-man's-Kingpin stuff, it's rendered him impotent and inert! I want grand, dashing, ruthless master criminal Ozzie again!
Of course, this origin I find myself suddenly desiring won't quite work with his current (?) Post-Crisis origins, which showed his transformation to ruthlessness happening earlier in life:
This time(line), it's personal. By giving Ozzie a single antagonist, his breaking point now occurs in adolescence, pretty much turning him from a shy kid into a ruthless little bastard by the time he's eighteen. The story this all takes place in is Alan Grant and Sam Keith's The Killing Peck, from the must-own classic Secret Origins Special (the moving Two-Face story from which I've reviewed here), and it's now the definitive Penguin origin, for better or for worse.
I'm still very fond of this origin, particularly with how it opened the door for my very favorite Penguin story, Penguin Triumphant, but... I dunno, maybe it's the current Penguin: Pain and Prejudice storyline, but I'm exhausted with dark, gritty, grotesque Penguin stories and origins. I want some flair back in the character, damn it!
Oh, Poison Ivy: such a non-character who endures pretty much expressly on her hotness. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Pam, but there's just kinda nothing even there to like nor dislike. I mean, what's her motivation? Why did she decide to turn to crime after gaining an immunity to poison? Why did she decide to even call herself Poison Ivy? Is she a career criminal, an ecoterrorist, an obsessive Batman stalker, a man/humanity-hater, an ill-used woman who just wants to be left alone with her plants, or something else? While her 80's-era profile here doesn't paint a picture of a complex character, she's only gotten more muddled over the past twenty years.
I'll say more about what I mean in a second, but first, something else I'm wondering: why is she apparently covered in marijuana leaves? I mean, poison ivy leaves don't look like that. Nor do any other leaves, to my recollection. As for the art itself, Steve Rude is usually an amazing artist and stunning inker, but man, he wasn't on with this piece. And poor Pam, even in her revised, Post-Crisis profile, she still doesn't fare too well with artists:
Ugh. What an ugly piece, so stiff and flat. Why's she looking up at her own crotch? Is she also wondering what's up with the pot leaves?
I'd have figured they would have gotten Mark Buckingham to draw this bio. After all, he was the one who drew the Gaiman-written origin that they're using here, which tied it with Jason Woodrue because Neil Gaiman was in his period of "ride Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing coattails at every opportunity and look like a genius to fans who don't know any better." I love Neil and I love Sandman, but people need to realize that most good ideas he had back then were taken directly from Moore and SotST.
And even still, while Gaiman added whole new elements to her origin, he nonetheless neglected to give her what she still lacks: a frickin' MOTIVATION. Like, okay, it's great and all that you've made it so that she was obsessed with Batman even before she was "changed" by Woodrue, but, um, WHY was she obsessed with Batman? What did he mean to her? Why did she care so much? Since she ends up tangling with him on a regular basis, addressing these questions actually matters!
That said, Gaiman's post-Moore take on Poison Ivy had potential for growth (hurr) with subsequent stories such as John Francis Moore's Hothouse and Batman/Poison Ivy, but I fear that was sabotaged by two other prominent Ivy appearances: 1.) B:TAS, which established her as an ecoterrorist, and 2.) Jeph Loeb, who wrote her as a pure seductress-for-hire whom "NO MAN CAN RESIST," as she'd remind you over and over again. Both of these popular takes further mucked up how Pam is viewed, and thus ensured against any solid character foundation to build upon.
Good ol' Hugo! I love him so... even if the way he's drawn here makes him look like a villain from a Sonic the Hedgehog game or something. Maybe he's more Dr. Wily, I dunno. Either way, this piece by Denys Cowan is presumably meant to tie into Doug Moench's wonderful Down to the Bone, a forgotten gem with features one of Hugo's greatest achievements. Most importantly, I'm heartened to see the profile open with describing Hugo as "one of the first and greatest of The Batman's foes," because damn straight. Also, gotta love his cocked eyebrow of evil, there. All good villains worth their salt should know how to cock their eyebrows in appropriately rakish ways.
Man, I love and miss Mike Zeck of the 80's, although here he looks like he's really trying to ape Neal Adams. Either way, I don't think Milo has ever looked better. He just seems so pleased, but in a casual, not-evil way, as if starring in his own sitcom.
I always loved the mundane evil of villains like Milo, whose best appearance was as essentially the original "insane evil administrator of Arkham" in this great story by Wein and Novick. It's a shame that nobody does anything with guys like Milo and Dr. Moon anymore (although Justice League Unlimited came the closest by having both of them and Hugo Strange working at Cadmus. They may be evil sociopaths, but they're also on government payroll!), but I suppose the "evil chemist Bat-villain role" is pretty much take up by Scarecrow these days. It's a shame. There's room for all manner of mad scientists in Gotham, even ones who don't wear crazy costumes but who do sport questionable hairstyles!
Incidentally, I forget if Wein or anybody else addressed just how Milo managed to survive getting mauled seemingly to death by the werewolf, Anthony Lupus. Either way, between the mauling and being temporarily driven insane, Milo is a guy who's gone through a lot, which may explain why some of his recent appearances in Batman: Joker's Apprentice and 52 randomly depicted him as a decrepit old man all of a sudden. However, I understand that he's recently returned back to his former appearances, so hopefully we'll be seeing more of Milo in the near future.