Batman ‘89 ends far better than it should, but still disappointingly. Writer Sam Hamm doesn’t go for an action-packed Batman finale, instead letting Bruce Wayne do the final showdown, which ought to emphasize Billy Dee Williams’s Harvey Dent, only doesn’t. It very strangely reduces Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne material as well. Hamm seems to know Bruce Wayne hasn’t got the emotional heft in the story, so he doesn’t try to shoehorn any in; it’s somewhat admirable not to refocus the comic, but it doesn’t make the comic any better.

Worse are all the things Hamm either doesn’t do in the issue or intentionally avoids doing. There’s a difference; with Catwoman, Hamm avoids; with Barbara Gordon, previously a major supporting player, Hamm doesn’t do anything. She’s not even in the main action, instead relegated to the epilogue.

Not-yet-Robin Drake Winston gets the worst of it. The issue reduces him to third-string, behind Catwoman, and completely avoids the Batman and Robin relationship. It’s like Hamm couldn’t crack the finish, which can work in an ongoing comic book series, which ’89 isn’t, but definitely not in a movie, which ’89 is trying to mimic. It’s too bad.

Still, another outing for the series would be most welcome. Joe Quinones’s art is good (outside, you know, Catwoman’s strange new leggings, which I thought Alfred would have to comment on but doesn’t), and it’s not his fault the series finishes so flat. Especially the end, which has what should’ve been a recurring theme introduced on the very last page, but then no good Batman finale. No place for Danny Elfman music to swell.

I had such high hopes for the series, which I knew would be hard for it to achieve, but I still thought they’d finish it better than they do. Hamm really just doesn’t have an ending for the Harvey Dent arc, and the couple monologues he gives the character are lacking; Billy Dee Williams would do a great job, but they’re not heavy-lifting.

Oh, and the action finale is a visual mess. I don’t know if more pages would’ve helped; Quinones can’t fix the writing with the art, but it’s still a mess.

So Batman ‘89 remains at best an occasionally successful curiosity and a surprisingly major disappointment.

But, more, please.

Until this issue, Batman ’89 has been so light on Commissioner Gordon you’d think Pat Hingle’s estate wasn’t letting them use likeness. But he’s got a big part this issue, only for him to come off like a complete asshole. Potentially one who doesn’t like daughter Barbara dating a Black guy but lies to her face about it. There’s only an issue left, so presumably, they’ll be able to rush through it.

In addition to Catwoman’s new costume with the exposed thighs, the most unfilmable part of the comic is Gordon. There are multiple reasons Pat Hingle couldn’t do this part, including the acting required.

Anyway.

This issue has Billy Dee Williams in full “Harvey Two-Face” mode now, flipping the coin to decide various fates. Writer Sam Hamm does a nice job of introducing and executing his first Bat-villain heist—though it does seem very second act and not penultimate issue stuff. Hamm and artist Joe Quinones have a lot of fun with the planning stages, which has Two-Face bringing back the Joker gang and talking through how a supervillain’s goon gang works. In addition, there are some excellent visual nods to Batman 1989 and a fun Dark Knight Returns “cameo.”

The comic’s main plot is Two-Face’s heist planning, with Batman training Robin as one subplot and Barbara Gordon pursuing Harvey as another. Catwoman’s just thrown in—not sure how they would’ve convinced Michelle Pfeiffer to show up for such a small part, but she’s got the most personality in just a couple panels. Hamm’s Selina Kyle is gloriously peculiar. Silly exposed thigh costume or not.

The Robin-in-training sequences are good, with solid banter. You can hear Michael Keaton delivering the lines. Outside Commissioner Gordon’s dialogue, which also has him being drunk and fun at one point, Hamm does a fine job writing for the “cast.”

With only one issue to go, this one’s a little “too late, too much,” with Hamm and Quinones racing and packing, but it’s much better than expected. There’s some nice art from Quinones throughout, and the Batman and Robin banter is a delight, even though there’s not enough of it.

I’m assuming the next issue won’t bungle things too badly, and I hope they get another outing. Though maybe more than six issues; Hamm’s plotting obviously doesn’t work for six.

I’m verklempt. I wasn’t expecting to be verklempt. But writer Sam Hamm is going for it with Batman ‘89, with artist Joe Quinones going along with all of it—try to make a community march, but in Tim Burton’s Gotham City, you got it—and this issue might be where the elevation is permanent. Hamm’s taken this goofy, craven comic book tchotchke and made it special.

And not even because it made me verklempt. I got verklempt in the opening, which is about many Black Gothamites marching after Harvey Dent’s injury and resulting hospitalization. They’re marching in support of Harvey and his renewed mission for a more equitable Gotham City. Commissioner Gordon—mostly off-page—has guaranteed them the cops will be there to help, not hinder. All the church leaders are there; the news is there; it’d take a real asshole to screw it up.

