By Harry Kassen — Hello everyone, and happy holidays. Welcome to the final installment in our 21st Century Batman series, and the final Comics Anatomy of our first year. I want to thank Zack for giving this feature a home, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou for inspiring me and teaching me, and everyone who reads these for the continued support. I have some exciting and fun things coming up for Comics Anatomy next year, and I can’t wait to share them with you, but until then, let’s talk about Batman.

This time, we’re going to be covering Batman (1940) #656, the second issue of Grant Morrison’s run, with art by Andy Kubert. There’s a lot going on in the early issues of this run, but there’s one aspect of this issue that I find the most interesting, and that’s the way it engages with Pop Art.

Most people in comics can tell you about how Pop Artists take from comic artists. I’m honestly not too informed about it beyond that, so I won’t get into it. If you want to learn more, I encourage that, but that’s all that is needed for this article.

Editor’s Note: This is a re-post of a piece originally posted on Dec. 26, 2019.

I will add a short testimonial comic from legend Russ Heath that lays things out pretty clearly in case any of you aren’t too familiar with how this all works.

How this plays into Batman #656 is interesting. The issue opens at a gala in an art gallery.

Morrison and Kubert decided to make it a Pop Art exhibit, and from the very first panel, it’s clear that this was a very intentional decision. A lot of the issue is built around the art in the gallery and that serves a purpose, both about the story and — as is common with Morrison’s works — comics in general.

That opening panel does a few things. On a pretty basic level, it tells us that Jezebel Jet is attractive. That’s the story effect right there. She’s hot. It’s good to note also that the tail on that thought balloon is coming from her, so it also indicates that she’s impressed with Bruce. We also have to remember that this is the beginning of Morrison’s run on Batman and he’s still establishing an identity for the series. I’ll get to this more later, but using the Pop Art imagery is a part of Morrison’s mission statement just as much as introducing Damian Wayne.

The last thing is the relationship between comics and Pop Art, completely outside of the context of Morrison’s Batman. Once again, I’ll be elaborating more on this later, but it means something that Morrison and Kubert took Pop Art objects from their context (museums, galleries, etc.) and placed them into a new (old) context as a part of the story.

For now though, I’m going to run through each individual example explaining how it works on its own, and then we can get into the fun conceptual stuff.

The next example is still Bruce and Jezebel Jet walking around the gallery, talking about art. Jet says that she’s a fan of the artist who created the comic pastiches that line the walls. Bruce responds by saying that he doesn’t much care for the stuff around him. The line he uses, however, is clearly Morrison making a point. “All this comic book stuff is way too highbrow for me,” dripping with sarcasm. Comic books, usually seen as low art, are here venerated as high art, which Bruce Wayne, one of the richest men in the world, says is too highbrow for him. It’s an interesting series of reversals. Additionally, the painting in this panel is a woman saying “Ouch!” and crying. It’s as though the art itself is reacting to Bruce’s joke. The middle panel on this page is also important as an establishing shot that shows the exhibit and some of the pieces in it.

This next spread here is when the action starts. The ninja Man-Bats attack and all hell breaks loose in the art gallery. That’s the most important thing, but it also ramps up Morrison/Kubert’s use of the Pop Art pieces as part of their story. The bottom left panel has a painting with a guy looking up and saying, “Yikes!” It looks like he’s looking up at the Man-Bats and reacting to them. The art on the walls has once again been dropped into the story.

At this point in the story now, Batman is jumping into action. The first panel on this page is another example of art featuring a person reacting in fear to the Man-Bats. This page features our first look at Batman in this issue, and it’s an iconic shot of him, but in an unconventional way. We see Batman swooping into a fight against the stark and moody, comic book-esque backdrop of a city, but this time it’s a painting of a comic book panel, and not the city itself. It’s essentially iconography on demand. We get the classic image of Batman, but it all happens in an art gallery that isn’t even in Gotham. We also get some narration that gives Batman’s opinions on art. He’s saying that he hates art with no content. This has to do with Morrison’s opinions on Pop Art but also, there is no real subject in the painting because it took a comic book’s background. Batman is complaining about the piece without a subject, and he rectifies it by becoming the content in that art.

