Aural Fiend

This novel proves to be one of the most mature in its addition to the Batman mythos. It allows itself to be an exploration of the Freudian implications of each of the characters within it. I see it as one of the best Batman-villain stories, but it falls short in certain aspects of Batman as a character. Batman is built on imperfections, obviously. No put together man is going to crusade his way in the way that Bruce does. But, this comic makes Batman, the paragon of physical and intellectual perfection, a toy in the plot's grand scheme. In fact, he completely disregards the obvious and falls into the traps set by the Joker and Cavendish. "The World's Greatest Detective" proves to be anything but in this particular case. As to his physical prowess, there is a serious inconsistency. In the game of hide and seek, he encounters Killer Croc and is subject to a few blows and even impalement after he is thrown out of a window and manages to catch himself one-handed on a ledge before bursting back through said window to re-engage Croc. This is all to be expected, but what is not in any way congruent to fore-mentioned, is upon discovering Cavendish to be the propellant of the narrative fiasco, Cavendish attacks after his monologue. In any interpretation, Batman would dodge, deflect, or simply subdue the attacker. However, he does none of these things and is tackled by Cavendish. To make matters worse, Batman does little to resist and even resorts to crying for help. By far the worst offense of this comic, is that in a sudden nail-in-the-coffin, the psychiatrist who was taken hostage then slits Cavendish's throat with the knife he had previously honed. With that, all that Batman ,the crusader against all frivolous mortality, does, is shrug and even say: "He got what he deserved." No remonstrance, no words of comfort, nothing that makes Batman the hero he is. I mostly blame this on the era at the time. By this point, Batman had been going through characteristic revisions that sought to remove the camp and irreverence put towards the mythos by the previous 2 decades. This was sometimes done very well, but occasionally pushed vehemently to an inaccurate extreme, displaying Batman as a psychopathic killer who was in no way different from his rogues. Now, while I do like the angle of his villains being a "looking glass," this mirror should be alluded to in a way that shows the mirror to be shattered. It should be a distortion of a self portrait, inverted and broken. Each piece a fragment of a whole being, not equal in proportion but each required to explain the effigy. Not the banal evil reproduction that some comics make the Batman out to be. If this comic had put the same understanding of each of the villains into Batman, no doubt would it be worth more than the available five stars. Thank you for reading -M. B.