Batman Annual #13: Faces & Waiting in the Wings

[The Laughing Fish]

I read the 1989 Annual edition a week ago, which split into two stories: Faces and Waiting in the Wings. I'll only be focusing on Faces because WITW is only a short story about Alfred considering retirement from his butler duties to pursue a career in acting.

Faces begins with Batman and Gordon investigating the death of a cop called Anthony Wells, who was working undercover to bust a gang connected to Two-Face. Batman, together with the help of Robin and Batgirl, was able to track down Two-Face and the gang leader Freddie Richards - who was suspected in murdering the cop.

Two years later, Bruce is outraged when he learns that the real killer is hiding somewhere in Santa Prisca, while Freddie Richards has a few days left until he is executed. Now Batman faces a dilemma: he can't let the wrongly convicted man go punished and tries to convince Gordon for help, but Gordon refuses, so Batman decides to help break Two-Face out of Arkham Asylum in order to lead him to the man responsible for the murder.

This is how the story ends in a nutshell: Batman and Two-Face track down the killer's hideout. However, Batman surprises Two-Face by deducing that the murdered cop was an elaborate hoax; Wells was not only alive but also a dirty cop working for Harvey, and made a deal with Harvey to fake his own death in exchange for a comfy life in Santa Prisca and agreed to frame Richards because he was a liability to the entire gang.

Batman demands Harvey to lead him to Wells, but Two-Face has his goons knocking him out during a scuffle and later sets him up in a death trap. Batman survives, and tracks down Wells and Two-Face. He captures both men, but Two-Face tricks his way out of his handcuffs as he and Wells attempt to make their escape. Knowing that he can't capture both men at once, Batman is forced to decide who to arrest, and captures Wells while Two-Face disappears.

There are a couple of things I noticed that shapes up this story. The book takes plot cues from A Death in the Family and The Killing Joke, because Barbara Gordon is stuck in a wheelchair and Jason Todd's death is alluded to during a phone conversation between Bruce and Jim Gordon.

As everybody who read A Death in the Family knows, Batman becomes brash following Jason's murder, but in this story, Gordon has a rather devil-may-care attitude in his refusal to save Richards from death row. That might seem out-of-character, but I believe there is a basis for Gordon's behavior - it was the sixth anniversary of his wife's death, who was killed as a "casualty of Gordon's war on crime". As he and Barbara visits the grave, here comes Batman demanding a favour asking him to help clear the name of a felon. In Gordon's mind, it doesn't matter if Richards was wrongfully convicted, he is still a crook, and implies the city would be better off with one less thug off the street.

As such, the book ends with Gordon scolding Batman on the rooftop, asking him if his efforts in exposing the hoax was really worth the risk of letting Two-Face escape and now at large to do more harm till he is captured once more. Batman, being a man of moral principle in his mind, couldn't in good conscience let an "innocent" man face the death penalty for a crime he didn't commit, but his silence at the end of the book encourages you to wonder if he really did the right thing in the grand scheme of things.

A curious book that questions the morality of Batman and Gordon's actions.

[The Laughing Fish]

As I mentioned in my last post, Waiting in the Wings is about Alfred considering in following his mother's footsteps by becoming an actor and leaving his career as a butler for good. This coincides with Bruce returning home from his journey around the world before becoming Batman, so this appears to be a revision to the origin story (with takes cues from Frank Miller's Year One such as Bruce karate-kicking a tree, and coming home bloodied and injured from duty).

Alfred only became a butler because his father was himself a servant for the Waynes, which was a family tradition. This makes the Pennyworths and the Waynes much closer than what we're used to. Alfred desires a life without having to serve anybody, forge his own destiny as an entertainer and plans to end the Pennyworth/Wayne legacy once Bruce returns home.

But despite Alfred's ambitions, he stuck around when Bruce begins to train and fight crime. Alfred continues to take care of Bruce, including using his first aid skills to heal Bruce's injuries from his late night escapades, and helps design the Batsuit. Once Bruce becomes deeply committed as a crimefighter, Alfred uses his voice acting skills to divert suspicion that Bruce and Batman are the same man, e.g. mimicking Bruce's voice to phone friends staying a Wayne Manor as they witness a live news report of Batman fighting hoodlums on live TV, and answering a phone call to trick Bruce's date the following morning. Alfred realises that he could still get a fulfilling and exciting life by putting his acting skills to help Batman's crusade, and from that point onwards, being a butler wouldn't be so degrading at all given he's helping for a special cause.

It's a good short story, as Alfred is normally a supporting character who hardly gets much of the spotlight. Despite his ambition to become an actor, Alfred shows no signs of selfishness and even teaches Bruce some make-up disguise skills he needed, and delays his plans to leave when Bruce is in need of help when crimefighting becomes deeply entrenched. It shows the integrity and wisdom of a man, and Bruce is very lucky to have him by his side. His wit in this story would make for some entertainment value if it were to ever be copied for film one day.

[thecolorsblend]

I'll give WITW a look at some point. It sounds interesting.

Still, I'm kind of fond of the idea of Alfred seeing Bruce as something like a son. Alfred will probably never have a son and Bruce will never have a father. So in a weird kind of way, they are family. And yet they're not. It's a kind of bizarre relationship when you think about it.

And... I dunno. I'm not sure I like the idea of Alfred being tempted to quit just to become a stage actor when doing so (as per my interpretation) would require him to abandon his pseudo-son.

[The Laughing Fish]

I'm not sure I like the idea of Alfred being tempted to quit just to become a stage actor when doing so (as per my interpretation) would require him to abandon his pseudo-son.

It could be possible the father-son bond between Alfred and Bruce hasn't been that developed yet, and would come over time. Nonetheless, Alfred eventually understands there is nothing shameful about working as a butler as long as he serves for somebody he does care about.