The Dark Knight returns in the sequel-that-never-was to Tim Burton’s Batman. The director swung for the fences in his 1992 follow-up, an idiosyncratic superhero sequel that was more Tim Burton movie than Batman proper – packed to the rafters full of freaks and geeks, and all wrapped up in a Christmas bow. One of the greatest of all time, sure, but a much more confident, far odder film than the one which preceded it.
John Jackson Miller offers a more conventional kind of story in his Batman: Resurrection, set during the interim months between Batman and Batman Returns. The Joker is dead (or is he?!) and Gotham City is attempting to recover from the madness it was exposed to during his brief reign of terror. Bruce Wayne is a busy (bat)man, run off his feet with Joker’s surviving henchmen and a new villain on the beat – malleable monster Basil Karlo, aka Clayface.
Like Sam Hamm and Joe Quinones’ Batman 89 series, this novel revisits some familiar faces while introducing a few of its own from comic lore. Jettisoned after the first film, journalist Alexander Knox returns in a big way here, while Miller gives more depth and gravitas to Pat Hingle’s Commissioner Gordon. Set prior to the events of Batman Returns means that Max Shreck gets to throw his weight around too, and Miller gives some insight as to what went wrong between Bruce and Vicki Vale. It’s a comprehensive gap-filling exercise.
That Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne was always a little aloof and unknowable gives Miller some room in his characterisation. While his Wayne is a little more talkative and slightly less murderous than Burton’s portrayal, the author does well to get under his skin… and into the Batsuit. Otherwise, the characters’ voices are nailed – particularly Knox.
Like Hamm and Quinones’ Batman 89, it’s concerned with introspection and Easter eggs in a way that Burton never really was, and its mystery-boxing of a certain villain feels out of place for this particular iteration of the character. Where Batman Returns forged its own path, Resurrection is constantly looking back at what came before. Miller puts his own spin on the characters and action, but it’s too beholden to the original film to stand on its own feet.
BATMAN: RESURRECTION is out now.
