MYTHCOMICS: DARK TRINITY (RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #1-6, 2017-18)

When I picked up this compilation of the first six issues of the "Rebirth" version of DC's RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS, a lot of things mitigated against my finding anything beyond basic formula entertainment (if that). As I stated in these reviews, I've devoted only slight attention to the creation of the Red Hood, a.k.a. reborn former Robin Jason Todd. I didn't care that much about any of the early iterations of Jason, and hadn't followed the 2011 OUTLAWS title, though I remember being pleasing that it had ticked off various moral guardians with its sexploitation elements. The new version of the "Outlaws" teamed up Jason-Hood with a brand-new version of Bizarro and some Rebirth iteration of Artemis, a would-be Wonder Woman, with whom I was never particularly impressed. The title of the compilation told me that this tortured trio were meant to parody the "Trinity" of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, but I've found a number of Trinity-projects tedious. Frankly, the main reason I selected this TRINITY was because I'd found writer Scott Lobdell had a talent for humor, so even if it was formula, it might be funny.

Like a lot of Lobdell stories, TRINITY is full of cute one-liners, some good, some overkill. What I didn't expect to find was a really thoughtful dramatization of the perils of being a DC "legacy character" of one kind or another. Bizarro was conceived to be Superman's "imperfect duplicate," while both Red Hood and Artemis tried and failed to take over previously established identities. Artemis's relationship with Wonder Woman was entirely acrimonious, while Jason Todd was at least chosen to be the second Robin by the Big Bat himself. But Lobdell extends the notion of the "legacy character"-- often no more than a feeble reprise of some original character-- into a metaphor for the struggles between child and parent. For Red Hood, the struggle is about gaining respect from his Bat-dad and forging his own identity. Artemis's conflict has less to do with Wonder Woman than with the separate Amazon culture in which she was raised. This version of Bizarro has no previous history with anyone, but he is raised knowing that he was designed to be a knock-off, which doesn't do a lot for his ego.

Lobdell also cranks up the parental metaphor by choosing Black Mask as the villain of TRINITY. Though the character was conceived as something of a small-potatoes schemer, subsequent treatments, including that of Judd Winick in the RED HOOD stories, made the character into a ruthless gang-boss constantly seeking not only to kill Batman and his allies but also to eliminate all criminal competition. Without contradicting anything in the origin of the Doug Moench character, this Black Mask is given a Batman-like obsession with Gotham City. In his newest scheme to become the city's new lord and master, he reaches out to Red Hood, whose relationship to Batman many consider ambivalent. The Hood hopes to get into the villain's good graces in order to build a case against him, and so agrees to help Black Mask rip off a shipment of arcane weapons. Artemis, looking for one of those weapons, crosses swords (in a purely metaphorical way) with Red Hood. Despite lots of trash-talk, both are horrified to learn that the weapon Black Mask most desires is a clone of Superman. 

The whole "allies of convenience" is nothing special, but both Red Hood and Artemis are placed in a sticky situation in attempting to liberate a mentally-impaired Superman-clone from the control of a vicious crime-lord. Red Hood, having been reborn under circumstances not unlike Bizarro's genesis, forges a particular bond with the artificial super-being, as illustrated above. This is one of the few times that Kryptonian super-hearing is utilized in order to make the hearer relate to the chaos of the city he inhabits, as well as giving perspective on the relationship of both characters within the overall matrix of common humanity.

But Black Mask, despite his having sometimes appealed to Red Hood to become his new heir (and surrogate son), has been fully aware of the hero's hero-ness the whole time, and uses a techno-organic virus to take control of Bizarro. (Said virus is seen in the first chapter, and then ignored until the writer works it into the main plot. Wow, an actual PLOT-DEVELOPMENT in a modern comic!) Artemis, despite having no real reason to involve herself in Red Hood's battle, does the right thing and delays Bizarro until the Hood can manage to destroy the Mask's control. This includes an inventive sequence, possibly a reprise of a Grant Morrison conceit, in which the villain experiences the enhanced sight of a Kryptonian.

So Black Mask is defeated and almost left to die by Red Hood, though a joke coda gives the villain a fate worse than death, again invoking parental metaphors. For every overkill-joke, there are probably three good ones, and for a modern comic that's a pretty good average. And to top it all off is this cover, in which artist Dexter Soy riffs on the Max Allan Collins version of Jason Todd, first seen stealing the tires off the Batmobile.

 I don't imagine the regular series, which in one form or another ended in 2020, kept up this level of mythic engagement. Still, there are so many lame treatments of DC legacy characters that this arc gives me hope that the company hasn't been entirely ruined by constant reboots and political correctness.

MYTHCOMICS: "BLACK MASK: LOSING FACE" (BATMAN #386-387, DETECTIVE COMICS #553, 1985)

(NOTE: as discussed in this essay, continued story-lines from this period of DC's BATMAN franchise alternated chapters in the pages of both the BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS periodicals. I have chosen the title of one chapter to represent the three-part story-line devoted to the villain Black Mask.)

