That’s Mark Ruffalo on playing The Hulk. He’ll be the third actor to embody the character – or, more accurately, the Hulk’s puny alter ego Bruce Banner – in just three films. First there was Eric Bana in Ang Lee’s misunderstood masterpiece Hulk in 2003. (Yes. You heard me. “Masterpiece”.)

Bana was replaced five years later by Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk, a fairly terrible film I once reviewed as resembling “a panto acted out by action figures”.

Now, in Joss Whedon’s upcoming Avengers movie, Mark Ruffalo will step into the role. He’s a great choice, I think, but that’s not really the point. Some fans are annoyed – there are even online petitions demanding Norton return to the role.

No one seems to be questioning Ruffalo’s acting. The objection is simply to changing an actor mid-franchise. (Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to apply to supporting casts. Poor Katie Holmes was replaced between Nolan’s Batman Begins and Dark Knight and no one seemed to mind.)

It comes down to this: Bruce Banner should look the same in each movie, right?

Frankly, I’m not sure why.

It expects a visual continuity that comic books don’t possess. Look at these random examples, above and below. Does Kelly Jones’ Bruce Wayne really look anything like Denys Cowan’s Bruce Wayne? We might feel a discontinuity if the art shifts mid-comic, but radically different styles sit quite closely in other issues, other series, and it goes unnoticed.

The rules do shift once human actors embody these characters. I’ve written before about what celebrity logic does to these heroic alter egos. It makes the secret identity as famous as the costumed one, and results in heroes whipping off their masks at the slightest provocation.

Nevertheless, I think Ruffalo is right. The Hulk is Hamlet – or, at least, he should be.

Masks, costumes, and an obsession with alternate identities mean that if any screen characters can be played by multiple actors, it’s these superheroes. It’s not like replacing Michael J. Fox between Back To The Future sequels.

And just like I’d prefer more radical, auteuristic movie adaptations – Burton’s Batman, Lee’s Hulk, whatever – instead of a generic ‘house style’, I’m happy to see different actors coming to these roles. The many faces of multiple actors don’t make the heroes’ interchangeable. They make them less human, and more mythic.

A weird question for you: are comic readers willing to accept shifting facial features because we instinctually think they’re only different artistic interpretations of the one, concrete, real-world face? A ‘secret identity’ that we’ll never actually get to see?

Reading Comics with Martyn Pedler

7pm, Monday August 9th

North Fitzroy library

240 St Georges Rd, North Fitzroy Vic 3068

In the spirit of Thunderdome, I’ll be splitting the night down the middle. Half on the best of the indie / alternative scene and the particular joys of the comic book medium, and half on how to wade into the regularly insane world of superhero comics. Feel free to come along and tell me about whatever favourites I’ve missed.

Some exclamation points to get you excited:

Doom Patrol! American Splendor! Hellboy! Astro City! Jimmy Corrigan! Batman: Year One! From Hell! Casanova! Bottomless Belly Button! All-Star Superman! Eddy Current! Sandman! David Boring! Zot! Probably some X-Men, too!

If anyone’s bored in Melbourne on Monday night, it’d be great to see you.

The Jonah Hex movie has just been released, starring Josh Brolin as DC’s Old West anti-hero. It is, apparently, hellishly awful. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve already decided to forgive it some of its apparently glaring flaws – if only because it Todd DeZuniga says it was such a thrill to see his name in the credits. He’s the artist who co-created Jonah Hex way back in 1972, and he deserves all the thrills he can get.

To capitalise on the film’s release, DC have released a new hardcover graphic novel called No Way Back – a companion to the regular Jonah Hex series that’s been running for fifty-something issues now. Just like the series, it’s a solid example of stripped-down genre storytelling. The fact that almost every issue of Jonah Hex is a complete story, done-in-one, means it ditches most of the pleasures of ongoing continuity; instead, its writers – Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti – thrive on the tension that exists between repetition and variation.

Another corrupt sheriff, another bounty claimed, another woman who can’t be trusted. How do you make each different than the last?

The best thing about the graphic novel, though, is that DeZuniga returns to draw it. His artwork is sketchy and unpredictable: lines like they’re cut into the page, angry faces half-formed, all perfect for capturing the filth of Jonah’s world.

That’s why it’s entirely ridiculous that it’s printed on shiny, shiny paper.

DeZuniga’s art is fundamentally wrong for this plasticky stock. I know it seems like a superficial criticism, but as I read it dragged me out of the story like high-pitched squealing layered under a favourite song.

