How I Read Batman 4: Batman And The Mad Monk

Everyone has that friend.  The one who watches a lot of standup comedians and reports the jokes they heard as their own.  I can't tell you the amount of times I've heard the whole Scooby Doo stoner theories.  The snickering moron who wonders aloud about Smurf sex lives.  That person will always give you a little elbow to the ribcage and make some remark about Batman's "inappropriate relationship" with Robin.

Of course, that person doesn't know that there have been several Robins, and that one of them is his son.  That person has no idea about Batman at all, apart from possibly having seen the 90's movie franchise and a few scattered episodes of The Animated Series.   But most importantly, that person doesn't know how both Batman and Bruce Wayne are defined by the women in their lives.

It's no mistake that, in the modern era retelling of Batman's first few years, Catwoman appears several times before we get our first glimpse of The Joker.  While The Joker is often regarded as Batman's nemesis, it's his relationship with Selina Kyle's alter ego that gives us a feeling for who Bruce is under the cowl. 

Batman And The Mad Monk opens with Bruce standing up his current girlfriend, Julie Madison, to capture Catwoman.  He sends Alfred to send his "sincerest regrets" to her, and to let her know "his scheduling problems won't be changing any time soon."

Another thing not changing anytime soon is Jim Gordon's problems with the hierarchy of the Gotham City Police Department.  The new Commisioner, Grogan, appears as corrupt as Loeb was, and has sent some officers to deliver a message to Gordon, just as Gordon is awaiting Batman on the roof (he calls him with a Batpager...still no signal yet)

At the end of the first chapter of the story, we're introduced to the villains: vampires!  In particular, a cultish vampire leader named The Monk.  While he's not known as one of the front-runners of Batman's rogues, he goes all the way back to Detective Comics #43.  In fact, this entire trade is a reimagining of the very early adventures of Batman. 

It's not long before The Monk's cult kidnaps Julie Madison.  While the Batman is off rescuing her, her father, Norman Madison, mistakenly thinking Batman is stalking him, decides he must permanently erase his connection to organized crime by killing Sal Maroni.  It doesn't go well.

Neither does Julie's rescue from The Monk Cult.  She manages to survive and, in the process becomes the first non-butler to discover that Bruce Wayne is Batman.  But Batman's dangerous life, plus his role in her father's death leaves Julie unable to cope with Bruce's night life, so she takes off for Africa.  Also during the course of the action, Jim Gordon decides his interactions with Batman are too risky, so at the end of this story Bruce is left only Alfred as an ally, but as he Spider-Mans his way into the Gotham skyline, he goes directly past a billboard for The Haly Circus featuring The Flying Graysons.

Story 4/5, Art 5/5