Twilight of the Bat

The Bat #2

by Josh Simmons, Paul Keck

This is the second unauthorized Batman comic to be written by Josh Simmons, that unsparing specialist in physical, emotional and moral breakdown. The first one was a self-published minicomic printed in 2007 under the simple title of Batman and subsequently posted online; it depicted the caped crusader at his most ideologically severe, lecturing a disgusted Catwoman on how he's devised a magnificent means of permanently disfiguring criminals. Batman cannot ever kill, you see, so it's crucial that the superstitious and cowardly lot that is the criminal element be marked - to live forever with the shame of their transgressions, and to be shunned, then, by all the good people of society. On its own, this is not an original idea. Lee Falk's transitional superhero character and Batman predecessor the Phantom left the mark of a skull on the jaws of those villains he struck, while the yet-earlier pulp character the Spider stamped his brand upon the foes he felled, but Simmons' Batman is depicted with unusual intimacy: knees pressing against his chin as he curls up to dream of packed prisons and children getting blasted with fire-hoses, swooning ecstatically, high above a tottering riot of Gotham rooftops...

Genres: Comics

20 pages, Saddle-stitched

First published November 1, 2017

Reviews

[Plagued by Visions · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing, bleak, hilarious—such a careful balance of these modalities, and still entirely unserious throughout. This is sordid, uncompromising glory.

[Joshua O'Brien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fan fiction at its finest.

Would be even better in colour.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second of Josh Simmons' bootleg Batman comics demonstrates a marked improvement on the formula. Here, the "Bat" is joined by his old foe, the "Joke Man", as the pair wander the apocalyptic ruins of G--- City. Though a lot of the backdrop will be reminscent to those who have read Simmons' "Black River", this ends up delivering a much tighter narrative surrounding post-apocalyptic tropes. Simmons and Keck also pull from a plethora of Batman comics - the aged Batman is a familiar concept as previously explored in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, and the hysterical bouts of laughter shared between the Bat and the Joke Man is a pointed nod towards Alan Moore's and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke. Though there isn't much ground to cover in just twenty or so pages, Twilight of the Bat does a solid job exploring the space of superhero parody and deconstructionism without wearing the concept out.