#finally drew the historical version of him instead of the one from terror

[mcclintock]

happy 220th birthday to James Clark Ross!!

[maxwell-grant]

Can we talk about the Black Bat both in general, and and how he may have been an influence on two superheroes (Dr. Mid-Nite and Daredevil) and a supervillain (Two-Face), but was proven in a court of law to have no connection with the superhero who immediately comes to mind (Batman).

Having finally read a couple of his original stories and runs, yeah I got some thoughts on him. 

While not the first bat-themed pulp character, nor the first fictional detective with a disability turned superpower (that would be Max Carrados, who actually was blind), Black Bat’s main claim to fame nowadays is his correlation to superheroes with the mixed traits he has that would all become massively popularized by characters who debuted afterwards. Regarding the Batman lawsuit, it wasn’t so much proven that they have no connection, as much as the publishers of both characters argued they did it first, and then agreed to stay out of each other’s territory, with Batman staying out of pulp magazines and The Black Bat staying out of comics (not that it would stop his publishers from rebranding him as “The Mask” and doing comics).

Black Bat actually couldn’t have inspired Batman, because Batman debuted 4 months prior. Plus, both were already ripping off the same guy, and both of them were far from the first bat-themed pulp characters at the time. And the idea that he inspired Daredevil I find too much of a reach. Dr Mid-Nite I can definitely see the resemblance, and while Two-Face doesn’t have much similarities to Tony Quinn past the origin and the anti-hero aspects, “handsome crusading District Attorney disfigured after getting splashed in the face by acid goes on a rampage” is not exactly vague enough of a concept to pass for coincidence. Two-Face debuted just 3 years after Black Bat, while Bat was still a pretty successful character (he managed to outlast nearly every other pulp hero), so it’s very possible that Kane and Finger had a look at Black Bat’s origin and used it as the basis for their Jekyll & Hyde-themed villain. 

Okay so, that’s that for Black Bat, but what’s the character actually like? What’s there to him other than historical oddities? Does he have what it takes to survive and thrive again in a modern landscape?

The thing that sticks out to me about Black Bat is that he is a pulp character who feels like he was designed specifically with the arrival of the superheroes in mind, as when comic book superheroes began to carve a space for themselves, one of the responses the pulps had was to put out new heroes intended to be a part of both worlds, hybrids of pulp heroes and superheroes who could try to capture success in either format, characters like Ka-Zar and Black Hood who started in one and then jumped to the other. 

Black Bat’s got a lot of the usual hallmarks of dark detective pulp heroes and his adventures are largely him battling ordinary criminal masterminds and gangsters, but he’s got an iconic costume, he’s got a super dramatic origin story that the stories keep coming back to (unlike most pulp heroes whose origin stories are not usually mentioned), and he’s got superpowers brought in the aftermath of a tragic accident. Not just skills anyone can have by training hard enough, actual superpowers, even if they don’t see as much usage as his pulp hero skillset. 

To the world that knew about him, Anthony Quinn, once a virile, upstanding representative of law forces whose name had held terror for evil doers, was now an impotent blind man whose sight had been permanently destroyed by acid thrown at him in a crowded courtroom, and whose face was horribly scarred about the eyes. For a long time he had seemed to live in a world apart.

Such actually had been the case during the long months when Tony Quinn had lived in a sea of blackness. But Nature had been as kind as possible, giving him something in return for what had been taken from him. As a result he had since realized that his senses of feel, smell, and hearing were far more acute than formerly. Under his sensitive fingers whatever he touched had begun to tell strange new stories. His sense of smell had sharpened. His ears had become the ears of a hound, picking up with ease and sifting multitudinous sounds that once had been inaudible.

More months had gone by until, in the darkness of a lonely night, a girl with golden hair and blue eyes hadcome in through an open window like an angel out of nowhere to offer him hope where eye specialists had said there was no hope. Through a delicate operation by an unknown small town surgeon the corneas of the eyes of Carol Baldwin's policeman father - dying from paralysis brought on by a gangster bullet - had been given to him. An extraordinary thing had occurred. When at last Tony Quinn had been allowed to remove the bandages, he had been astounded by the miracle that had happened. His were the eyes of darkness as well as the eyes of day!

