Man-Bat #1

Hey readers, a bit of a note before we get started with this week’s newsletter. I just want to let you know the Man-Bat trade paperback is still in print. If you go to your local comic book store and ask that they order it, they should be able to do that for you. If you don’t live near a comic store the book is available from major online book and graphic novel sellers. And if you love your local library, see if they or a nearby library has it so you can take it out. I would love for more folks to read this book as I break it down in the Newsletter. However, that’s not essential. I know I have enjoyed the behind-the-scenes process of many a project I hadn’t engaged with. Enjoy!

Man, Are You Serious?

The day I began writing this week’s newsletter, I reminded myself that this is not just a document of where I have been, but also where I am right now. And right now I would say things are going well, but I am hoping there is a great piece of writing news coming my way before 2023 comes to a close.

This month I will have been freelancing for eight months and let’s keep things clear…I have had an excellent start. Work has been very consistent, the bills have continued to be paid on time, and I have been writing a lot of comic pitches. Unfortunately, none of that consistent work has been comic writing yet. I know it’s going to happen, but the waiting is hard. The thing that’s harder than the waiting? I am very hard on myself.

As I read back what I have already written…I left my dream job eight months ago for another dream job, my quality of life has not changed, and the core struggle in my life is I’m waiting for opportunities to reach me. Brutal stuff, Dave. I know. That’s part of why I am including my real-time thoughts in the newsletter, for the sake of perspective and because at this point, you’re kind of getting a sense of who I am right?

A hard-working person, who wears his heart on his sleeve, clearly has a deep affection for comics and other people but could redirect some of that affection toward himself. I’m working on it.

The subject of this month’s Newsletters has also reminded me…every good thing that has happened in my career, and my life for that matter, has been a surprise that I did not see coming. Did I think that I was going to get to write a mini-series about Man-Bat? No, that thought never crossed my mind once in my life. And I have a lot of specific thoughts in my lifetime. And yet, writing a Man-Bat mini-series did happen to me and it was one of the great privileges of my writing career so far. Let’s get into it.

The Origins of Man-Bat

As mentioned in my debut newsletter, former DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio was a great advocate of my writing. He was the one who delivered the news to me that I would be writing for the first time, and anytime I got to write after that I would give him my new story. Both so I could take the chance to say thank you, but also so I could say with action “I’m getting better at this, and I want to keep going.”

2019 was the best year of my life to date, and that is in no small part because I got to write so much for DC. That was the year I did my first three Superman stories, my two Aqualad stories, my three Flash stories, and my first Green Lantern story. I was getting my reps in, and my appetite to write was growing. However, I was still an associate editor, I had other responsibilities.

At the time one of the editors I worked with was the wonderful Paul Kaminski. A lovely man who you may currently know as the group editor of the Superman books at DC, at the time he was one of the editors in the Batman group. We were working together on several titles together, including Detective Comics.

One day, Paul and I were going over an issue of Detective Comics in the DC bullpen. Without warning, but with plenty of charm and theatricality, Dan DiDio came up to us and informed us that we would be working on a Man-Bat mini-series. At the time, I assumed this was going to be with Paul as the Editor and me as Associate Editor. We went to work under that assumption.

Why Man-Bat? It could have been that it had been enough years had passed since there had been a Man-Bat book, it could’ve been a knee-jerk reaction to the trailer for the Jared Leto film Morbius, or it could’ve just been that Dan loved monster characters and the monster in his sights was Kirk Langstrom.

Paul and I struggled in our search for a writer, but what we knew for sure was that we wanted Sumit Kumar to draw the project. Sumit’s work first came to my attention on the brilliant Our Savage Shores written by comic book superstar and all-around outstanding person Ram V. When I saw the artwork…it was love at first sight. I was blown away by Sumit’s storytelling and his style. His characters were so expressive, almost like they were actors performing on a stage making sure people in every seat of the theater could tell what they were doing. There was a grandiosity mixed with a sophistication of storytelling that spoke to me. He also drew cool monsters, that’s important here.

