Batman: Master of the Future is a sequel to the superior Gotham by Gaslight that pits 19th Century Bruce Wayne against a crazy French guy with a blimp, a giant magnifying glass, and a moustachioed robot. I know: sounds awesome, right?

Well, it doesn't totally suck, but Master is a weak follow-up to the grim, fog-shrouded Gaslight. Mike Mignola is a tough act to follow, even for an artist of Eduardo Barreto's caliber. Writer Brian Augustyn discards Mignola's moody urban hellhole in favor of a breezy, sunny Gotham City that seems destined for a bright and promising future. We all know how well that's going to turn out.

In Master, Gotham is remaking itself as a world class city with the American Discovery Exposition, the comic book equivalent of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Things seem swell; Bruce Wayne has hung up his cape and cowl after defeating Jack the Ripper and everything is blue skies and songbirds. Gotham City actually looks like a nice place to live.

Of course, the previously mentioned madman threatens to fuck everything up for reasons that I still don't quite understand. Something about how the future the leaders of Gotham are embracing is a sham. "You celebrate nothing but infantile daydreams," says Alexandre LeRoi, the self-proclaimed Man of Tomorrow, which is not as cool a nickname as Ted Dibiase the Million Dollar Man or Nature Boy, but it still works. Anyway, to prove his point, LeRoi intends to burn Gotham to the ground with his airship-mounted-retrofantastic-solar-cannon. Why? Because he so crazy!

Augustyn clearly based LeRoi on Robur, a mad inventor from Jules Verne's Robur the Conqueror and The Master of the World. It's more of an homage than a rip-off, because Augustyn clearly intended this to be a Batman vs Robur comic. One wonders why they didn't just go for it and call the villain Robur; surely the character is in the public domain by now, yes?

Master is a decent enough story, although it suffers in comparison to the more inspired Gotham by Gaslight. I enjoyed artist Eduardo Barreto's classic rendering and deft storytelling - he's sort of got a slick Joe Kubert thing going on - but the inks get a little bit too heavy at times for my tastes.

I would have liked to see some Batman uses some archaic steampunk gadgets in Master, but he only borrows a pair of DaVinci bat wings at one point. It seems like a missed opportunity to not include a Victorian utility belt in the story, but that's just the fanboy in me talking.

Barreto's version of Bruce Wayne is tops, though. Check out those sideburns. They really knew how to rock the facial hair back in the 19th Century, didn't they?


Bruce Wayne and his sideburns are forced to take up the mantle of The Bat once again when Robur - er, LeRoi - threaten Gotham, which leads to an inevitable and very satisfying battle inside the villain's airship high above the city.

In the panel below, LeRoi and Batman engage in the climactic sword fight. There's only one problem for LeRoi...

...Batman isn't here to sword fight, he's here to TOTALLY KICK HIS ASS.


That's what you get for crossing swords with the Batman, son: a sock in the jaw.

No matter what century he's in, it always comes down to Batman beating the bejeezus out of somebody, doesn't it? It just wouldn't be a Batman story if he didn't pummel some poor, out-classed schmuck into oblivion.

Batman: Master of the Future and Gotham by Gaslight are collected in a trade paperback called Batman: Gotham by Gaslight.

This entry was posted by David Campbell, on Monday, January 12, 2009. You can leave your response.