I wasn't sure if I'd read this one before, so better pin it down now. Then, it'll go into my own god-awful filing system. from 1992,
Detective Comics #343, "The Library of Souls" Written by Peter Milligan, art and letters by Jim Aparo.
This was the last issue for Milligan and Aparo; and doesn't reach the heights of "
the Hungry Grass," or
"The Bomb," but features another oddball crime for Batman to sort out. Bodies are being dug up and placed at odd locations around Gotham, with later corpses being found wearing nice new leather jackets, which Batman notices have little numbers sewn on. After security is tightened on cemeteries, as Batman feared, people start getting murdered. When a body is found in a library, there it clicks: the killer was a librarian. (Batman knew Barbara Gordon was a librarian, didn't he? Although, I forget if she had been one in-continuity or just on the TV show; and I don't think she was
Oracle quite yet--no, she was, but maybe not for Bats yet.)
The librarian Batman consults, Ms. Holding, later remembers a former employee, Stanislaus Johns, who had what today would charitably be described as a mental health crisis after the death of this mother, believing he was hearing the voices of the dead complaining they were buried all willy-nilly, no sense of organization or structure. They should be filed, like books, with the
Dewey Decimal Classification! Modified a bit, perhaps. While Batman goes to stake out where the next body would probably be placed, Holding has a flash of insight and goes to consult with Johns, although she doesn't realize until
much later than she should that Johns probably was the killer! Batman gets there in time to save her, and Johns is probably still in the background in Arkham Asylum to this day.
Not as affecting as some of Milligan/Aparo's others, but still interesting. Feel like it could have used one more draft, but Milligan was leaving the book due to his workload, so maybe not. It does feel like a throwback to an era where Batman didn't know everything, off the top of his head. Written later, Batman would've rattled off the history of the Dewey system himself: no consult with Ms. Holding, just Bats being a know-it-all.
Yeah, the Batgirl-as-librarian thing was only on the 60's show. Batman did have an insane amount of knowledge about almost everything from the late 40's until the 80's though, so him needing outside help is more of an 80's/90's thing than a throwback for me.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, interesting story actually. That’s not a bad gimmick idea, an evil, deranged librarian organizing the dead according to the Dewey decimal system. Definitely sounds like a case that could only ever happen in a place like Gotham. Definitely sounds like something he could’ve consulted Barbara about though. I mean wasn’t she a librarian or sorts during the 70’s? I know she was briefly involved in politics as well around then.
ReplyDeleteIt’s absolutely criminal that Mulligan’s Batman run hasn’t gotten the major collection treatment it richly deserves. I’m guessing because no one’s really adapted his stories from that era in either film or animated film form. Pretty sad it usually takes something like that to bring about such recognition.
DeleteI'm pretty sure most of Milligan's Batman is collected in the Dark Knight Detective and Caped Crusader series. I think I've said it before, but his Batman stuff never really did much for me.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Babs was a senator for 5-10 years but I don't think she was ever a librarian in the comics. That was just the 60's Adam West show.
I feel like the Untold Legend of Batman from 1980 referenced Barbara being a librarian after she got out of college. I know there's a panel of her putting books on shelves while wearing glasses and her hair done up in the Princess Leia-style buns. And I feel like the Cass Cain Batgirl series made a few references to Barbara having a past as a librarian, but I'm not positive of that. I really don't know what's in and out for any DC character's backstory these days.
ReplyDeleteSee!? I know I’m not the only one who thought this.
DeleteHmm, I need to find my copy of Untold Legend- it's a good one anyway, and it'd be nice to clear up the confusion. I know that a lot of the backstory from the 60's show wasn't part of the comics version but it's hard to remember what made it in and what didn't.
ReplyDeleteOk, so looked it up in Untold Legend and you guys were right- she was head librarian, according to Jim Gordon. Don't know if it's mentioned anywhere else but it's exactly as Calvin said- putting books on the shelves with glasses and the hair buns.
ReplyDeleteMan, that's a good story. Well worth being wrong to reread it.