Interestingly also, Black Bat actually became one of the most prolific of pulp heroes when brought over to Germany. When German publishers Pabel decided to reprint a couple of Black Bat novels for the KRIMINAL-ROMAN serial, they discovered “Die Schwarzen Fledermaus” was somehow so popular that in 1962, they retitled it Fledermaus (Bat) and ran with it, reprinting all the original 60+ stories and then, when those ran out, creating 900 more at least. In fact, it seems like they are still publishing Black Bat stories even today, and now that he’s public domain it’s something just about anyone could get into.

Problem with that is, it’s not easy to conceive of The Black Bat having any kind of substantial popularity again, when he’s doomed by design to always be compared to Batman, to always just be seen as first glance as “oh it’s earless Batman with Daredevil’s shtick and Two-Face’s backstory”, and of course he doesn’t have a chance in hell of playing catch-up to the popularity of those characters (well, at least outside of Germany). Whatever niche he could have as an alternative to Batman is also null by the fact that said niche of Not-Batmen is already filled out quite extensively. He doesn’t have an incredibly strong personality the way Batman and The Shadow do, nor is he, despite being ostensibly a serial killer, enough of a trigger-happy anti-hero to latch on to the appeal of characters like The Spider or Punisher. The latest Black Bat comic run by Dynamite played up his ruthlessness, outlaw status and drew him on the covers perpetually holding guns and often with a big creepy smile. But smiling murder pulp Batman is already a niche that Midnighter fills considerably better than Black Bat ever could. So what’s left for him?

If I had to find a unique niche for Black Bat, I’d play his unique traits in ways that separate him from the super characters that ran with those later. I’d ditch the whole “oh woe is me I’m poor and helpless because I’m blind” shtick that’s terribly condescending to actually blind people, and make him at least truly blind in some form. Maybe he’s blind by day and by night he sees too much, or maybe his vision has some terrible secrets that go beyond mere enhanced eyesight. Maybe his powers are growing and expanding in ways he doesn’t know where they will lead him. But alongside that, one take on the character could be based on the fact that he really has nothing to lose. He is not Batman, he is not The Shadow, he isn’t Daredevil, he’s got little reputation to speak of, and he’s never going to be any of those characters.

He’s lost the position he’s coveted his whole life, he’s lost the respect of his peers, his former professional ethics don’t mean shit now, he’s had a long and painful brush with darkness that scarred him for life in ways both literal and metaphorical, and in the aftermath he’s begun spontaneously developing abilities that would be incredibly painful and uncomfortable for an average person to just develop without years of growing up with them. And then, a mysterious woman walked through his window one day, gave him the eyes of a dead man, and now he sees things in ways no person was ever supposed to, and now he goes around at night terrorizing and killing criminals in an animal-themed costume. 

The most he has to lose currently is the life of his sidekicks who’ve worked very hard to help him heal and focus and find a new purpose, which only means that they are on the chopping block everytime you wanna give a gut punch to Tony Quinn. And no matter how famous, or even great, his adventures are, or how prolific and successful he is or even has been, he’s always going to be the Bat-themed superhero who couldn’t cut it. He’s Not-Batman, stripped of all the grand splendour and allmighty self righteousness and reputation and role as foundational figure of an entire genre and most popular bestest superhero of all time ever praise be thy Bat God, sharing more traits with one of Batman’s most personal and tragic villains than the titular character.

That’s not an indictment, that just means that Black Bat ultimately should have more narrative freedom, since he is unburdened by reputation and status. He is a public domain nobody best known by his association with characters who eclipse him in popularity, who’s always going to have that accursed Bat prefix and costume to damn him by association, so why not work with it? He could be the character you go into to tell stories that you couldn’t tell with Batman or other big name superheroes, the grimiest, sickest, even weirdest crime tales of all. What does the Black Bat have to lose?

Those who have nothing to lose stand everything to gain, after all.