I’ve talked before about how some comic books – once intended to be disposable at best – sit uncomfortably in enormous, expensive hardcovers. That’s why I gave full credit to DC for its refusal to overly fancify its recent omnibuses collecting Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga.

(Yes, “fancify” is a word. Maybe you should buy a fancier dictionary and look it up.)

They’re printed on something like regular newsprint, just a little thicker. This decision caused what critic Tucker Stone called “the irritating paper debate”:

“…meaning that a lot of random websites and Amazon reviews are still crying foul about how DC decided to print these Kirby books on what seems to be all that Baxter paper left over from the 80s.”

I mean, how did “shinier” become synonymous with “better”? It’s not, no more than television in 16:9 widescreen is somehow automatically of higher quality than what’s shot in good old-fashioned 4:3.

I’d say that when even the cover of your graphic novel is faux-aged – with small tears and scuffed corners pre-added for maximum Old West authenticity – maybe it’s a sign you should rethink your high-gloss interior sheen.

For best results, read Jonah Hex: No Way Back after dragging it for a few miles behind your horse.

“When I was writing stories set in Gotham City, I was very conscious that the whole Batman ethos presents a vision of the modern urban environment that I don’t think is true. I don’t mean that people dress up in tights and capes – people do! It’s that it presents the city as a kind of urban jungle, full of predators preying on innocent citizens. They’re poisonous, they’re corrupt, and so on.

“And the only way to protect innocents in that kind of setting is to be more violent than those predators. You have to become a predator who preys on the predators. That’s what Batman is. He uses violence – really nasty violence – and his stock and trade is torture.

“I was writing Batgirl at the time of the Abu Ghraib scandal. I felt like this vision of how the world works presented by these comics went perfectly with the one the Bush administration was pushing on us. We’re engaged in a war on terror and, in the comics, Bruce Wayne is engaged in a war on crime. So it’s not just that I rejected Batman’s tactics – I rejected that whole view of the world.”

He’s not wrong. I mean, I love Batman – if pushed, I’ll admit that Batman might be my favourite character in the entirety of fiction – but he’s not wrong. One of the things about these iconic characters, though, is that they’ve been around so long that there can never be one coherent ideology throughout their thousands and thousands of stories. It’s how the Huffington Post can run a piece suggesting Batman would be pro-immigration and anti-jail for drug offenders, while conservative newspapers happily claimed The Dark Knight as a blockbuster with a Bush-friendly subtext.

So allow me to offer up proof that Batman cares, and from an unlikely source: the infamously grim Batman: The Killing Joke one-shot from 1988.

I know, I know. It’s the Batman story where poor Barbara Gordon gets crippled, right? And maybe raped? All in the Joker’s bid to convince Commissioner Gordon that the only thing between sanity and madness is “one bad day”? That’s the one. Even its writer, Alan Moore, doesn’t like it. He says it’s “a terrible book. I mean, it doesn’t say anything. It’s talking about Batman and the Joker, and says that yes, psychologically Batman and the Joker are mirror images of each other. So?”

Ignore all that – even Moore – and remember how The Killing Joke begins with Batman visiting the Joker, imprisoned in Arkham Asylum. “Hello,” Batman says. “I came to talk.” And he continues:

“I’ve been thinking lately. About you and me. About what’s going to happen to us, in the end. We’re going to kill each other, aren’t we? Perhaps you’ll kill me. Perhaps I’ll kill you. Perhaps sooner. Perhaps later. I just wanted to know that I’d made a genuine attempt to talk things over and avert that outcome. Just once.”

Sure, it turns out that Batman’s not talking to the Joker at all, but just a stooge in white facepaint who’s taken his place while the Joker organizes the lovingly-drawn horror that follows. That’s not the point. I can enjoy the gritted teeth of near-fascist Batman; I can enjoy the gaudy and ludicrous BIFF! KAPOW! 1960s TV Batman; but my favourite Batman is the one who’ll do anything to avoid more violence and death…

…even sitting down with his psychopathic arch-nemesis in a heartfelt – and inevitably pointless – attempt at conversation.

My favourite Batman is the one who hates goodbyes.

I feel better already.

Admittedly, Brightest Day co-writer Geoff Johns has said that the tone of the book is “not necessarily optimistic”. It does, however, arrive as a cheerier sequel to his hearts-torn-out-and-eaten-in-front-of-their-owners storyline Blackest Night, and showcases a dozen resurrected characters suddenly pardoned from the growing bodycount of recent superhero stories.

