It’s been roughly a week since the
announcement of Denny O’Neil’s passing. I’m sure there have
been any number of essays devoted to his contributions, and without
looking I’m reasonably sure that most fans will mention most fondly
his work on various Batman stories, while placing less emphasis on
his contributions to such franchises as Superman, Wonder Woman,
Spider-Man and Iron Man. Were I writing a standard obituary, I would
certainly write something similar. O’Neil wasn’t the first writer
to steer the Batman away from gimmickry and toward Gothicism and
gloominess, but he maintained a consistency of tone and an emphasis
upon downtrodden humanity that redeemed even the most hackneyed
plots.
When considering my favored subject,
that of “myth in literature,” O’Neil certainly doesn’t rank
alongside the creators who tally up the greatest quantity of
mythcomics, such as Fox, Broome, and Kirby. Of course, even the best
myth-makers, in order to stay gainfully employed, had to craft many,
many stories that appealed to the reader’s desire for easily
comprehensible lateral meaning, whereas the more difficult vertical
meaning proved hit and miss. Indeed, a lot of the stories in which
I’ve observed a high symbolic discourse seem to have done so
without much conscious intention. I would’ve thought that, given
his considerable investment in the Caped Crusader, there might’ve
been a fair sampling of myth-tales during O’Neil’s various
outings with the character. But even the stories with O’Neil’s
most celebrated creation, Ra’s Al Ghul, only rate as near-myths.
“Carnival of the Cursed” also comes
damn close to the mark. Batman learns of the murder of a jazz
musician, Blind Buddy Holden, and jets down to New Orleans to find
the culprits, simply because the crusader was a fan of the man’s
music. Providentially, the hero arrives during Mardi Gras, so that
the exoticism of the city’s Catholicism-driven holiday is on full
display. Batman finds the murderers quickly enough, but he also finds
that they have a powerful ally, an apish brute named Moloch. Without
going into the specific reasons for the jazz-man’s murder, it’s
not surprising that money is at the root of it all, so that I found
myself wondering if the name “Mammon” might’ve been a more
appropriate name for the villain. But the act of giving the grotesque
evildoer the name of a pagan god certainly contributes, as much as
jazz music and Mardi Gras costumes, to the impact of the story,
ending with this page, certainly one of the most perfect denouements
in commercial comics.
4 comments:
Who was the first one to get Batman out of gimmickness then if it wasn't Dennis O'Neil?
Technically, editor Julie Scwhartz. On the whole I think he preferred gimmick-stories, but he occasionally allowed writers to do things that weren't purely in the hero-fights-villain vein, like some of the ratiocinative detective tales from Fox and Broome. "Death Knocks Three Times" (Kanigher/Moldoff, 1966) is more Gothicism than gimmickery, and "Hunt for a Robin-Killer" (Fox/Kane, 1968) is a hardboiled crime story in which Batman goes looking for a criminal who brutally beat Robin to a pulp. The stories of Frank Robbins begin a little before O'Neil's first tenure, and Robbins, while not as good as O'Neil, did his share of sober detective yarns, in addition to co-creating the monstrous Man-Bat. So those would be the spiritual predecessors to O'Neil's breakthrough, though admittedly O'Neil brought his own aesthetic to the Crusader, and his collaborations with Neal Adams were more memorable than those of Robbins.
The #224 Batman was probably the first comic I owned, though with completely different cover art of the dutch edition. 'Carnival of the Cursed' I think was translated as 'Karnaval der Verdoemden'.
Cool memory. I enjoy hearing about how American comics have been received in other countries.
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