I hired Sumit for as many jobs as I could give. He drew an Atom story written by Dan Watters for DC’s Secrets of Sinister House, a Sinestro Story with Phillip Kennedy Johnson for DC’s New Year’s Evil, a segment for Batman: Pennyworth R.I.P with James Tynion IV & Peter J Tomasi, a Batman/Deathstroke story for Batman Secret Files #3 also with Tynion, and a full-length story in Detective Comics Annual #3 also with Tomasi. To say I was high on him was an understatement.

I was convinced he was one of the best artists I had ever hired at DC, and I wanted him to draw as many DC Comics as possible. Paul thankfully also thought Sumit was talented. As the editor of Detective Comics, he saw the work firsthand on the aforementioned ‘Tec Annual. On that project in particular he blew me away because while his art was very modern, his approach to storytelling reminded me of the great Batman artists of the 90s, especially Norm Breyfogle. I have never asked Sumit about his influences, so I could be dead wrong, or it could just be a great storytelling coincidence.

Time had passed as our search for a writer continued. And the DCU continued to move on. DCU editorial was in the middle of a creative summit talking about books for 2020 onward and one night the summit ended with a dinner that Dan attended. I went up to him and told him that we had a great artist for Man-Bat, but we were struggling to find a writer.

Dan looked at me incredulously. “You’re the writer,” he said.

“Of what?” I was very confused.

“You. You’re writing Man-Bat.” He said with a similar smile to the one he had when he told me I was going to get to write for the first time. I have never asked Dan if this was really always his plan, or if at the moment he just gave me the shot. I certainly wasn’t going to ask then because I wanted to cash out my winning lottery ticket.

I told Paul that I was writing the mini-series and like I had done, he asked “Wait, what is happening?” But quickly he warmed up to the idea and told me I better get to work on pitching him an idea.

So I was going to write the project, my longest assignment to date. Before I knew I was the writer, I had helped hire the artist I was most excited about in comics to draw the book, and now I had to figure out what I was going to do. While I had been an editor in the Batman group for almost six years at that point, Man-Bat was one of the major Batman characters I had the slightest connection to.

Oh Man, Oh Man, Oh Man…

As a fan, I had two major moments with Man-Bat, the scientist known as Kirk Langstrom who created a serum that turned himself into a giant Bat monster who would antagonize Batman and Gotham City. The first was that being of the Batman: The Animated Series generation, I of course knew he was the villain of the premiere episode of the show On Leather Wings, and I had seen that episode at least a dozen times. My other experience was as a fan of Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert’s time on the Batman ongoing title where they had the character give Man-Bat serum to the League of Assassins so they could have ninja Man-Bat soldiers. That was it.

My first boss in comics Mark Doyle gave me very good advice that would seem basic, but I promise you a lot of people don’t do it, he told me “Do your homework. You will quickly meet the people who don’t.” So I got to work reading every Man-Bat appearance in comics. And even after doing that research my first pass at an idea for the mini-series was…a little much.

I pitched Paul the idea that the Man-Bat ninjas that Kirk Langstrom was responsible for creating had defected from the League of Assassins, and begun their own death cult on a remote island in the DCU. Kirk would have to go to the island, bring down the cult, and make them all human once more. It was going to be Apocalypse Now with Man-Bats. Paul Kaminski…a sweet man, with a good heart, and a great appreciation for Rock & Roll said “No. Kirk Langstrom is the only Man-Bat in the comic, and we need something more personal to him.” My insane Morrisonian love letter was put away and I went back to all the comics I read. I tried something bombastic, now I had to do what I knew I was good at and be personal.

The other thing I was good at was using continuity and DC history. It was really important to me that the mini-series felt like it connected to other parts of the universe and history. I had read too many mini-series as a DC fan that were isolated islands when they should have been part of a continent.

At the time, in continuity, James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez-Bueno had Man-Bat as a member of the Justice League Dark. At the beginning of that series, it’s left a little bit of a mystery as to why Man-Bat is working with superheroes and why he’s a cute Man-Bat scientist version of himself. What we know is he did something really bad before he got there and he is trying to atone for it now.

That was something I grabbed a hold of. What if my story was that story that got him to the place he was in the Justice League Dark ongoing title? I also had a long, lovely history working with James and Alvaro, so having this book be a satellite around their book is something I took comfort in.

