NML Crossing, Episode 039 – Batman: Shadow of the Bat #81 (1999)
NML Crossing, Episode Thirty-Nine
Batman: Shadow of the Bat #81 (January, 1999)
“Wax Man and the Clown, Part 2”
Writer – Alan Grant
Pencils – Mark Buckingham
Inks – Robert Campanella
Colors – Pam Rambo & Digital Chameleon
Letters – Bill Oakley
Edits – Gorfinkel & O’Neil
Cover Price: $1.99
Morituri Te Jokeramus!
With supplies and medications nearly depleted, Jeremiah Arkham is easily convinced that all his answers lay in…. gladiatorial combat?! That’s right, Joker’s able to convince Jerry that it’d be in the best interests of the Asylum to have two of the biggest and baddest residents fight… to the death! What could possibly go wrong?
NML Crossing on Youtube
I feel your plumbing pain. I had a similar problem over the Presidents Day long weekend. Not fun at all.
There is an over-quoted line from George Lucas about callbacks to the original trilogy in the prequel trilogy. He says the similar scenes “rhyme” so “it’s like poetry”. This final Alan Grant story “rhymes” nicely with his first Shadow of the Bat story.
The only thing I can think of as to why Waxman and Pinhead are in this story is that Grant had them in his back pocket for some time and wanted to get some use out of two unused characters that he intended to use in future Batman stories. Grant is really an underappreciated writer from this time. He made a long commitment to the character of Batman and played the long game with stories being referenced long after they happened. Is he Claremont level? Probably not, but he was a damn fine writer.
I like this rhyming take. It’s defintiely a cool approach to circle back to the stories beginning in a different way. I think it gives the journey more purpose and lets us better see how we feel differently about something than we did at the beginning because of what happened in between. As for Grant overall, I like Grant’s Batman stuff a lot, but I’m lukewarm on his 2000AD stuff for some reason.