NML Crossing, Episode 070 – Azrael: Agent of the Bat #54 (1999)
NML Crossing, Episode Seventy
Azrael: Agent of the Bat #54 (July, 1999)
“Step Into The Light”
Writer – Denny O’Neil
Pencils – Roger Robinson
Inks – James Pascoe
Colors – Rob Ro & Alex Bleyaert
Letters – Ken Bruzenak
Edits – Williams & Carlin
Cover Price: $2.25
Dancing our troubles away with JPV! Today’s episode takes our headsocked hero into the Clocktower where he shares an odd, awkward, and almost disturbing flirtation with a… thirsty… Babs Gordon. Also, a bunch of people in alleys get their throats slashed by a Skull-Headed Lord of the Dance! It’s an issue so weird, you’ll probably think I’m making it up!
NML Crossing on Youtube
I have a fondness for Bronze Age goofball villains that only appear in one storyline in books like World’s Finest or The Brave and The Bold, and Death Dancer kind of hits that spot for me. He is just so bizarre that he is interesting in a comical way.
Azrael is just such an unnecessary book. Not just as a part of the No Man’s Land story but as an ongoing title in and of itself. At this point in his existence, Azrael as a character was adding nothing to the DC Universe. This book feels like a tumor living on the body if the greater Batman mythos.
The most important take away for me from this issue is that Azrael doesn’t play the oboe. Now I know that; 1) he doesn’t know who he is, and 2) he doesn’t play the oboe. I wonder if Denny is dropping breadcrumbs that learning to play the oboe would lead to him figuring out who he is.