Going back to my research, here’s the portrait of Kirk Langstrom I had put together. He was a scientist who wanted to help the hearing impaired, and he was obsessed with bats. He experimented on bats to try to come up with a medicine to help the hearing impaired. Instead, he created the Man-Bat serum that turned him into a giant bat monster. However, instead of becoming Man-Bat just once, he did it time and time again. Sometimes he convinced himself he was capable of being a hero, sometimes he was just frustrated by his life and needed an outlet, and sometimes he used Man-Bat as a weapon to hurt others. More than anyone else, his wife Francine was hurt by Man-Bat the most. I believed that Kirk did want to help the hearing impaired, but I also believed he was a man with deep problems and liked the power he had as Man-Bat. Even if that power came at a price, he was addicted to the serum and the experience of being Man-Bat. And what do addicts often say they needed before they changed their life? To hit a rock bottom.

I went back to Paul and pitched him the story of Kirk Langstorm. A scientist who had been given countless chances to get his life on track by his wife, and by Batman, and he blew every opportunity given to him. In this mini-series he’s going to have his biggest Man-Bat freakout ever, it’s going to have severe consequences, and it’s going to lead him to the edge of death. His attempt to not die, to save himself, and to save Man-Bat while refusing to compromise with reality will be the thrust of the story. By the story’s end, he will learn that he can’t keep living this way. He must change to live, and the events of this story will lead him to change into the good guy that we see in Justice League Dark. THAT, with some more specific details we’ll get to in the issue-by-issue breakdown you’re here for, worked for Paul and we got to work.

Without further ado? Issue one of Man-Bat.

Man-Bat #1: Monster Bender

Art by Sumit Kumar, Colors by Romulo Fajardo JR, and Letters by Tom Napolitano. Associate Editor: Ben Meares. Editor: Paul Kaminski

I had my narrative mission for the mini-series. Throughout five issues I would tell the story of Kirk Langstrom at his absolute lowest. A story that starts with him doing something so bad that he has to spend the rest of the mini-series trying to fix it, and eventually realizes he can’t fix things by making the same mistakes over and over again.

In Man-Bat #1, subtitled Monster Bender, Kirk Langstrom’s wife and scientific partner Francine confronts Kirk for hiding and taking the Man-Bat serum after they had long agreed he wouldn’t anymore. Kirk, in full addict mode, tells Francine that he has figured out how to perfect the Man-Bat serum in a way that will empower him and not harm anyone else.

Francine has heard enough. She’s been hurt by Kirk and Man-Bat too many times, she tells him she’s leaving. She also makes note that Kirk began his research of bats to help the hearing impaired, including his sister, now he just does this to become a monster. Kirk snaps at Francine for speaking in such an ugly way to him and tells her she’s not serious. Francine says she’s been moving things out for weeks and in his serum-addled haze didn’t notice.

Out of spite, Kirk takes the Man-Bat serum to prove that it’s good for him and good for the world. He soars out into the Gotham City night sky as Man-Bat and finds an active crime that he can help stop. The Blackout Gang has stolen a sonic cannon and is getting it to the mysterious entity who hired them. Man-Bat arrives and tries to stop the Blackout Gang. The Gang takes off in their van which leads to an epic destructive chase scene where Man-Bat destroys many of the cars in his way. Batman arrives and tries to stop Man-Bat before the GCPD gets involved. But Man-Bat is too manic and powerful to be stopped.

The Blackout Gang decides to use the Sonic Cannon to take down Man-Bat. Man-Bat throws the Sonic Cannon against the ground and it creates a massive sonic explosion that destroys buildings and harms people in the immediate vicinity. Man-Bat is knocked out.

After a few days, Kirk Langstrom wakes up in one of Batman’s bunkers around Gotham City, tied down to a bed. Kirk demands to be released. Batman tells Kirk that’s not going to happen and goes on to tell Langstrom how disappointed he is. Batman has given Kirk so many chances to get his act together, but after this most recent event, there are no more chances. The chase to get the sonic cannon caused millions of dollars in damage. The sonic blast that Man-Bat caused destroyed city infrastructure and left many people in the area without their hearing. An irony that devastates Kirk into silence.