The narrator of the parodic Ambush Bug: Year None put it like this in 2008: “Squeamish, gentle reader? Then it may be time for you to give up reading graphic literature, since we have truly now entered… the Guignol Age of Comics.” Look, you really need to see the font for the full effect:

It’s not just blood and gore that make some squeamish, but also the actions of the heroes themselves. Marvel is promoting its new Heroic Age – a “throwback to the early days of the Marvel Universe, with more of a swashbuckling feel”, according to editor in chief Joe Quesada. Have comic books become so compromised that announcing “heroes will be heroes again” deserves a headline in the mainstream media?

Many trace this grim-and-gritty superhero trend back to comics like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen in the mid-1980s; Moore says he suspects “that the existence of Watchmen had pretty much doomed the mainstream comic industry to about 20 years of very grim and often pretentious stories…”

Everyone would have their own list of superhero stories gone wrong. Personally, I think that Kevin Smith’s Batman series The Widening Gyre seems to have been written just to prove that Frederick Wertham was right about creepy superhero sexuality. I cocked an eyebrow when the alternate-universe Captain America purposefully used a kindergarten full of children as cover during a firefight in Ultimate Avengers #4. Hell, DC just published a story in which a hero murders a villain while quipping “For justice” – a catchphrase associated with their kid-friendly Super Friends title.

I’m torn, though, whenever I feel the urge to complain about what’s being done to these superheroes. In my last column for Bookslut, I talk about alternative superheroes and “underwear perverts”, like James Kochalka’s Superf*ckers and Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys. I end up saying we shouldn’t be so precious about ‘perverted’ superheroes. It’s very difficult for a single story – or even a decent-length run – to do any lasting damage. Superheroes have “existed for too many years, through too many stories, at the hands of too many writers and artists to be corrupted by swear words or a sex scandal.” That goes for Marvel and DC’s own stories, too.

I don’t want to be a they’re-raping-my-childhood! hysteric. I’m all for violence, gore, and death – I’m actually murdering someone as I type! I’m just tired of the so-called “real world” intersecting with superhero stories in the most grim and least interesting ways. This quick, lovely piece by David Uzumeri summarises it best. Comparing Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto to Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly’s All-Star Superman, he writes:

“Books like Watchmen or Identity Crisis take that tack with American superhero material; they’re both about scratching under the shiny veneer and finding the rotten underside of a metaphorical golden age, about how, in a grown-up world, pragmatism trumps idealism.”

If idealism can triumph anywhere, shouldn’t it be in superhero stories?

(Oh: the baby bird in Brightest Day #0 is magically resurrected a couple of pages later! So, uh, no harm done.)

Editor: “Where would Superman change nowadays?”

Reporter: “Change? Where would he work?”

You might’ve read that Peter Parker recently lost his job as a newspaper photographer. Don’t worry: it’s hardly the first time in Marvel Comics’ history that Spider-Man’s infamous no-good-deed-goes-unpunished luck has cost him his job – and it wasn’t just your typical downsizing, either. (Poor Parker lost his job for doctoring a photo to prove the innocence of his long-time journalistic enemy – and current Mayor of Marvel’s New York City – J. Jonah Jameson.)

But with the growing numbers of doomsayers claiming the real-world newspaper industry is failing, I wondered: can superheroes live without them?

Superheroes and newspapers share some mutual strands of DNA. Newspapers still contain comic strips, of course, and it’s common knowledge that even the term ‘yellow journalism’ was named after a comic that ran in the last years of the 1800s. And superhero comics and newspapers were sold side-by-side for decades, too, until the former became the domain of specialised comic book stores instead.

Peter Parker and the Daily Bugle; Clark Kent and the Daily Planet. The journalistic careers of Spider-Man and Superman’s alter-egos are almost as much a part of their core identities as radioactive spiders and last-minute rockets from other worlds. Heroic reporters aren’t just limited to handy secret identities.

DC Comics has Lois Lane, of course, but she’s never gotten the respect she deserves. It’s partly because she’s always existed first and foremost as a love interest for Superman, but it certainly didn’t help that she was forced to fail to notice that Clark Kent’s real identity for so long.

Marvel has Ben Urich, a reporter who first appeared in 1978. He’s an investigative journalist of the hardboiled school – incessantly smoking, rumpled trenchcoat, code of honour – made more famous in Frank Miller’s legendary run on Daredevil. He’s now the hero of his own occasional series that  offers a behind-the-scenes look at Marvel’s crossover events, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meets All The President’s Men.