Also, Masks 2 once presented an alternative version of the character called The Black Bats, who dresses like a baseball player and dual-wields baseball bats, which is nutty and I’d definitely prefer Black Bat to ditch the generic pulp hero guns and instead just go crazy batting everything in his way.

“I gotta tell ya, this is pretty terrific! Hahahahah, yeah!”

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy chapter 262 - an early version of a car chase . . .

I’m definitely slow with my meta for this chapter.  The end of the year exhaustion has caught up to me and I still have some things to do for work, but I’m waiting to discuss them with my supervisor so - yay, I guess?

The chapter 262 cover is a very horse-missing-brain-bits-buddies something in color.  Sadly a waste of a color chapter of you ask me, but I’m not Noda.

The chapter starts out with Hijikata’s group playing it safe, creating a way to hide Jack’s body and Kirawus is assisting a rough looking Kadokura.

Since Hijikata is no idiot, he quickly hops on a horse to pursue the beer car with Sugimoto, Shiraishi and Boutarou.

Interestingly, Sugimoto is the one who demands to slow down to talk to him.  Could it be that Sugimoto has developed a soft spot in his heart for Hijikata?  Pfffttt.  Likely not, but he recognizes he’s a competent individual and to rescue Asirpa he’s a worthwhile ally.

This shows since the first thing Hijikata asks is where Asirpa is, which allows the rest of them to clarify that Tsurumi’s group is hiding as firemen.

This gives us a nice view from the back of the fire engine, and also a concerned look back from Tsukishima.  It really tells us a lot about how aware Tsukishima is, he did travel to Karafuto and back with Sugimoto and Shiraishi, so he’s got a good idea who these men think and act.

Now, we don’t know where Asirpa and Usami’s body are placed.  When I saw this panel I saw two possible places and have pointed them out with the purple arrows. The beer car pursues them and as Shiraishi encourages Boutarou, we finally get an update on his overall status.   He’s feeling tired and Shiraishi asks him if he’s okay.

He’s bleeding a lot - he did get stabbed and shot at.  I’d like to point out he also regrew his cut off ear!  Perhaps, he’s part axolotl!  I think Noda was just tired when drew this or it got lost in the action.

I’m glad to see Shiraishi concerned about him, but we have hints these two men are friends.  Of course Boutarou proudly declares that he’s a man who is going to be a king and Shiraishi needs to witness this historic event. The 27th has been spotted and it is Koito who notices the car in pursuit of them.  Can we take a moment to appreciate how great this is for Koito?  Sure, he’s still working for Tsurumi, but he’s levelheaded and comes up with a quick solution.

Tsukishima then tells Tsurumi he can go ahead and they will stay behind to block the pursers.  They do their best to try to stop the car, but Boutarou has other plans and drives through some random guy’s house to avoid the gunfire.

Due to Boutarou’s creative driving (he would not pass his driver’s test at all!) his gamble allows them to catch up to the fire engine.  This gives a clearer view of the two tied bags of mystery on the engine.

Poor Shiraishi gets tossed all around and is half hanging out of the car and on Boutarou’s lap.   Tsurumi then gives the simple order of ‘Go!’  And with that order things become more complicated since the two men on horseback are also carrying more tied up bags!

Shiraishi, Boutarou and Sugimoto then shout at each other what is going on and who to pursue.  Sugimoto of course things Asirpa must be on the engine, but Hijikata makes the decision for them - he goes after the men on horseback so by default they have to pursue the fire engine. . .

Sugimoto is trying to shoot the driver, and he tells Boutarou to pull up closer.  Wow, Sugimoto and shooting . . .

Once almost even with them, Tsurumi ducks down and swings back to make a single shot with his pistol, hitting Boutarou in the right side of his torso.  Shiraishi takes control of driving and asks him if he is okay again.

Boutarou gets the comment of just ‘well, damn. . .’ as they drop back and we can see a figure on the back of the engine stand up.

Of course it is the very sexy, Kikuta.  He takes aim at Shiraishi with his double revolvers and Shiraishi has the look of complete terror.

This then leads to one of the best pages of GK for some time, Boutarou, pushing Shiraishi out of the way leaving him at the mercy of Kikuta’s aim.  Three shots land in this panel hitting him in the chest.