Contrary to the cover-copy on BATMAN #386, new villain Black Mask was not affirmed by Bat-fans (so far as I can tell) as being either crazier than the Joker or deadlier than Ra's Al Ghul. But I believe he's the only villain co-created by Doug Moench who became a recurring Bat-foe in the hands of later raconteurs. The author's character of Nocturna arguably had more mythical potential, but possibly her charms became diffused from being interwoven into an ongoing soap opera. In contrast, Black Mask's myth is tightly structured from start to finish.

After a one-page intro emphasizing that the new villain will have a special enmity for Bruce Wayne, we're told that the infant version of Roman Sionis is first introduced to the "world of hard knocks" by an obstetrician in a surgical mask. Roman is not related to Bruce Wayne but baby Bruce is born only slightly after Roman, and the Wayne family is socially acquainted with the equally prominent Sionis family, who run a major cosmetics firm. As a boy Roman feels stultified by his parents, who register as superficial and indifferent. He then has a mind-wrenching encounter with a "masked" animal, a rabid raccoon who bites the youth and causes him to plunge into a nightmarish state, "an endless movie of his own making, played out somewhere deep behind his face." (This issue was published roughly a year ahead of the first issue of Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, in which young Bruce Wayne had a similar hallucinatory experience with a monstrous bat.) 

Roman recovers, and in his young manhood, his father brings him into the cosmetics business, which is given the symbol-fraught name of "Janus." Roman quickly rises to vice president of Janus Cosmetics, and in that position of power he becomes fixated upon a new model, whose real name is not disclosed and whose professional name is yet another myth-reference, "Circe." Roman's parents voice their disapproval of such a low-class liaison, and within no time, their mansion burns down, killing them both. Roman avoids any suspicion for their deaths, but his overweening pride brings him down, as he almost bankrupts Janus Cosmetics with his foolhardy schemes. Bruce Wayne extends the hand of charity to the company solely due to his family's friendship with Roman's parents, but only if Roman agrees to "lose face" by resigning as president. Roman then seeks to forge a new identity by desecrating the mausoleum of the parents he murdered, tearing a fragment of ebony-hued wood from his father's casket. From this wood he forges the visage of his new fully criminal identity of Black Mask, which he uses to organize a criminal gang, the False Face Society. He even holds the first meeting of the society in the family tomb, with his parents' coffins in full view.

If Black Mask isn't the equal of Joker and Ra's Al Ghul in all respects, he's certainly on the same level of obsession, constantly prating about how masks give their wearer new powers. In addition to sending his gang to rob Gotham businesses, he also assassinates the men who took over Janus Cosmetics with a chemical created at the firm-- so that Black Mask's mask doesn't in the least conceal his true identity as the former Roman Sionis. However, he doesn't kill Circe, his former lover who deserted him when times got tough, but he uses one of his flesh-corroding masks to destroy her beauty and make her his slave. 

When Batman and the new Robin can't track down the False Face Society, the Caped Crusader uses Bruce Wayne's resources to throw a masquerade party, knowing that Black Mask will try to attend the affair, despite his anticipating a trap. The villain dons a raccoon-mask in deference to the beast who initiated him into evil and attempts to kill Bruce Wayne. He fails at this goal but escapes. Yet Robin tracks him to the crypt, and soon the Dynamic Duo brave the crypt, battling Black Mask's thugs. The main villain again escapes, this time to the mansion of Roman Sionis, The heroes follow and fight two more of Black Mask's goons, while the mastermind raves about how he needs to kill off his old self Roman Sionis. He sets the mansion on fire and almost kills his new self, but Batman rescues him. The fire, however, scars and blackens his natural physiognomy, which from then on is Black Mask's most distinguishing characteristic.

In a brief coda, the disfigured Circe visits the jail where Black Mask is confined, but does not see her former lover. She leaves behind the mask he crafted to hide her disfigurement, implicitly rejecting Roman's obsession with drawing power from concealing one's face. She also invokes the properties of the classical Circe by referring to herself as a "witch," but unlike the sorceress this Circe would seem to be rejecting all forms of false transformation. (Though this was a good send-off for this minor support-character, regrettably Moench brought her back for a second appearance before he finished his BATMAN tenure.) In this initial appearance Black Mask is meant to be the obverse of Batman, using masks to conceal, rather than reveal, the truth of his own nature. I have the general impression that subsequent versions of the character abandon his specific obsession with masks, making him more of an all-around gang-boss, as he is in the UNDER THE RED HOOD continuity. Moench's version is more psychologically intriguing.

I should note that this is a rare mythcomic with an uncanny phenomenality. Neither Batman nor Robin use any special weapons, and Black Mask's only diabolical device is his corrosive cosmetic, which registers at the level of the uncanny.