This page has another two paintings worked into the story here. The second panel has Batman punching a Man-Bat. The “Ouch!” painting from earlier looks on, with a new meaning in this new context. More on this later. The other panel on this page is one where Batman is grimacing as he tracks a Man-Bat across the gallery. Behind him, a Mickey Mouse lookalike is pointing a gun at him, saying “Just a little closer.” It has a double meaning here. Batman is doing just what the character in the painting is in this situation, but also, the gun is trained on him. We know from the previous issue that Batman is being watched and tracked, so we’re seeing another hint at that here.

This page has what may be my favorite use of this idea in the whole issue. That opening panel is such a perfect distillation of what’s going on here. In the first panel when Batman fires the grappling gun, it appears that the “BLAM” is a sound effect. In the next panel, however, we see that it was a painting of a sound effect and it remains after the gun is no longer making the sound. It’s a sort of awkward vestige of a prior action there, and that feeds into the argument about the relationship between comics and Pop Art.

This page shows Batman nailing a Man-Bat to a painting of Wonder Woman. The last panel shows the Man-Bat hanging from the painting while another painting below shows a man looking up and saying “Look! Up in the sky…” seemingly about the Man-Bat. Once again, something that isn’t about the situation is placed into a context in which it is relevant.

This last example here is once again a person in a painting reacting to the Man-Bats in the gallery. As on the previous page, there’s a DC Comics character, this time Sgt. Rock, and he’s shouting “Incoming!” as though warning Batman about the group of Man-Bats coming down from above. It’s obvious here that the painting is from a comic panel but the exclamation is as relevant to Batman’s context as it is to the context of the original story.

Alright now. All the examples and their immediate narrative functions have been laid out, and we can get to the good stuff here.

First let’s take a look at how it helps establish an identity for the whole run. Morrison’s run, from its introduction of Damian Wayne to its revival of concepts from earlier Batman stories, is all about legacy and the past. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense for the opening chunk of the run to take the time to issue, essentially, a mission statement.

The best example to use here is probably the BLAM one, because it’s so distilled. Comics have always used sound effects, but they’re often what people turn to when they want to make fun of comics. They tend to be seen as childish, and some comics have eschewed them entirely to paint themselves as mature. What Morrison and Kubert are doing here is showing that they’re respectful of the traditions of comics, such as sound effects and thought balloons, but they’re also a modern, mature series that isn’t held to the traditions of previous series. This moment really helps to cement the whole ethos of Morrison’s Batman run. It says that the series is one that will use things from the past, but not follow them slavishly.

The other thing that the use of Pop Art does is make a point about how Pop Art relates to comics.

A great example of this is the collection of images that show people seemingly reacting to the Man-Bats. Those images make perfect sense in the context of the Man-Bats but it they don’t exist in that context in the story. They’re paintings that were made well in advance of the Man-Bat attack and have nothing to do with it.

Another example is the Ouch! Painting.

The first time we see it, it appears to be a reaction to a biting comment by Bruce. It clearly wasn’t created in this context, but this is the context in which we see it here.

The second time we see it, it’s a reaction to Batman punching a Man-Bat. It’s been placed into a new context here. It’s the same painting it always was, created outside of the context of the Man-Bat attack, but it had a meaning in the first context, and now a new one here. It’s clear from this that context is key. The same image can have a wide range of meanings, all dependent on its placement.

And that’s the critique of Pop Art here. The point is that it takes things that make sense in context and removing them from that context, to the point that they no longer make sense. The whole of Pop Art’s pastiche of comics is a matter of decontextualization. Take the BLAM example again.

This makes perfect sense. That’s how comics work.

This doesn’t.

It’s been taken out of context and it looks kinda wrong. That, to the team, is what Pop Art does. It strips these images of their context, which in essence makes them meaningless. That’s the heart of Morrison’s argument here, and it’s a really important lesson about comics. The heart of comics is the sequence of images and words. That’s what makes comics comics, and that’s what I’ve been writing about all year. Thank you all for reading.

And that’s a wrap on the first year of Comics Anatomy. I’m really proud of what I’ve done in the last year and I hope that you’ve enjoyed it and maybe learned something new. We’ve got some exciting things coming in the new year, and I’m really thrilled to bring those things to you. Thanks once again, and see you in 2020.

Read Batman by Grant Morrison: Omnibus Vol. 1; Omnibus Vol. 2; and Omnibus Vol. 3

Click here for Part 1 and for Part 2 of the Batman Comics Anatomy series.

Check out all 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.