‘Batman ’89 #2’ (review)

Written by Sam Hamm
Art by Joe Quinones
Published by DC Comics

I’m surprised by this book.

I didn’t think that this nostalgic tribute to movies released in 1989 and 1992 would speak to our times in 2021, but here we are.

For the common fanboy, it would have been enough to see Billy Dee Williams’ incarnation of Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent and his familiar descent into Two-Face. But credit to writer Sam Hamm, editor Andrew Marino, and the DC brass who saw an opportunity to make this comic relevant beyond feeding the ‘member berries.

Amid a time of racial upheaval in this country and ongoing dialogue about systemic racism, the criminal justice system and more, Batman ’89 is leaning into what it would mean for Harvey Dent to be a Black man.

More specifically, a Black man who is district attorney in a major American city.

Even more specifically, a Black man who is district attorney in the chaotically violent Gotham City. This is a place where a mobster clown poisoned thousands; a deformed son of high society abducted dozens of children and attempted to blow up the city after running for mayor; and one of the most powerful men in the city was murdered by his ex-assistant who was reanimated by alley cats.

All that before talking about a silently sanctioned vigilante who has death and destruction follow him everywhere he goes.

Batman ’89 #2 picks up from the first issue, which introduced the Black neighborhood of Burnside and Dent’s roots there. Smartly, this version of Dent and the “Two-Face” name is thematically tied to ideas of double consciousness and “code switching” between Dent’s Black roots and the majority white society he now operates in.

What’s more, this book shows Batman as a fallible and problematic force in the city.

His actions in the previous issue culminate in a tragic police-involved shooting that touches off tensions in Burnside and protests in the streets, leading to a wholly different kind of brooding by the Dark Knight and artist Joe Quinones expertly recasting a shot from Batman Returns for a new purpose.

But Hamm’s not done!

He complicates those self-appointed acolytes of Batman mentioned in the previous issue. They are callbacks to the Sons of Batman in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, of course.

However, here they are agents of racist, toxic masculinity as well. These self-styled keepers of “law and order” who, in real-world America, have a long history stretching from fugitive slave laws to the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery for jogging where they thought he didn’t belong.

It reads like folks did their homework while also thinking through what would make the most compelling content within this story.

Mind you, all this happens amid a propulsive story with strong character work that covers a lot of territory in the efficient manner you’d expect from someone used to writing screenplays. But there’s also nuance: from Dent, and his renewed purpose when he stops social climbing and gets real; from Batman, and his renewed sense of regret-filled purpose to wage war on crime on the streets and systemically as Bruce Wayne.

All this while continuing to lay the bricks for this continuity’s version of Robin, some nods to other characters across Batman lore, and a welcome surprise character that I didn’t actually expect to show up.

Did I mention the art is very good as well? Because it is.