The action continues with more shots fired by Kikuta into Boutarou.  Shiraishi cries out in great concern after watching him be shot! Not all of the shots hit him as some instead hit the car.

The car then slams into the engine and Kikuta holds on by ducking down.

With Boutarou seriously injured and Shiraishi concerned, the car crashes and it seems the threat has been dealt with.  Kikuta tells Tsurumi that the car can’t follow them any more and we get to see that the second cloth bag is now gone.  It was Kikuta curled up under a cloth so that he could emerge undetected.  We can still see the other bag shoved under the seat on the engine under Tsurumi.

Of course, Sugimoto, somehow was able to grab onto the engine after the collision. Well damn, this was one hell of a chapter! First off, I want to yell, “Hang in there Boutarou!!!!”  It has not been a good day for him.  Since I’m a fan of Boutarou, I have to have a little faith that he’ll pull though.  I have several reasons to believe he’s still got a role to play.

1.) Boutarou is a good friend to Shiraishi.  He saved his life and he’s brought up the point that Sugimoto, may be his friend, but he doesn’t treat him like an equal.  Having another one of Shiraishi’s friends killed by the 27th just makes me feel sad. 

2.) Boutarou is like Sugimoto.  He’s an incredibly tough guy, who is physically able to handle a lot.  The more he’s around Sugimoto, the more uncomfortable he makes Sugimoto.  Both survived while their families died, and they are able to continue to survive by almost ‘willing’ themselves to keep going.  The only difference between them is one is a legal criminal while the other committed terrible acts as a member of the military and working for the government/law.

3.) Boutarou is working with Kikuta.  This is my crazy theory.  We know that Kikuta told Ariko he is a spy.  Therefore, they are working together on something . . . Ariko and Boutarou have spent a fair amount of time together and when Kikuta grabbed Asirpa and talked to her, Boutarou was hanging back.  This is a long shot, but I love to think about it . . . . come on Noda, give me the flashback I want to see with Kikuta, Ariko and Boutarou. . . .

The bullet proof vest was invented in 1893 and I recently watched the movie ‘The Sting’ so a good con is tickling my mind.  I want to see an excellent plot twist surrounding Boutarou . . . sure, Tsurumi shot him for sure, but if Kikuta was in a con with him to make it look like he got shot a lot - damn, I’d love that.  It would also be an excellent spy reference - I’m thinking of the James Bond movie ‘You only live twice’ which certainly has not aged well from a politically correct viewpoint, but is a great example of how to fake a death.

Where is Asirpa?  Seriously, someone is going to be disappointed when this all ends.  With Kikuta revealing that he was the second cloth bag on the fire engine, it still leaves the bag under Tsurumi to be Asirpa or she could be on either of the horses.  Hijikata is pursuing them, but he can only go after one at a time unless he’s able to shoot one of the men and catch the other. With the two horsemen, we also have the possibility of Ogata sniping them.  Or is he still tied up in his battle with Vasily?  We currently lack enough information to determine this.  TOO MANY VARIABLES NODA!  Damn you! Tsurumi is the type of person to keep Asirpa close to him, but at the same time he is next level when it comes to his planning and what he expects from others.  Plot wise, having Tsurumi successfully kidnap Asirpa makes a lot of sense to me at this point.  It would force everyone else to ‘regroup’ and have some frank conversations about what they want.  It would tie back nicely into the conversation about what they’d do with the gold from the boys’ night sleepover situation.

‘Cause I’m a ‘terrible person’ I really want to see the Sugimoto fight with Kikuta and Tsurumi end with him grabbing the bag somehow and to end up with Usami’s body instead.  I want Sugimoto to be disappointed and realize that Asirpa isn’t someone he has priority with.  He can care about her as a younger kid sister but she isn’t his and his alone. Honestly, despite the extreme excitement of this chapter, not a whole lot actually happened that allows for crazy in depth meta.  Well that is all for now and I’m waiting to see what happens next.  Hang in there Boutarou!  I sense you have much more to do in the plot.