Man-Bat #2

Covering the Covers

Last week I made a glaring omission when talking about the creative team on the Man-Bat min-series. The brilliant team of Kyle Hotz and Alejandro Sanchez did our main covers. For my money, Kyle Hotz is one of the best monster artists that comics have ever had. Personally, at DC I got to work on stories where he drew Swamp Thing and the Spectre and those were…phenomenal. When Paul Kaminski and Ben Meares picked Kyle as the Man-Bat cover artist I thought it was an immediate slam-dunk call. And then they broke the backboard by having Alejandro Sanchez do the cover colors. Alejandro is the go-to colorist for some of the best line artists in the business right now and this cover above is a great example of why, he makes the most out of every color stroke.

We only had one variant cover on the mini-series, and it was on the first issue. However, that one variant cover? It was by the legendary Kevin Nowlan. And if you are only going to have one variant cover on a project? Having Kevin Nowlan do that cover makes the absolute most of it. Take a look at it below before we jump into issue 2 of Man-Bat!

Man-Bat #2: Prison Warriors

Art by Sumit Kumar, Colors by Romulo Fajardo JR, and Letters by Tom Napolitano

Every time I write something I try to have a personal goal. Something I want to be better at by the time I get to the end of the script than I was when I started. This issue? I wanted to write a fight, a damn good fight.

I have heard different comic writers take different approaches to fights. Some take the very valid path of leaving the choreography completely to the artist, so what’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I get out of the brilliant Sumit Kumar’s way and just let him come up with the coolest fight possible? Well, I think fights should say something on top of being cool, and as a writer…I’m pretty chatty. My early writing heroes were folks like Sorkin, Mamet, and Smith. Putting myself out of my comfort zone and writing a cool fight was something I wanted to do and I think I succeeded. And like everything in a comic, I make suggestions but Sumit can and should take or leave those suggestions. Sumit and I collaborated on the fight and I think the fight was better for it.

Also if you are going to do a fight issue…do it when you have the Suicide Squad guest star. At the time this issue dropped there were a few reviews that insinuated DC had forced me to include a guest appearance by the Suicide Squad. And I was very confused by that. To me, it made a ton of narrative sense to have Man-Bat run up against the Suicide Squad. Kirk Langstrom is afraid that once his brain deteriorates and Man-Bat is all that remains he will be turned into some kind of weapon. Having him face off against the Suicide Squad, who at this point in continuity, were largely Batman villains who were imprisoned and turned into weapons for the government? It just fits.

In Man-Bat #2, subtitled “Monster Bender” Kirk Langstrom is on the run following his Man-Bat freakout in the first issue. He is hiding at his family’s remote lake house, conducting experiments on bats in hopes that he can cure the people whose hearing he damaged in the first issue. The issue opens on a flashback of Kirk and Francine very early on in their relationship, before they married, and we see the man Kirk wanted to be before he became Man-Bat. He wanted to help the hearing impaired and help people like his sister Lisa. Although he admits that his relationship with his sister has eroded over the years. Francine sees everything about the man who is going to forever change her life. He’s passionate, hyper-specific, deeply interested in bats, and while well-intentioned is not always paying attention.

In the present Kirk is hard at work on his experiments, which mainly means he’s dissecting bats. He also reveals he has access to something in a metallic suitcase that may be able to help him with his problem, but it’s his absolute last resort.

The Suicide Squad A.K.A. Task Force X is stationed outside the lake house. Rick Flag is calling the shots while Deadshot, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, and Harley Quinn are in battle positions. Deadshot begins by firing multiple rounds at the house and forcing Kirk to transform into Man-Bat.

What follows is an epic fight with Man-Bat VS Deadshot, Killer Croc, and Captain Boomerang. Harley Quinn has gone AWOL and Rick Flag is trying to find where she’s gone.

Meanwhile, we cut away to a few of the members of the Blackout Gang who we met in the first issue who he stole the sonic cannon. These members have lost their hearing and they are scared as they relay all of the information from issue one to the man who hired them. That man? Jonathan Crane AKA the Scarecrow. No longer satisfied with using toxins to control and manipulate people, he wants to get into manipulating people through the use of sound, that was why he wanted the sonic cannon stolen. Now he needs sound experts to help him fix it and get his goals back on track…he needs Kirk and Francine Langstrom.

Cutting back to the lake house fight Man-Bat is putting together that all of these characters he is fighting are former Batman villains now being used as government soldiers. A fate he fears for himself. The fight escalates when Killer Croc enters the fray and takes Man-Bat underwater. Man-Bat has to summon all his strength to overcome Killer Croc’s power and take out the rest of Task Force X, he does so successfully, but he is wounded in the fight. Captain Boomerang pierced his wings with two of his razor-sharp boomerangs.

As Man-Bat heads inside the house to take his supplies and leave, he is hit in the head by a large mallet, knocked unconscious, and dragged to a couch by none other than Harley Quinn. She thinks it’s time Man-Bat went to therapy, and she thinks she’s the best doctor to head up the session!

Observations

In last week’s newsletter, I said I wish I had introduced the big bad of the mini-series in the first issue. Now I’m not so sure. I liked Scarecrow’s appearance and reveal in this issue. Also, I gotta tell you…I have found that I love writing DC’s iconic villains and Scarecrow was no obsession. From the few pages of real estate he took up in this issue I knew I was going to love having him along for the ride. And the Suicide Squad…man…I loved writing them too. They are criminals forced into being government contractors, which gives them all great dispositions and this particular line-up of the Suicide Squad are all strong characters. Captain Boomerang in particular… was a ball to write.

The first issue felt packed, and like I didn’t give Sumit enough places to breathe. Here I felt like I started to improve. In making one of my goals making this a great fight issue, I knew that meant opening things up and letting him make big bold choices with the characters. That gambit paid off. Picking my favorite page Sumit did this issue was a struggle. He knocked it out of the park, BUT I have set up a format, so after a lot of deliberation, this is my favorite page of the issue…

Readers…I love a tall panel. My weekly warrior phase as a comics reader started in the early and mid-2000s, the era of widescreen storytelling in superhero comics. When I discovered you could make panels tall? I lost my mind. While I loved all those widescreen artists, I felt deprived of this brilliant device! The fact that Sumit used it here so strongly to have Man-Bat come out of the water and out for blood against the Suicide Squad? Oh…the day this page came in I danced. It was so cool.

This issue felt narratively a little lighter than the last one, but I think that’s okay. We gave the readers a lot to chew on in the first issue and here we let them digest. Next issue I think I find the right balance, and I dare say that issue 3 of Man-Bat is one of, if not the best comic, I have written to date. I am so excited to talk to you about it.

But that will have to wait until next week! Thanks for coming back, readers.

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz