Jacob's Comics: Batman: Digital Justice

I’m going to take you all on a journey.  Way back into the mystical year of 1990.  Home Alone, Total Recall, and Dances With Wolves were dominating the box office. (Tremors also came out that year as well.)  Everybody’s boom-boxes were blasting out Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” and MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”.  The internet, still in its infancy, seemed liked the way of the future, vast realms of cyberspace ripe for exploration with near-unlimited potential.

Or, at least that’s what I picked up from the latest comic I’m reviewing, Batman: Digital Justice.   In its defense though, the creators behind it way back in 1990 couldn’t have imagined the likes of Facebook and Twitter.  Hell, Napster would’ve seemed really out there at the time.

Before I get into the comic itself, I’m going to explain the specific genre that Batman: Digital Justice falls into.  During the 80’s, there was an explosion of literature that showed a highly advanced but grim future.  A future where corporations were in charge (like nowadays but worse), resistance fighters taking on the corrupt, rival hackers using virtual reality avatars to wage battle in cyberspace, and it’s always raining.

I’m talking about the genre known as Cyberpunk.

Elements of cyberpunk have crept in nearly all forms of media from film and TV to video games and fashion.  To wrap your heads around the style of cyberpunk, look no further than Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic, Blade Runner.

While Blade Runner doesn’t really have much  to do with computers and cyberspace, Los Angeles in the future is spot-on for a typical cyberpunk setting.  Tall imposing buildings, clear separation of classes, merging of different cultures, rain, it has it all.  Even William Gibson, author of one of the quintessential cyberpunk novels, Neuromancer, was awestruck by the world of Blade Runner.

“BLADERUNNER came out while I was still writing Neuromancer. I was about a third of the way into the manuscript. When I saw (the first twenty minutes of) BLADERUNNER, I figured my unfinished first novel was sunk, done for. Everyone would assume I’d copped my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film.”
                                                         -William Gibson, “Oh Well, While I'm Here: Bladerunner”

For the record, Neuromancer has one of my favorite opening lines: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

DC Comics, being no slouch when it comes to bandwagons, decided to dip their toe into the cyberpunk end of the pool when they released the 1990 graphic novel, Batman: Digital Justice.

I'd first heard about the book from my library's beat-up copy of Tales of the Dark Knight: Batman's First Fifty Years 1939-1989.  I'll admit I'd didn't read much of the text when I was younger, but the book had an awesome collection of covers and scenes from various Batman comics.  I remember, though, that the last chapter discussed Batman's future and it spoke about the then-up-coming Batman: Digital Justice. 

Written and illustrated by Spanish artist Pepe Moreno, what’s particularly interesting about the book that it was created using only computer technology.  Now mind you, this is 1990,  art tablets weren’t invented yet.  Microsoft Paint wasn’t invented yet!  So, Mr. Moreno only had what was available at the time.  While it looks very outdated nowadays, I have to admire the creator’s and book’s ambition.

(WARNING! THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD! Spoilers for a twenty-three year old comic book, but spoilers nonetheless)

The book takes place in Gotham Megatropolis, “sometime into the next century”, where police officer Jim Gordon, grandson of Commissioner Gordon, is noting that the Servos, robot sentries meant to replace the human police force, are using deadly force on perpetrators. And by “deadly force”, I mean shooting them with a Gatling gun until there’s nothing but red chunks everywhere.



As Gordon tries to figure out who might behind the Servos’ violence, he finds himself attacked, both physically and technologically, as every time he uses his ID card (for the elevator, bank, etc.), some mishap tends to happen. Eventually, most of his allies are killed off by the Servos’ puppet masters, with only Robert Chang, a skateboard punk that Gordon unofficially adopted, by his side.

The Servos are actually one of the many tools run by a small group, led by the mayor to control the population.  However, they all answer to an even higher source. 

After coming home to his apartment ransacked, he finds an old box of his Grandfather’s possessions including the original Batsuit that Bruce Wayne gave after he retired.  Combined with this and coming across a broken statue of Batman in the park, Gordon decides to don the Batsuit himself and take down the establishment.

Now, this is where it gets kind of weird.

Stories of Batman’s crime fighting soon becomes the talk of the town and Gata, a Lady Gaga-esqe musician, gets pissed that Batman is stealing her thunder.  In response, she decides to become Catwoman as “the cat is the natural enemy of the bat!”.  I swear to God, she says that.

After an attempt on his life by the Servos, Gordon and Chang are saved by Batman’s old computer who sends a Batmobile hovercraft to give them a lift to the original Batcave.  There, they find out that the original Batman programmed his computer into a powerful A.I., laying dormant until Gotham needed its help again.

The reason for the Bat A.I. is that Bruce Wayne saw that crime would eventually become virtual as the Joker created a computer virus to wipe out Wall Street.



Donning a new Batsuit modified to take on the Servos, with Chang becoming his Robin, they launch a full-frontal attack on the secret group that runs Gotham while the Batcomputer takes on the group’s benefactor: the Joker virus that evolved into an equally powerful A.I. with Joker’s personality.



Although the story went to some weird places, especially with the Joker Virus, I was very fond of it overall.  I’ll admit, I have a deep love of all things early 90’s, and this fit the bill quite perfectly.  That being said, there was some hokey dialogue here and there (I’m looking at you, Gata!) but it captured the usual cyberpunk technobabble you’d expect.



After having read The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, I understand how myths can be a source of inspiration even generations after the myths were first told. One of the themes Batman: Digital Justice covered that I appreciated was, appropriately enough,  the power of myth.  By the setting’s timeline, Batman had become nothing more than a legend.  However, as Gordon’s escapades as Batman become more public, Gotham’s populace feels hope for the first time as it seems that true justice is being carried out.

I can tell it was made during the short-lived “cyberdelic” movement, spearheaded by infamous drug guru of the 60’s, Dr. Timothy Leary.  He, and others in the movement, believed that the internet, and cyberspace in general, would become a stepping stone in the next stage of Human evolution, not the gateway to porn and cat videos that we know today.

Now, I come to the art, which if you’re considering picking up this book, is either going to make or break your decision.  I found the artwork to be…odd at times.  Gotham in overhead shots looks more like a circuit board than an actual city.  I also noticed that Moreno cut some corners with the artwork by reusing some figures in different panels.  In a crowd shot, there’s one guy who apparently has a clone with red hair.

This is clearly a shot of cyberspace, right?  Nope. It's Gotham from a high angle.

I did like how the Joker virus looked, being a collection of shapes that resemble the Joker’s face.  On the other hand, The Batcomputer’s Batman avatar looked like a weird stretched-out pixilated version of Batman’s head.  Also, I thought Chang was a girl at first, he looked very feminine when he first appeared.

Overall, Batman: Digital Justice wasn’t a bad read. Dated, for sure, but not horribly so.  I’d recommend it for cyberpunk fans or die-hard Batman fans to complete their collection.

But if I had to pick between alternate futures of Batman, there was another piece of Batman media that had a distinctly cyberpunk setting.  Now, what was it called?  Oh, yeah. This.