#eric battle

[shyjusticewarrior]

The paneling here is so fucking cool

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

"Who'd think... Little voices... Could sound so loud": Helena Bertinelli the Teacher.

This is my reading of a short, little-known Huntress story: Rapscallions from Batman Chronicles #19. She isn't at war with the Mafia or fighting Vandal Savage, but who's to say she's not up against something just as difficult? Helena has to deal with lost kids repeating the same old mistakes as others before; meet Helena Bertinelli the teacher.

I've added all 10 pages of the story. The art can be questionable, but the story is thematically very interesting.

"I'm listening for... a smoker's cough or the cracking of men's joints as they spring from the shadows to fight. Not for this."

The title of this grim crime story is "Rapscallions", teasing that loss of innocence theme; playfully, allusively referring to the story's unfortunate but still felonious kids. The title doesn't let you forget that they're just kids, even if they grew up too quickly.

Harris and Battle give the "Rapscallions" quite an introduction; the kids aren't alright and they will not be ignored. Helena is on the trail of an organised drug trade so neither she nor we, the reader, suspected a bunch of kids and we "never heard them coming". I have a bone to pick with the art but it is deliberate and important how humbling a defeat The Huntress suffers to a couple of kids. Our formidable urban avenger is taken by surprise and wakes up hanging by her ankles, restrained and quite literally left speechless by the Rapscallions. No world-threatening supervillain has ever got to Helena like these kids did.

Harris reminds us that society (and I'd add the state) often fails to treat children as people. Society underestimates and even neglect kids; allowing them to slip through the cracks and that becomes our undoing, as it was Helena's here. "Who'd think little voices could sound so loud" is such a powerful line to paste over the image of the subdued Huntress looking up at her pint-sized captors. We forget about kids until their problems consume us too. Harris gives these children agency; their stories matter too. "No man's an island" and that doesn't just apply to "grown-ups".

"They thought they had it all figured out."

Right after the kids have shown us what they're capable of, we are reminded how they're still just lost kids; directionless, desperate, and scared. Helena, who herself is an orphan mixed up in the world of organised crime, quickly catches onto who the kids are. They're street kids with nowhere to go who thought they could pull a fast one and came up short.

You can see the uncertainty and fear in their faces but to me it's best illustrated by Tommy, the apparent ringleader, angrily interrogating the visibly gagged Helena. He knows she couldn't say anything even if she wanted to; he doesn't actually want her answers to his questions. If you think about it, the kids had no real need to gag Helena, they're clearly past keeping quiet yet make this choice. The gag the kids put on Helena represents their mistrust of adults. The kids assume Helena's probably another one of the nasty adults that exploit and prey on them.

Another important device is Helena's crossbow, it represents force and so authority through coercion, and Harris uses it like the conch in Lord of the Flies. Helena begins the story with the crossbow but when she's captured, Tommy picks it up. Ringleader or not, he's still just a scared kid who loses his head and makes a break for it, leaving the crossbow and a power vacuum. Helena knows this and you can see it in her face in the very next panel, where she's got her eyes fixed on the out-of-reach crossbow.

"Lucky me. Lucky us." That last panel has Helena drawn as a silhouette; at this point still a passive observer of the broken lives of these doomed kids. Luckily, pedagogy requires a bit of listening.

"I shouldn't get involved… But I'm a Teacher… It's what I do."

If Helena's crossbow represents force, Helena's voice represents persuasion, pedagogy, and authority through trust; she's a teacher. The reason Helena spends half the story gagged is that even the best of teachers require their students to be willing to listen. Kris declares herself to be such a student by putting a name to herself and freeing Helena from her gag, extending her trust. Kris needs a solution and turns to Helena for it.

Meanwhile, Billy picks up the crossbow to reestablish control, antagonising Helena. He again asserts only the Rapscallions have anything to offer themselves, but desolation begins to set in.

This is where our protagonist utters her first words, making her active choice. Those keen survival instincts tell her to escape and walk away but her heart breaks for these kids and she just must get involved. It's also revealed that Helena was cutting her binds loose this whole time. She doesn't need to save these kids, she's choosing to.

There's this great line from, don't laugh, The Godfather novels where Michael insists: "It’s all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it’s personal as hell." And I think there's a lot of truth in that. She was once a orphan who was just as lost as these kids. Witnessing the loss of their innocence before her eyes, she's driven to help them. Whether she got a crossbow in hand or a stick of chalk, it's personal to Helena. Getting involved is "what [she] does".