That asshole is Lieutenant Harvey Bullock, who’s a racist piece of shit and is going to attack all the marchers and toss them in jail because it’ll teach them to behave. I’m still unsure who, if anyone, Quinones and Hamm have in mind for the Bullock “casting.”

But then Bullock’s attempts to sabotage the march go wrong when Robin shows up, distributing spray paint and smoke bombs and giving the marchers a chance. Now, since it’s a comic book set in a movie universe, the cops are only using rubber bullets—which are not non-lethal and quite dangerous—so there’s still little danger to the marchers. But thanks to Robin, there’s enough time for Gordon to show up for Pat Hingle’s one-panel cameo. I think it’s got to be a joke about how little Hingle’s in the movies.

Or maybe his estate’s litigious.

Anyway.

After that opening, it’s incredible Hamm’s going to try to flex some more, and flex he does. First, the Harvey in the hospital subplot, which involves Barbara Gordon. She’ll get her own subplot with Selina Kyle (who doesn’t look much like Michelle Pfeiffer, but it’s still cool to see professional, not boss-murdery Selina in action); they don’t quite pass Bechdel, but it’s more because the system’s patriarchal and sexist. Like, they actually don’t have anything else to talk about in their scene.

We get some insight into Harvey and Two-Face, who argue, which is interesting. There are also a bunch of Superman: The Movie homages with Harvey’s escape from the cops and eventual lair, which is neat. It’d have been really cute in a movie in 1995 or whatever.

But the other big swing and hit from Hamm is introducing (Not Tim) Drake Winston to Bruce Wayne. Drake’s pretty sure Wayne’s Batman, for a bunch of good reasons—including some funny ones—and he’s trying to suss out his suspicions. Meanwhile, thanks to Alfred, Bruce has just discovered his great grand-daddy put Drake’s great grand-daddy out of business on a shitty white man whim once upon a time. So there’s this uncomfortable depth to the relationship immediately, even before it turns into Michael Keaton—even a dramatic Michael Keaton—playing straight man in comedy scenes. But then it worked out perfectly.

There are only two more issues, and who knows how this book has sold but damn, I hope they get another one. I’m not familiar enough with this genre—which, for the longest time, was solely the purview of Stars Wars and Treks—Hamm and Quinones seem primed to fully legitimize it as an artistic endeavor.

Did the Michelle Pfeiffer/Tim Burton Catwoman movie never get made because she refused to wear the new outfit from Batman ’89? Or are the costume designs on the comic just going to be wanting overall. Robin seems inevitable, and I’m concerned.

But the banter between Batman and Catwoman—Michael Keaton and Pfeiffer—is kind of exactly what I’d always wished it would be. Their rooftop rendezvous is half-great, then a quarter hints at a reveal, and the last quarter is set up for next issue’s A plot. It’s a little too efficient when it needs to be prolonged, especially since writer Sam Hamm has spent the entire issue teasing the scene.

The issue’s got a bunch of action at the start, only not really. Billy Dee Williams goes from star of the comic to the “And” credit after we get the ’89 origin of Two-Face. Sorry, Harvey Two-Face; I wonder if they’ll go there. Worse, Harvey receives a couple dream sequences. Now, artist Joe Quinones does a fabulous job with most of this issue—Catwoman’s new costume aside—and really shows off in the banter sequences between Bruce Wayne and Alfred (and their cat), and then Bruce and (Tim) Drake (Winston) Robin (Zeddemore) or whatever his name’s going to end up being, but he does not do a great dream sequence. Maybe, you know, Tim Burton would’ve done it well or whatever, but in the comic… it looks like a rushed riff on the High Anxiety VHS box cover. Not really worthy of Billy Dee Williams’s Two-Face origin story.

Actually, given the villain origin sequences in Batman and Batman Returns… it’s even more of a bummer. But they may still have time to fix it. I was worried when I thought it was issue four, and there were only two more left, but it’s the third, and there’s possibly time. Hamm and Quinones do a good job packing in content, but they could obviously use another five pages. It feels like a surprisingly good comic book adaptation of a non-existent movie, which is probably the best approach.

I’d be more enthusiastic for next issue if there’d been another page of Keaton and Pfeiffer flirting and less dream sequence. And maybe at least an appearance from Commissioner Gordon, who’s strangely absent like Pat Hingle’s likeness isn’t under contract or something.

But Bruce and Drake are potentially a fun duo. As ever, fingers crossed they pull ’89 off.