Not only is Kirk going to Blackgate Penitentiary for the damage he’s caused during this most recent Man-Bat attack, but Batman has run tests and the Man-Bat serum has done irreversible damage to Kirk’s cells. He is dying. Soon his human mind will shut down and all that will remain is a feral Man-Bat.

Kirk says Batman is lying. Batman isn’t. Kirk’s bad decisions and refusal to give up the serum over the years have caught up to him, and no one can save him, not even Batman.

Kirk is taken away by the GCPD to be transported to Blackgate, but something we haven’t seen before occurs. The Man-Bat voice starts talking to him. It tells Kirk they have a chance to fix things, to save themselves, and to help the people they have harmed. And even if they die…shouldn’t they die free? Kirk transforms into Man-Bat and escapes custody.

As Batman promises, the problem has escalated to a larger place than it ever has before. We end the issue with the congressman who has Gotham City in his district calling Amanda Waller and asking her to deploy Task Force X A.K.A the Suicide Squad (Deadshot, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, and Harley Quinn at the time) to bring in Man-Bat.

Observations

In my recollection, this was a five-issue mini-series and each issue was twenty-two pages a piece. Not so. The issues were only twenty pages. In revisiting this I was impressed with how much I had packed in but also see how I could have used those additional two pages to show a little more time passing or to let a few action beats breathe better for Sumit.

The most novel addition I made here was to include the Blackout Gang, who were a part of Man-Bat’s original appearance in Detective Comics #400 by Neal Adams & Frank Robbins. In that issue, they are also dealing with a sonic weapon. I used that as both a jumping-off point and to let readers know…I had done my homework. Kirk Langstrom researching sound, and a weapon that manipulates sound became an issue for him throughout this mini-series tracked for me. I also just really loved the simplicity and coolness Neal Adams brought to the gang originally. They’re just dressed in all black and have cool goggles. No fuss no muss.

I was largely very happy with how this issue held up as I reread it. In no small part because Sumit Kumar drew the hell out of it. This book looks amazing and is massively aided by Romulo Fajardo JR’s colors and Tom Napolitano’s letters. I was getting better but these folks were all a few rungs above me and elevated my script as I did my best to catch up to their level.

This is also the first time I wrote Batman and it was not a thing I was too intimidated by. I don’t think I was arrogant about it by any means, but because by this point I had already worked on hundreds of Batman comics I thought to myself “If I don’t know how to do it after this job and a lifetime of research, it’s just not meant to be.” Anytime I write or edit Batman, and here especially, I always use Kevin Conroy’s voice in my head to make sure Batman sounds right. And he does indeed sound like a very BTAS-inspired version of the character in Man-Bat. This panel below is still one of my favorites of the issue.

There are a lot of great pages in this book, but the one below is my favorite of the first issue. Sumit drew Batman in action wonderfully earlier in the issue, but he really did a stellar job drawing Batman doing the other things Batman does. Investigating, doing science, running tests, being the Dark Knight Detective. It’s something I made a note of and expanded on in later issues. In addition to giving him bigger moments with Batman in general. And the character acting between Batman and Kirk Langstrom is just sensational.

One thing I wish I had done was to introduce who the Blackout Gang was working for in this issue. We find out the next issue so I won’t spoil it if you haven’t read it but I can see a world where I gave Task Force X one page at the end and the series ultimate villain the last page.

Paul Kaminski and Ben Meares, the editor and assistant editor of this book respectively, could not have been better to me, especially on this issue. I was all nerves. And while I had written comics before this, writing a first issue is a different animal. Without them, this would’ve been a much, much worse comic. With them, like the art team, they elevated my work and pointed out several fundamental things I was lacking. Paul and Ben in particular encouraged me to keep a few of the Blackout Gang members in the story and use them to show the harm Kirk has caused. It’s a great note that leads to a lot of excellent drama later.

But for now…Kirk Langstrom is on the run and taking advice from the inner Man-Bat voice in his head. There’s no way this ends well for anyone! And he’s going to face off against the Suicide Squad!?! Things are going to get VIOLENT. Don’t miss us as next week we dive into Man-Bat #2 in all of it’s high flying glory!

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz