The Joker is dead, but not forgotten. Gotham City is saved, but it is still not safe. By night, its new symbol of hope, Batman, continues his fight to protect the innocent and the powerless. By day, his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, wonders whether there may someday be a future beyond skulking the city’s rooftops or the cavernous halls of his stately manor alongside the ever-dutiful Alfred Pennyworth.
But even after death, the Clown Prince of Crime’s imprint can be seen in more than just the pavement. Remnants from The Joker’s gang are leading wannabes fascinated by his bizarre mystique on a campaign of arson that threatens the city—even as it serves greedy opportunists, including millionaire Max Shreck. And survivors of exposure to The Joker’s chemical weapon Smylex continue to crowd Gotham City’s main hospital.
To quell the chaos, Batman needs more than his cape and his well-stocked Utility Belt. Bruce Wayne is forced into action, prompting a partnership with a charismatic scientist to help solve the health crisis. But as he works in both the shadows and the light, Bruce finds himself drawn deeper into Gotham City’s turmoil than ever before, fueling his obsession to save the city—an obsession that has already driven a wedge between him and Vicki Vale. The loyal Alfred, who had hoped Bruce’s efforts as Batman could help him find closure, finds the opposite happening. Nightmares begin to prompt Bruce to ask new questions about the climactic events in the cathedral, and investigations by Commissioner Gordon and reporter Alexander Knox into the arsons only amplify his concerns.
Having told the people of Gotham City that they’d earned a rest from crime, Batman finds the forces of evil growing ever more organized—and orchestrated—by a sinister hand behind the scenes. The World’s Greatest Detective must solve the greatest mystery of all: Could The Joker have somehow survived? And could he still have the last laugh against the people of Gotham City?
This is probably going to be a long, rambling mess of a review. Fair warning.
Right up front I’ll just say that John Jackson Miller’s BATMAN: RESURRECTION is one of my favorite books of the year. If I could get serious about making a Best Of list, it would certainly crack the top five, and maybe even the top three. And as much as I have loved some of JJM’s Star Wars novels, and as excited as I was at the announcement for BATMAN: RESURRECTION, I found this book to be so much more incredible than I ever could have expected. And oddly this is not the first Batman novel I’ve read. I got pretty obsessed with Andrew Vachss’s BATMAN: THE ULTIMATE EVIL back in the early 2000’s and read it multiple times. That book is unrelentingly dark, though, so if anyone ever checks it out, mind the content warnings.
But let’s back up to 1989, because dang. Tim Burton’s Batman was such a huge part of my childhood. I was ten when it was released & I can still remember so much about it all…the anticipation of seeing it in the theatre, all the merchandise everywhere. I started reading Frank Miller’s Batman comics. It was well & truly Batmania as far as I was concerned. There’s a handful of movies that came out around this time that really defined for me what it meant to love the movies. Batman, Dick Tracy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? are the four that really jump out…it’s wild to consider these were all released between 1988-1990. What a time to be a kid!!
So, every year I come up with a little list of Xmas movies I want to watch. I get around to some, and some stay on the list for next year. Some are annual rewatches (usually Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, and an episode of The X-Files called “The Ghosts Who Stole Christmas”) and some I might revisit every few years.
One of those movies is Batman Returns. So I decided it would be fun to watch Batman, then read BATMAN: RESURRECTION (which takes place between the two Tim Burton Batman movies), and then watch Batman Returns to coincide with Christmas. And it was a blast! I can’t recommend doing this enough, whether it’s around Christmas or not.
I’ve seen Batman so many times over the years. Dozens & dozens, I’m sure. And while I will always treasure the movie & the experiences and memories that go along with it, on this most recent rewatch I was struck with just how…largely plotless the movie is?
Like…it’s mostly vibes. We see the Joker become the Joker and then he just…does Joker stuff for a while? Also the insta-love between Bruce and Vicki Vale feels a little off in retrospect. All that said, the movie is always enjoyable & its cultural relevance cannot be overstated. This movie was huge and ambitious in every way & I think it’s more than fair to say that it paved the way for the modern superhero movie.
I guess what I’m getting around to saying is that I was so taken with how richly detailed BATMAN: RESURRECTION is. Generally speaking, I think a book can allow for much more character development than a movie can, and Miller takes full advantage of the medium here. I certainly got more out of Bruce Wayne in this book than I did in both Tim Burton movies, but there’s a lot more to this story than just Bruce Wayne/Batman!
The story picks up not long after the events of the 1989 movie & Gotham is still reeling from the Joker’s reign of terror on the city. The Smylex attacks have had a lasting & awful impact on the city, resulting in a Smylex Ward being opened at Gotham General Hospital to care for the victims.
Funded by Bruce Wayne, of course.
It’s all being overseen by an enigmatic doctor/professor named Hugh Auslander, someone Bruce Wayne takes a pretty keen interest in. This side of the story really allows Miller to lean into Bruce Wayne’s compassion & philanthropy, in a way that the movies just kind of briefly touch on.
The book also introduces a major new character in Karlo Babić, aka Clayface. While I can’t claim to be an expert or anything approaching a Batman completionist, I’ve read a decent amount of Batman comics over the years. That said, Clayface is a character I don’t know a whole lot about. So it’s hard for me to say how JJM’s version compares to others. What I will say is that Karlo’s storyline is probably the most compelling thing about this book.
It’s hard to even call him a villain, and he’s really not written that way. Certainly Clayface & Batman cross paths numerous times, but Karlo is written to be so incredibly sympathetic. A guy who is easily manipulated & dealt a really bad hand. He’s an actor at a local theatre called the Capra, and like so many people in Gotham, he’s about to have his whole life ripped apart by, you guessed it, Smylex.
So of course The Joker looms incredibly large in BATMAN: RESURRECTION, and a confluence of events even leads some people to wonder: could The Joker somehow have survived that fall from the belfry?
That whole sequence from the film absolutely haunts Bruce Wayne here. He’s plagued by nightmares as he tries to piece together parts of the story from that night that just don’t add up. This kind of thing gets really fun. I won’t get too far into it here, but Miller points out some things that, at first blush feel like plot holes in the movie (which I had never noticed). But as Bruce Wayne/Batman continues to peel back the layers of The Joker’s machinations, things feel even more twisted and diabolical.
Also like…Batman is known as The World’s Greatest Detective but in the movies we don’t always see…a ton of detecting? But oh! BATMAN: RESURRECTION really shows off his detective skills in some big ways, which is a blast & adds a huge amount of mystery to the book overall!
This was a delirious amount of fun, like the actual most fun it’s possible for me to have reading a book. Seeing all these characters from these two movies I’ve loved was such a treat (you can’t help but chuckle every time Knox shows up!) This was so much more layered & nuanced than it even needed to be, like…John Jackson Miller really fucking went for it with this one! Gotham feels so incredibly alive in this book; a real place with culture, with honest people just trying to get by. But of course, the seedy & violent underbelly of Gotham is on full display here, too.
The way that BATMAN: RESURRECTION bridges the gap between Batman and Batman Returns is just perfect…it resolves certain plot elements from Batman while hinting at/setting up things for Batman Returns. All while flawlessly standing on its own as a completely original story. I couldn’t have loved this any harder. In the best way possible, BATMAN: RESURRECTION made me feel like a ten-year-old kid all over again. This is an absolute gem of a book.
Grimdark Dad 