So it’s not Batman ‘89, it’s Batman ’93? As in, set after Batman Returns… is it just Sam Hamm’s Batman Forever? If so, it’s still okay. I just wasn’t expecting the returning character at the end of the issue. I also wasn’t expecting Hamm to do a deep cut to the original script—and the Craig Shaw Gardner novelization—of Batman. At one point, Bruce Wayne needs to costume up, and he doesn’t have his Batsuit, so he goes into his trunk, dons a ski mask, and charges into battle, which is one of those moments from the novelization I remember since it never comes close to happening in the movie.

In fact, outside the first scene, there’s no Batman action. Instead, it’s Harvey Dent coming to terms with being a Black man in the white establishment while trying to address police violence against Black people in Gotham. And Bruce Wayne realizing there are limitations to vigilantism, and maybe he should spend his money helping instead of just assuming he’s beating up the right people.

Hamm’s script goes in very hard on protests against police violence and structural racism, and so on. It’s impossible to imagine it in 1989, 1993, or 1995. Batman ’89 is of a moment, and it’s this one. It’s post-White Knight, it’s post-“Batgirl of Burnside”—Burnside’s still pre-gentrified, though Barbara Gordon isn’t a kid here, she’s Harvey Dent’s plus one. The comic talks around whether or not Dent doesn’t want to be seen with her because she’s white or because she’s Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, as he finds himself working for a community instead of trying to police it out of existence. Hamm’s writing has got its limits, and he’s bumping into them over and over, but he’s trying.

Joe Quinones’s art is excellent. There’s only that first scene with the Batsuit reverence, but all of the art is very carefully done. The expressions are just right for Bruce Wayne to imply Michael Keaton without going too far; Quinones’s scales back the almost caricature take from last issue. Michael Gough’s Alfred gets some good scenes. Given many of the characters have real-life analogs, I wish they’d “cast” the rest of the comic, too, just because Quinones does so well.

The issue also introduces Robin, who will be an entirely new character—unless he gets a “Robin John Blake” moment or whatever—and Hamm’s making another wide swing with him. Not just a Black Robin, but one very aware of being a Black man in a hostile, racist environment. Batman movies, of course, always go overboard with sidekicks and villains, they just can’t help themselves (action figures don’t sell themselves), and Hamm’s getting together a very full cast.

But he’s also taking the opportunity seriously, and he’s definitely working to keep up with Quinones’s dynamite work. Batman ’89/’93 is heading into act two… I really hope they’ve got it figured.

I haven’t read any of the previous DC comics sequels to their TV or movie properties—I think it’s just been TV properties, right (“Batman” and “Wonder Woman”)—but I’m certainly sympathetic to the proposition. I did, after all, read the ostensible canon IDW Star Trek: The JJ Abrams Years series for a while.

But Batman ’89… I’m actually unsure how to unpack all the nostalgia and fan service. It’s not just “another” Michael Keaton (more on that casting in a bit) Batman; it’s Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face.

Or, a Harvey Dent who looks enough like Billy Dee Williams. There are a few things in the issue I don’t think they’d ever have done in a nineties movie, like have a Black Harvey Dent confront how he’s moved on up. Because so far, Batman ’89 is Dent’s story. There’s a little Bruce Wayne, a little Batman, but the Dent story is the A-plot.

A couple things first.

“Michael Keaton” Bruce Wayne. Joe Quinones’s art in this issue is excellent. The beginning, which has Batman stalking Harvey Dent for no reason actually, gave me shudders; it’s when I realized how good this comic felt. Even before getting to Sam Hamm’s on-point Batman dialogue. But the Bruce Wayne. It looks like a Mad Magazine caricature of Michael Keaton. So much it makes you wonder if he’s got residuals due for likeness, and they wanted to get away with it on a technicality. It doesn’t really matter yet—and might never matter, depending on how the series (which runs six issues) goes—but it’s not great.

The rest is pretty great. Yes, the whited-out Batman eyes don’t seem right with the Batman 1989 costume, and Quinones and Hamm’s Commissioner Gordon (ostensibly based on Pat Hingle) is very much not Pat Hingle. The Commissioner Gordon is better than Pat Hingle could ever be.

Quinones’s “production design” is perfect, moving between movie locations, creating new ones, and introducing old comics homages. The secret origin of the Batcave penny is here, even though it never made the movie Batcave.

The story’s set soon after the first movie. Once the city realized having a vigilante on call would lead to property damage (nice to see Samm kept up on Batman comics enough to read White Knight), Gordon and Batman are working together on the down-low. That arrangement bothers district attorney Dent, who decides to break it up, his engagement to Barbara Gordon be darned. Well, Barbara seems to support Harvey against her dad, so not so darned.

There’s a good backstory for the lucky coin, there’s socially conscious superheroing they’d never have done in one of the movies, and there’s a surprise character. The bad guys so far are leftover Joker thugs, which tracks.

Batman ’89 is a solid comic with all the right strings for the target demographic. Maybe not the comic of the decade, but it certainly legitimizes the concept of professional fan-fic.