"Project" Red Light

I spent some time this afternoon giving my longboxes a much-needed spring cleaning. I pulled old comics, long unread, to donate to my local library (who, impressively, take them and actually introduce them into circulation). I pulled some more comics, recently completed runs, ready and waiting to be converted to trades (something once unthinkable, now standard). And, just to balance things out, I filed some new books who'd been sitting on the shelf, neglected and longing for a good ol' fashioned organizing. I ran into a snag, though.

I couldn't figure out where to put OMAC Project 1.

Admittedly, in the scope of things, this is the sort of non-problem that most of us would love to have top our list of Things Wrong With the World. But, organization and cross-reference are important tools to a comics historian--by which I mean "reader"--and, more importantly, I didn't think "Worse X-Man: Maggot or Marrow" was a compelling post topic. So here we are, lost in the stacks.

For reasons that I'll (hopefully, eventually) make clear, I didn't file the book where it by rights ought to go, under "O", nestled right next to a handfuls of Optic Nerves (can we chain Adrian Tomine to the drawing table, by the by? We'll start a fund, buy some shackles and someone to mind him, bring him sandwiches and clean T-Shirts. Our expectations will be conservative, to start, say a couple new Nerves a year. Ah, but I digress, Weeklings...).

I thought, briefly, about filing the book under "C", right there between Countdown and the inevitable Infinite Crisis (which, very much despite my better judgment, will probably need space in my collection six months from now). That is, after all where the story fits in. Ultimately, though, that didn't feel right, as though I was giving credence to an impulse that ought not be acknowledged.

See, here's the thing. I bought OMAC Project for two reasons: Batman and Greg Rucka. The series promised to feature the Dark Knight rather prominently, and as an old school fanboy for the character, I'll give most of his books at least a cursory glance, based on the creative team, even if I decide not to actually spend money on one book or another. And as far as creators go, there are few who've dealt with Batman in the last half decade who've satisfied more frequently than Greg Rucka. He was a major contributor to the Crossover-Done-Right "No Man's Land" (of particular note is his one-off with the always-solid Rick Burchett in Legends of the Dark Knight 125, an immensely compelling story wherein Bats and Commissioner Gordon talk about their feelings). His miniseries Death and the Maidens was especially pleasing, an in-depth look at Ra's al Ghul, a legitimate argument for the villain as Batman's true nemesis. And, of course, the centerpiece of Rucka's Batmanifesto is his three-year run on Detective Comics, a patient and painstaking delineation of Batman and Bruce Wayne favoring legitimate detective stories to sensational villain-of-the-week smash-'em-ups.

One of Rucka's main contributions to the Batmythos was the character of Sasha Bordeaux. Introduced in Detective 751 (correct if I'm wrong, Weeklings) as a bodyguard for Bruce Wayne, she quickly became a confident, a partner in crimefighting, and a love interest (or as close to one as the character has). Sasha was classic Rucka heroine, in the manner of Tara Chace, or even of his Elektra or Wonder Woman, hard and capable enough that you respected the character, expected her to take care of herself, but just soft enough that you longed for her to allow someone to take care of her, if that makes any sense (in Countdown, Beetle says of Wonder Woman, "It's the way she says your name, like she knows you, knows everything about you, the best and worst. Like she knows, and she loves you anyway." If that's not Rucka writing, I'll eat my hat). Sasha was ushered quietly offstage at the end of Rucka's run, adopted by Checkmate after her association with Batman had essentially made her life as she knew it impossible, but it always seemed as though they were parts of her story left untold. Naturally, I was excited by the possibility that OMAC might finally conclude her story, give her the kind of ending that real life never gives.

So you see why I'm compelled to consider OMAC Project a Batman story.

Here's the thing, though. It is a Batman story, in that he's a major character and he's being written by a man who's intimately familiar with his internal monologue. However, as has been pointed out in better e-rags than this, OMAC Project 1 is really Countdown 2. And Countdown was a story of Blue Beetle, and Superman, and the Titans and the Outsiders, and the JLA, and Adam Strange, and Maxwell friggin' Lord. And, if there's time, Batman. And, just to drive the point home, I notice that in a few months hence, there'll be a crossover between the Superman books and Wonder Woman (to both of which Rucka contributes), which thereafter will crossover with OMAC Project. Which I'm buying to see Batman.

Look, I get the shared universe thing. I enjoy the shared universe thing. The relationship between Batman and Superman is (if written correctly) is one of the most nuanced workplace relationships that I've ever encountered, in any medium. But I don't need a comic just to tell me that they work differently. And I certainly don't need a special, which leads into four miniseries, which in turn leads into another miniseries which will doubtless crossover with more books than my wallet can bear, to tell me that this is a multi-faceted fictional context.

I bought Detective Comics because I find Batman appealing, and I find (found, maybe, sadly) Greg Rucka's writing to be entertaining. I'm buying OMAC Project because it seems as though I have to, to enjoy the completion of the story that began in that title. But I'm not happy about it.

So here's the deal. I'm going to buy the OMAC Project, in toto, 2 through 6. At the end of that final issue, I'm going to decide whether I can continue following this character I enjoy while in good conscience ignoring Superman, and the Flash, and those characters that, due to matters of personal taste, aren't for me. If so, I'll continue reading Gotham Central, and Anderson Gabrych's Batgirl and David Lapham's Detective and Devin Grayson's Nightwing (I know, I know, but that's the subject of another post, friends). But if they ask me to buy more than that, suggest that Batman's story is incomplete without a total understanding of the world in which he lives, I'm out. Look, A Tale of Two Cities was a massive undertaking, with a cast of characters larger than the list of people I know, in real life, and well-studied observations of these two contexts considered through a number of disciplines. But it had a finite number of pages, and Dickens never asked for more money after I was done, to tell me how things really ended. And the DC Universe, I know, isn't Victorian Europe, but in its own way, it could be.

Six months and, maybe, I'm out.

But I'll always have "Officer Down".