What about a tabloid-sponsored superhero? One of the interlocking series that formed DC Comics’ Seven Soldiers ‘mega-series’ in 2005 was The Manhattan Guardian. Taking his superhero identity directly from the newspaper that employs him, ex-cop Jake Jordan agrees to become publicly what others are only in secret: a superheroic reporter. He’s a revamped version of the original 1940’s Guardian, a vigilante who was aided by a group of orphans called – adorably – the Newsboy Legion.

The Manhattan Guardian works because its hero makes obvious the same logic that links superheroes and newspapers. Lois Lane always wondered how Clark got the best Superman stories; cruel irony meant that Peter was providing the photographs used to defame Spider-Man in the Daily Bugle. Superheroes are, almost by definition, where the action is – so who’s better to bring home the scoop?

While writing about superheroes and their relationships to the cities in which they live, theorist Scott Bukatman discusses the connection between Superman’s never-ending battle and Clark’s work at the Daily Planet:

“In a way, then, Superman and his alter-ego, crusading journalist Clark Kent, are fighting the same fight using the same methods: ubiquity, speed, enhanced powers of vision and perception, and incorruptibility.” In fact, Bukatman continues, “in a strong sense, Superman is the mighty newspaper.”

One of my favourite details in DC’s epic Final Crisis series from 2008 was that Superman has an emergency printing press in his Fortress of Solitude. Here, interdimensional villains use electronic media to spread the deadly “anti-life equation” that removes all traces of humanity’s free will. How will superheroes get the news out to the resistance? They become heroic newsboys, spreading the good word one paper at a time.

Yes, I’m an idiot.

It somehow didn’t click that the thousands of comics, say, dropped on Iraq in the early ‘90s were more likely show Saddam Hussein cutting off his own head than a cheery selection of Calvin and Hobbes.

I was planning to discuss psy-ops and propaganda comics while writing about Joe Sacco’s Footnotes In Gaza for Bookslut, but Sacco distracted me with his hundreds of pages of heartbreak. Would it have been too tenuous to compare his work with Captain America punching Hitler back in 1941? They’re both designed to win hearts and change minds, after all. And comics have a long history of being used as propaganda – whether to rally support at home like Hitler’s glass jaw above, or loaded into cluster bombs and dropped on the enemy to destroy morale.

Sometimes, however, the pretty pictures can have the opposite effect. During World War II, the Japanese reportedly dropped leaflets designed to convince American soldiers their wives were busy being unfaithful at home; they were illustrated – ahem – graphically enough that they became collector’s items. “Our guys loved it,” says military historian Stanley Sadler. “They’d trade them like baseball cards.”

That same article by Ian Urbina references a failed use of superhero-specific propaganda, too. In 2000, DC Comics made special Superman and Wonder Woman comics in multiple languages to illustrate the dangers of land mines. But… umm… what were those weird, word-filled clouds hanging over the heroes’ heads? Urbina explains:

“Though widely understood in some contexts, thought bubbles appearing above a cartoon character’s head left some readers, especially rural ones, completely baffled, according to press accounts.”

The perceived simplicity of comic art is what makes it so appealing for cross-cultural propaganda. Unfortunately – and setting aside the possibility that this story is another example of the “caveman panic” rumour circulating around the Lumière train – it’s never that simple. Read this fascinating piece on the attempts to cure “The Forever Problem” at a New Mexico nuclear waste vault. Once you set aside a shared written language and a shared visual vocabulary, how do you communicate grave danger to humans living a thousand years from now?

Comic books have hundreds of specific visual conventions, from the wavy lines above an angry man’s head in the newspaper funnies to the ornate font Marvel’s currently using to imply that Thor and their other Norse Gods sound kinda ‘Ye Olde’.

And superhero comics may be many things – daft, adolescent, awe-inspiring, overtly sexist and conceptually daunting – but they’re rarely simple.

As far as catchphrases go, it’s no “Up, up, and away!”, is it? When even Superman is worried that he looks stupid in his iconic, entire-industry-inspiring costume, you can understand how difficult difficult it is to wear your underwear on the outside.

The popularity of superheroes used to be able to force anyone into costume. In his book Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre (2006), Peter Coogan uses a character called The Scorpion to illustrate this trend:

“The Scorpion, created by Howard Chaykin, exemplifies this shift. The Scorpion’s adventures were set just before WWII, and the character himself was a pulpy soldier of fortune with some science fiction elements. The Scorpion debuts without a costume, wearing a leather jacket, flight scarf, riding boots, and armed with pistols. A new creative team was brought on after the second issue, and the Scorpion was made over, appearing in the third and final issue in a blue-and-orange cowled affair sporting a large scorpion chevron.”