"I try to talk sense-- the kind Miss Bertinelli talks every day she teaches school." "I'll help you, if you trust me."

Billy holds the crossbow but Helena finally has her voice back. There are those great panels depicting the struggle for power between these two symbols; coercion vs persuasion. Being the teacher she is, Helena is able to get through to the kids. She establishes authority through their trust, symbolised by Billy dropping the crossbow, now willing to listen. The kids then confess, however implicit, to Helena about their own crime; the Rapscallions had murdered their abusive "employer" Karros. You reap what you sow. And unfortunately, the Rapscallions would learn this the hard way.

"Outside. Footsteps. The big kind, this time."

It all happens a little too late however, just as Helena is able to escape her restrains. Our teacher is yet again the avenger.

"Everything's going to be all right, Sweetie." But I don't believe that. And neither did she.

Helena scares off the assailants, taking one out, but Billy is fatally caught in the crosshairs. While Helena secures the perimeter, Kris takes off, scared and alone. There's a lot to take in. It's so painful that Helena admits her "everything is going to be all right" is an empty promise, but it's important she still chooses to say it. It's her duty, as a protector and a teacher. You could add that Helena knows a thing or two about the importance of faith.

The burns on Helena's cape and her final "I shouldn't have gotten involved" speak to how much of a toll vigilantism and teaching have on her. She has to watch kids make the same mistakes as people before, even the same mistakes she made, knowing that so much of the time there is nothing she can do about it. That's her burden as The Huntress and as Miss Bertinelli. You can't save everyone but this story shows how willing Helena is to try. "It's what I do," she told us. And despite that final line, the unreliable narrator she is, you just know she'll wake up tomorrow and keep on trying.

For Helena, for Miss Bertinelli and The Huntress, "it’s all personal, every bit of business".

[artverso]

Eric Battle - Peacemaker 

[weathermanone]

Waller vs Wildstorm 4 (2023) by Spencer Ackerman, Evan Narcisse & Jesús Merino 

Cover: Eric Battle (variant)

[evilhorse]

He was a member of a short-lived team called Infinity Inc.

[onlylonelylatino]

Green Arrow and Anarky by Eric Battle

[ratingthexmen]

171. PROFESSOR XAVIER AND THE X-MEN #14

By Jorge Gonzalez and Eric Battle, 1996.

2 STARS

[graphicpolicy]

Crowdfunding Corner: Epiphany Engine brings together over 70 Black creators and over 40 publishers

Crowdfunding Corner: Epiphany Engine brings together over 70 Black creators and over 40 publishers #comics #graphicnovel

Backer Beware: Crowdfunding projects are not guaranteed to be delivered and/or delivered when promised. We always recommend to do your research before backing. Over 70 Black creators are teaming up with Advent Comics and over 40 comic book and graphic novel publishers for the cosmic crossover project Epiphany Engine, a 192-page graphic novel. The project which launches with a Kickstarter…

[wh40kartwork]

Sister Dogmata

by Eric Alonso

[strategicjazzhands]

*Shakes them like a snow globe*

[harmonicabisexuals]

maybe this is my own fault for painting things with too broad a brush in that last post but i get really annoyed seeing tags like "omg all the original fellows view house as their father" or "they all hate him but he's an actually good mentor". first of all!! the only one who really views house as their father is chase. foreman is the only one who really hates him. and only cameron sees him as an equal partner (romantic or otherwise) rather than a superior. the sad fact of it is that no one is nuanced enough to understand the god/father/husband/lover/mentor/rival dynamic that manifests itself in different combinations with the three original fellows i fear

[aracariwren]

I like the Miitopia 3DS promo/default Miis a lot, so here's the main party! they're a really balanced team, no? magical offense, physical defense, amazing healing, and kitty cuddles. what more could you ask for?

[devilsminion-armandaniel]

The ultimate Daniel Fashion battle

Round 1 - Poll 7

[artverso]

Eric Battle - Waller vs Wildstorm 

[weathermanone]

Waller vs Wildstorm 2 (2023) by Spencer Ackerman, Evan Narcisse & Eric Battle

Cover: Jorge Fornés

[evilhorse]

A shot of the World Trade Center from the end of Green Lantern #142, cover dated November 2001; meaning it likely would have been on the stands in September 2001.