By Harry Kassen — Welcome back to Comics Anatomy. This month we’ll be continuing my Best of 21st Century Batman series, looking at Batman #5 from the Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo New 52 run. Next month, we’ll close out our first year with a look at an issue from Grant Morrison’s run.

I’m going to be writing about Batman #5, the labyrinth issue from the Court of Owls story arc. As with the last one, I’ll warn about spoilers if you care about that sort of thing. The other disclaimer I’d like to make is that what I’m going to be talking about is specifically concerned with the book as a physical object. I’ll do my best to give a sense of what’s going on with the images, but if you have a physical copy, I’d recommend following along with that.

The specific thing I’m going to write about here is the way the issue turns sideways and upside down. Snyder and Capullo play with the orientation of the page, making you turn the book sideways and upside down as you read. It’s pretty obvious that this is a disorienting tactic, but it bears a closer look to see how they combine this with the content of the issue and the way that books work as objects.

Alright, turning to the story.

Editor’s Note: This is a re-post of a piece originally posted on Dec. 5, 2019.

At the end of the previous issue, Batman has been trapped in a labyrinth by the Court of Owls. This setting is important.

At the beginning of issue five, there are a few pages of various other Batfamily characters carrying on while Batman is missing, but then we go back to Batman in the labyrinth. He’s looking pretty worn out here. He’s been stuck in the maze for a while now.

First thing he comes upon is a room with a giant owl fountain. He drinks the water but acknowledges it’s probably drugged. This is the beginning of the descent into madness.

The next important room he stumbles into is vital for the way this issue works.

He walks into a room where a camera is set up. It takes his picture as soon as he steps in front of it. On the walls are pictures of other people, showing their progression as they slowly go insane. Batman breaks the camera and continues to move through the maze. After he tackles what he thinks is a group of Court members, he moves into a new room and things get more interesting.

This page is turned sideways. The two pages are combined into one page with the left edge of the book as the top and the right edge as the bottom. If you’re reading a physical copy, as I suggested, this will involve turning the whole book as you read. This establishes a sense of confusion, like the world is being turned over. This room is covered in names of people the court has killed.

The next page is also oriented this way, but the two pages are split rather than being just one. This one has Batman finding the caskets of the dormant Talons.

The next one shows him coming upon part of a boat with a bowsprit that seems to come alive. The book remains turned sideways.

This next page has Batman enter yet another room, and when he does, that camera goes off in his face again. The pages here are like the last two in that they’re laid out in landscape orientation. The repetition of the camera is interesting though. This is the first time we’ve seen a room twice. We start thinking that Batman may be lost now.

The next page has Batman in another room, this one with two people who are supposedly Thomas and Martha Wayne. We know this can’t be real.

The conversation continues on the next page. What’s different is that now the page is fully upside down. The world has been entirely upended by now. Reality is starting to fall apart. The Waynes embrace Bruce but suddenly fall apart and turn into owls who tear at him. The next page has Batman opening his eyes and realizing it was all in his head.

He’s back in the room with the Owl fountain. This time it’s upside down. Reality still hasn’t righted itself. In that vein, Batman sees himself becoming an owl. He frantically tears up a floor tile and escapes.

Now what comes next is the primary source of my fascination with this issue. I may be outing myself as a dunce here and you may all be way smarter than me, but I’ll wager a few of you also did what I did. This is going to be a little tricky to explain without the actual book, but I’m going to try. After reading the previous two pages, I did what any western reader would and turned the page.

That landed me here. For those keeping score, that’s the previous page. I turned the right hand page, as normal, but that’s not how it works when the book is upside down. The first time I read this book, I probably repeated that process 3-5 times. The way it’s constructed is brilliant, because you turn back and land on the camera again, which is already a repeated visual. Seeing that again doesn’t read as strange. Key to making this work is the fact that there were three whole spreads in the sideways orientation, so when you turn the book upside down, you kinda forget if it’s the right way or if it’s upside down. So you don’t have much reason to turn the “wrong” page.

So anyway, that led to me seeing the second camera scene a bunch of times.

I finally wised up and turned the correct page, landing me here. This is the camera room once again. There are a few things to note here. If you’re dumb like me, this is the 4th or 5th time you’ve seen Batman get his picture taken and that makes the maze feel even more powerful as it keeps shepherding him through to this point. And the number of portraits on the wall bears out the idea that my stupidity was what I was supposed to do. There are three instances of this room, but there are more than three photos. You’re meant to get hung up on that page turn. And on the level of story, Batman’s freaked. He thought he’d escaped but now he’s in front of this camera again. He just breaks down at this point. The Talon sneaks up behind him and…

WHAM! This is a pretty striking visual. It’s what the madness has been building to. There’s been essentially a nonstop ratcheting up of tension and it all leads to this one massive panel of Batman getting stabbed in the back. The madness isn’t gone, as seen in the fact that the page is still upside down and the fact that Batman’s still turning into an owl, but there’s nothing but the two figures in the panel. It hits hard.

The other thing that works nicely about that is it’s a really clear transition to the end of the issue. That’s the second to last page. Everything’s been building to that point and there’s a moment that hits you like a truck.

The next page is suddenly back to right-side-up with no intermittent sideways stuff, and isn’t about Batman. It’s a rapid drop in tension, and that’s a really satisfying way to end the issue. Neither the Batman page or the Robin page really resolve anything, but there’s a releasing of pressure happening that makes this a satisfying end while also leaving things open for the next issue to continue the story.

This issue is a great example of how you can change the way your book is formatted to advance themes and pacing and also how you can take advantage of the properties of books as objects to both further themes and, more importantly, extend the issue in the minds of the reader, allowing yourself more narrative scenes while remaining within the strict page limit of the comic. I always think about this issue when I think about playing with the way pages are set up in books.

That’s all for this one. Join me next month as we wrap up this series by talking about an issue of Grant Morrison’s Batman run. That article will also mark the end of the first year of Comics Anatomy, which is a crazy thing to write. More info to come at the end of that article but I have some fun things planned for the new year.

Read Batman - The Court of Owls Deluxe Edition: Physically / Digitally; or read the Snyder/Capullo Batman run via Omnibus 1 and Omnibus 2.

Click here for Part 1 of the Batman Comics Anatomy series.

Check out past editions of Harry Kassen’s Comics Anatomy!

Harry Kassen is a college student and avid comic book reader. When he’s not doing schoolwork or reading comics, he’s probably sleeping. Catch his thoughts on comics, food, and other things on Twitter @leekassen.