Like I wrote when talking about Power Girl and her costume’s notorious cleavage window, you’re currently more likely to see superhero comics apologising for oulandish outfits than embracing them. The first example I can remember was a decade or so after the Scorpion’s crisis, when John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad ditched their costumes altogether.

The Suicide Squad was a team consisting of various villains and sociopaths, forced into good deeds by their government in order to reduce their prison terms. It was a serious espionage story with an alarmingly high body count. (At least it seemed high when back in 1987; now, a smattering of character deaths seem to be expected in even the most lighthearted superhero books.)

In time, the supervillains on the Squad ditched their costumes altogether, deciding on a more ‘serious’ look for their serious stories. I can see why. This year, DC released JSA Vs. Kobra. It’s a grim tale of global terrorism, religious fundamentalism, and suicide bombing that took itself absolutely stone-faced seriously – even while starring a character called Mister Terrific who has the words FAIRPLAY written down the sleeves of his jacket in giant letters.

I’ve spent my whole life honing my ability to suspend disbelief, and I still had to stifle a giggle at this yawning chasm between style and content.

For the non-comic-reading public, costumes can be an even harder sell. Recent superheroic TV shows don’t dare. Smallville is still clinging to its long-standing “no flights, no tights” policy for young Clark Kent. And NBC’s deservedly-maligned Heroes is happy to be one of the stupidiest shows on TV – but god forbid they’d ever put their characters in costume, because that would just look dumb, right?

Coogan suggests three elements to define a superhero: mission, powers, and identity. Costumes, he says, is an integral part of the latter – “iconic representations of the superhero identity”. Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins agreed, concreting the importance of Batman’s “theatricality” in the minds of the millions who saw it. However, it still required his costume to become practical military-style armour, rather than just bright fabric for symbolism alone. (Well, okay: symbolism and ease of impromptu dancing.)

The costumeless Suicide Squad later find themselves unwillingly involved in a major crossover called “War Of The Gods” in issue #58 (1991). Before they head off to battle angry mythological figures, they’re told to put their old costumes back on by the immortal antihero Black Adam:

“Everyone who has one should be in costume. [...] We go to fight gods and magic. Ceremonial garb has a value and should be worn.”

Maybe it’s that simple. Superman should remember this the next time he’s feeling shy.

A story in this month’s JSA 80 Page Giant features what seems to be a rather odd metafictional moment. Here, DC Comics’ charmingly brash superhero, Power Girl, thinks that her revealing costume is being mocked by her rookie teammate, Cyclone. When Cyclone explains that, no, no, she loves the costume, Power Girl shoots a barbed look out towards the reader. She says: “Most women don’t react quite that way.”

Some readers explained that they felt they were being lectured by the comic; reprimanded for daring to think that there’s sexism present in the way Power Girl is drawn (with her seemingly ever-increasing bust size) and the costume she’s drawn into (with its notorious cleavage-window).

The writer of the issue, Jen Van Meter – in an incredibly classy move – responded to one of her critics. She explained that Power Girl’s glance out of the page wasn’t present in the original script, before going on to say:

“Do I like the vast and very gendered disparity in costuming in conventional superhero comics? No. Do I love superhero comics despite the many flaws of the genre? Absolutely. Having chosen to write superhero comics for hire on occasion, must I work with what’s available to me? Sure.”

Spend any time online and you’ll witness the argument usually used to shut down talk of this ‘very gendered disparity’. It goes like this: hey, all superhero costumes are skintight and ridiculous! Shut up!

And while that misses the point entirely, it’s true that superhero costumes are inherently ridiculous. More and more, supermen and superwomen seem a little embarrassed by their outfits. (This is made even worse when they’re translated into non-animated films. Real actors, real physics, and real fabrics just make the problem that much worse.) Comic books have struggled to find logical ways to explain these bizarre spandex fashions.

(My favourite justification comes from writer Grant Morrison. He suggested the X-Men originally dressed like superheroes because the public already trusted superheroes, and therefore they’d be more willing to accept mutants with strange powers within that preexisting heroic framework. That kind of conceptual möbius strip isn’t for amateurs!)

