ORIGIN-al

There are many tropes at work in superhero comics: reboots, retcons, crises, time travel, and origin stories, to name a few. Many of these blend together, and all run the risk of raising the ire of finicky fans who secretly fear any change in characters they knew as children. That's why the stunning commercial and critical success of Batman: Year One is so impressive. Frank Miller, who would go on to produce several truly awful Batman stories in his life (really, just plain atrocious), provides a definitive, grounded origin of the Bat in four issues and says more about Bruce Wayne and his world than many Batwriters do in years.

The essential quality at work here is the realism. DC has long made its claim to fame with iconic heroes who often seem larger than life. Somehow, despite having a world populated with aliens, Amazons, and ring-slingers, a highly trained, highly analytical, borderline obsessive vigilante is one of their most popular characters. Miller latches onto this and removes any ludicrous elements from his tale, showing Bruce Wayne in his earliest, roughest days, sweat suits and all. When the chances of a mystical or cosmological deus ex machina are removed, the consequences feel more real to the reader. We can believe that Batman might take punches and feel pain because we know he has never shot a God in the chest. We feel that corrupt cops present a viable threat because no anthropomorphic crocodiles are terrorizing the city.

Perhaps more importantly, Miller chooses to contextualize Batman in ways that are often pushed to the side in favor of more ridiculous fare. Gotham City works well as a setting because it isn't a real place, allowing artists to get a bit more creative and symbolic. In the hands of many creators, Gotham becomes a stereotypical "dark city," but in the hands of Miller's genius collaborative partner David Mazzucchelli, Gotham is Chicago, Detroit, New York, and something else entirely rolled up in one. The slums and tenements feel like they belong in a real city instead of a movie set.

The inhabitants of the city are given renewed purpose as well. Undeniably Miller's best choice, setting up James Gordon as a direct parallel to Batman keeps the origin story from becoming repetitive or indulgent. His rise and fall is an essential sense of perspective for readers seeing a masked man jumping between rooftops. Adding the element of Gordon's affair with Detective Essen gives him what every hero needs: a flaw, and a chance for redemption. This is particularly impressive when you take into account that Miller's tale is set years before countless other Batman stories, seemingly forbidding Miller from advancing the characters in any significant way beyond what we already know.



Then there is the matter of what is known, namely the rogues. While much of Year One's success rests with its realism, removing too many aspects of the character makes one beg the question, why use the character at all? The new "Human Target" television series on FOX is "based" on a comic book, but its central premise is gone. The movie version of Wanted shared about 5 minutes of similarities with the comic, so why was it even called "Wanted"? Miller's most recent Batman work, All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, is pretty much a Sin City story featuring characters in Batman costumes, and his proposed Batman/ Al-Qaeda match-up really shouldn't even be discussed.

Thankfully, we see enough of what we know here to avoid falling into this trap. While Miller's casting of Selina Kyle as a prostitute was retconned (probably for the best), she does have a healthy role in the series, foreshadowing her romantic tango with Bats years later. Harvey Dent's tragic downfall starts within these pages, lending extra gravity to the relationship he has with Bruce. Of course, no one could forget the deliciously tantalizing final lines of the series, finally followed up on in 2005 and ripped directly from the page for the closing scene in the film Batman Begins. All of these elements combine to show us that we really are seeing the gestation of a fictional world, one that is a few steps outside of our own but not so far off that we can't comprehend its workings.

Of course, Year One left a lasting legacy at DC. Although (re: Thank God) the non-Miller/Mazzucchelli Year Two was stricken from continuity, very little from this tale has been contradicted. A host of other DC characters have recieved the "Year One" treatment, including the Bat-family's own Batgirl (excellent), Nightwing, Robin, and Huntress; Green Arrow (fantastic artwork by Jock); Metamorpho (thumbs down); Teen Titans (fun and inconsequential); the big guns, JLA; and Black Lightning (surprisingly good -- and needed). Joe Casey, long-time writer for the Big Two and smaller companies, recently said that he would do away with all of the frequent "tags" we assign to comics, including "Year One," but it can't be denied that fans like to be filled in on the gaps in time of their favorite characters (seriously, though, who thought Metamorpho needed this?). If they were all as successful as Batman: Year One, then I say bring them on.