InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Rock-a-bye -BANG-"

heartless guttersnipe (parsimonia) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-24 01:54:00

Entry tags:

char: harvey bullock, char: jim gordon, char: question/renee montoya, char: spectre/crispus allen, creator: greg rucka, creator: rick burchett, event: officer down, title: batman

Some Jim Gordon Goodness from Officer Down
This post is filling kingrockwell's request for Jim Gordon interacting with people who aren't Batman and Robin, but I really love this book, so I might babble a little. Or, you know, a lot.

7 pages.

Officer Down was a Bat/Gotham storyline that centred around Commissioner Gordon being shot and everyone dealing with it and solving the crime.

Unfortunately for Jim, it's his birthday. The story starts off with him trying to get out of the office and arranging when he's going to meet up with Babs later to celebrate, but his people from the Major Crimes Unit want to take him out for drinks first.

I'm not scanning the pages where you see it, but if you have the book or end up getting it, take a look at the detail put into his office. It's fairly organized, there's a pot of coffee, he's got his pipe in a glass case (I could be wrong, but I think he had actually quit smoking altogether, which recent comics seem to have forgotten), pictures on the wall of him in the army, his wedding (it's too small to tell, but we can safely assume it's his wedding to Sarah Essen), and a couple of pictures of a young and very dorky-looking Babs.

I just love it when you find that kind of detail in the background.

Anyway, he heads over to the bar, and gets a shadowy birthday greeting from a certain bat-garbed fellow in an alley along the way. (Jim invites him along, but he politely declines.) He doesn't really want to bother about his birthday, but it makes everyone else happy, so he humours them.

People start giving him presents.

Aww, Renee gives him a present he actually likes! I hope Renee and Jim will get to interact at some point in the current Question stories. Anyone know if the Commish has encountered her as the Question yet?

Rick Burchett is doing the pencils on this one, and I like the way he draws Bullock and Gordon.

Look at those faces! Okay, back to the scans.

Notice how Bullock and Montoya are sitting on either side of them. It's kind of nice foreshadowing for how this arc ends, as I like to think it symbolizes how those two are the closest to him in terms of friendships and loyalty on the police force.

I miss Cris Allen as a cop.

Everybody loves him!

And then he goes outside, runs into Catwoman, unintentionally shoots her (she's not injured all that much), and then he gets shot. The rest of the book is decent, but I think this is my favourite part. There's some major Batdickery that eventually motivates Alfred to take off (IIRC, that's when he went to Brentwood where Tim was going to school), some bad art here and there, and some scenes with Babs and Dick that I could nit-pick about.

However, overall, I really do like the book because it really is a bat-family book. Something happens to one character, and you get the reactions and interactions of all the people who should be reacting and interacting as a result.

Oh, and the TPB doesn't make it entirely clear, but I believe the first issue in it (from which these pages are scanned) are from Batman, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

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(Anonymous)
2009-08-24 06:48 am UTC (link)

There was a problem with Bat events for a bit in the late-90s early 00s. They either had a very strong concept, or a great beginning, but the ending was never satisfying. But all of them are, collectively, more satisfying than this, Officer Down. Why?

It's not a Batman event, for one thing. He's either brooding ineffectually over Jim Gordon, or running around like a chicken with his head cut off. And despite Jim Gordon being the character everyone is trying to work toward a resolution for, it's not a Gordon event, either. It's not a Gotham PD event. In the end, it's not even an event event. It's a story in which a cop is shot, and none, ABSOLUTELY NONE of his friends or coworkers can put the guy responsible away, upholding his ideals and ethics, and so dissolutioned is he, he retires.

This is a story of failure. That's not what super hero EVENTS, multi-title crossovers, should be about. There can be small failures here and there, but super heroes ultimately have to be effectual, otherwise WHY ARE THEY AROUND? We've got enough failure and ineffective law enforcement in the real world. Super heroes are SUPPOSED to be a fictional conceit that allows for a better way. Sure, escapism, but what's wrong with that? Every fiction is a little escapist, otherwise we wouldn't read or watch them.

The only good thing to come out of this cross-over was Gotham Central, but how much better would it have been if Gordon had been around for it? Maybe it would have lasted longer.

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jaybee3
2009-08-24 01:49 pm UTC (link)

"There was a problem with Bat events for a bit in the late-90s early 00s. They either had a very strong concept, or a great beginning, but the ending was never satisfying."

Batman-events always fizzle out. War Games revealed Batman was no urban legend, a huge gang way has erupted and Spoiler died. No big follow-up. No Man's Land was the quintessential Batman-isolated event and become at the end what Superman's arch-enemy Luthor used to run for President, as if the fact that Gotham is supposed to forget the rest of the USA told them to literally get lost isn't important. Bruce Wayne Murderer/Fugitive had the GCPD (aka Renee Montoya and Cris Allen) do no actual detective work, arrest Gotham's premier citizen within hours for murderering Vesper Fairchild (he was even charged with rape despite the fact Vesper wasn't sexually assaulted), arrest Sasha too on little evidence, Bruce escapes prison, Cris hassles Alfred (to the point where he has to make an official complaint), Sasha "dies" in prison after refusing to turn non-existent evidence and in the end someone else confesses to the murder. There's a lot of fall-out from the Bat-family but for the Police Dept., for Renee and Cris, for Commissioner Atkins or whoever was the DA? Nada. They falsely arrested the richest and well-known man in Gotham, an innocent woman dies in prison and there was no follow-up in how they are dealing with it? In each and every Bat-event, the supporting characters get meaty roles at first and then fade away as it comes to a close.

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	jedd_the_jedi 2009-08-25 03:32 am UTC (link)
	Don't forget Hush though, if that counts. It was a true epic, and ripples from that storyline are still felt in today's Batman stories. (Reply to this) (Parent)

psychop_rex
2009-08-25 07:52 am UTC (link)

What about 'Knightfall'? I wouldn't have said that one fizzled out - it gave us a hell of a lot of Bat-action, introduced the characters of Bane and Azrael, gave Batman one of the more memorable (and painful) defeats of his career, had Bruce briefly replaced as Bats, and wrapped up with a grudge match between Batmen that, for a rarity, ended up with both involved shaking hands and wishing each other well. I would have said that it was an extremely satisfying Batman-event.

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	jaybee3 2009-08-25 12:31 pm UTC (link)
	You have a point. Knightfall was a good story with a nice 3-act structure. It just seems to me that for the most part big Bat "events" recently have been hit and miss. I think it's when the story gets too spread out across too many titles and too many non-Batverse characters from other books start playing big roles (ala Luthor in NML). (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

psychop_rex
2009-08-25 09:00 pm UTC (link)

There I'd agree with you. I think if a big storyline centers around a certain character, then it should feature THAT character and those associated with him/her, not a whole bunch of other characters. If you want a great big crossover event that features characters from across the DCU, then write something involving the JLA or JSA - team books can get away with that sort of thing, because it's inherent in their structure, anyway. A book featuring one main hero, however, should stay in that hero's world - otherwise, the concept is diluted, and the story lacks punch.

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