Power Girl’s costume, however, is seen as so uniquely provocative that her writers constantly have to address the issue. Sometimes it’s taking the reader by the hand for a guided interpretive tour, like Cyclone’s subsequent pro-costume speech, above:

“’Cause from a theatrical point of view, it’s perfect for who you are and what you do. It’s all about contradictions. The hole draws the eye precisely where everyone knows they’re not supposed to look – putting anyone you’re dealing with off-balance. The name says girl, but the costume says woman… and not just woman, I mean. It says, “I’m tough enough to handle everything I am. Are you?’”

Sometimes it’s a quick gag, as in JSA Classified #1: “Green Lantern used to ask me why I never wore a mask. It’s because most of the time… they ain’t looking at my face.”

The oddest explanation for Power Girl’s outfit comes out in a heartfelt, tears-in-her-eyes conversation with Superman in JSA Classified #2:

“People always ask me why I have this hole right here. They think I’m showing off… or just being lewd. But the first time I made this costume, I wanted to have a symbol like you. I just… couldn’t think of anything. I thought, eventually, I’d figure it out. And close the hole. But I haven’t.”

Remember that tragic justification for why Batman constantly disappears on a mid-sentence Commissioner Gordon? This scene attempts the same retroactive poetry, but fumbles badly.

Years ago, I interviewed DC Comics’ writer Gail Simone for a feature in Yen Magazine. (How long ago? Joss Whedon was still directing the Wonder Woman movie, that’s how long ago.) She said that she might be considered a “contrarian” in the debate over gendered fashions of superhero outfits. She said:

“I think it’s fine if most of the male and female characters look fabulous, even if the outfits are impractical. I owned a beauty salon before I became a writer and I know there’s a power in glamour. That said, sometimes the outfits betray the nature of the character, and that’s unforgiveable.”

You could easily argue that trying to make Power Girl’s cleavage an empty symbol of angst is a betrayal of her character; it certainly seems more cynical than depicting her as owning her costume-choice with a shrug or wink or smile.

But here’s the final chicken-or-egg riddle: how much of her tough-talking, fun-loving personality has been slowly developed to justify her costume – and not the other way round?

Every writer seems to have provided their own variation on this same vanishing act, but only one I know of explains why Batman does it.

Before I get to that, though, a little more on my last mention of the “tangle of personal tragedies and pointless minutia” of some comic book continuity. Company-wide reboots like Crisis On Infinite Earths are one way to fix these snags, but more common is to perform on-the-fly ‘battlefield surgery’ on continuity hiccups. Writers create new justifications for odd notions from previous issues as they go – or, at worst, they find new excuses to ignore the weirder or dumber elements of their characters.

Geoff Johns’ work on Green Lantern is dedicated to this conceptual surgery. He took the fact that Green Lantern’s ring originally didn’t work against the colour yellow – a random weakness introduced to give villains a shot at winning – and transmuted it into an all-encompassing, world-building logic for his corner of the DC Universe.

He’s created a sci-fi “emotional spectrum” of warring colours that explains early Green Lantern stories while also providing endless fodder for later ones. Admittedly, I’m still waiting for him to tackle the time Green Lantern fought The Shark despite his invisible yellow forcefield. (Yes. You heard me. Invisible and yellow.)

Sometimes a retroactive justification can be much smaller in scale. Greg Rucka wrote an idiosyncratic Batman story called “Falling Back” in Legends of the Dark Knight #125. It came towards the end of a sprawling crossover called “No Man’s Land” – a surprisingly good crossover, too. Even when it was leaking logic it was full of fascinating ideas and dark character turns.

Gordon is upset that a defeated Batman disappeared, abandoning Gotham. Now that Batman’s back, Gordon wants nothing to do with him. He’s furious that Batman left the city unprotected without even a word; furious that no one in law enforcement will take him seriously because he needs a masked vigilante to help him.

They finally meet, face to face. This issue is almost entirely dedicated to their conversation: no fight scenes, no flashbacks. Artist Rick Burchett lets whole pages sit, empty of dialogue, as these two men struggle to find the right words. Downstairs, a waiting Robin nervously says it feels like his parents are deciding if “the divorce is final”.

When Batman tells Gordon that they’re still partners, Gordon responds: “Partners are equal, Batman! When have you ever treated me like your equal? Partners, for example, tell you their plans! They keep you informed! And they sure as hell don’t walk out on you in the middle of a sentence!”

Batman slowly bows his head, and says: “I’ve never been good at saying goodbye.”

Batman’s disappearances aren’t just him being needlessly spooky; it’s that he’s still so consumed with guilt and grief over his parents’ murder that he’d rather vanish than risk another goodbye.

And, just like that, a tired gag is injected with retroactive heartbreak.