I either made a crack about Steve Englehart writing the narration for Detective Comics for the “Batman: The TV Show” announcer, or I thought about making the crack. This issue Englehart’s back at it, ad nauseam. Then Chief O’Hara shows up doing banter, and maybe it’s supposed to be a grim and gritty remake of “Batman: The TV Show.” It’d still be bad, but at least it’d make some sense.

This issue finishes Englehart’s run on the book, getting some resolution for the Rupert Thorne and Hugo Strange business and Batman’s romance with Silver St. Cloud.

It’s not very good. I mean, there’s some great art. Most of the comic takes place in the rain, and artists Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin do some beautiful work. The story’s not very good. It’s not exactly badly plotted… well, wait. Silver does charter a plane from Akron to Gotham to go back for the finale. But the split is good; it’s between Batman’s failed attempts to thwart the Joker, Silver hitchhiking with Rupert Thorne, and then a little Joker spotlight.

The Joker stuff in this issue—writing-wise—is nothing compared to the last issue. It’s not bad; some of it’s good; it’s just not startling. It’s pretty good, at least until Batman shows up and pontificates.

The Batman and Joker stuff this issue also has an amusing subtext: Batman can’t figure out how to stop the Joker on his own, and only because of magic can he do it. It’s silly.

But they also have a rooftop chase scene on skyscrapers in the rain, and Rogers and Austin draw the hell out of it. Great colors from Glynis Oliver.

Some of the issue reads like The Dark Knight ‘Returns’, down to how the panels work. Then other times, it reminds of Todd McFarlane. Englehart, Rogers, and Austin undeniably influenced. But unless you’re doing a Batman history report or studying Rogers and Austin’s art, you can skip the arc. Or just read Laughing Fish. Then you miss the worse writing and terrible, shallow, weird characterizations from early in the arc.

Anyway.

Gorgeous art. The rest can go.

So, reading this issue—the first of the Joker Laughing Fish two-parter—it’s clear why the comic’s got such an excellent reputation. Even with the utterly banal, fascist narration and Batman talking like a tool, it’s a great comic.

Four things happen in the comic, all excellent for one reason or another.

First, Batman goes to confront Silver St. Cloud because he thinks she thinks she knows he’s Bruce Wayne. He’s got to steel himself up for the conversation; she’s in her little sister’s bathrobe, getting ready for her date with Bruce; it doesn’t go well for either of them. We get thought balloons from both, first Batman, then Silver. Thanks to Marshall Rogers’s design-heavy panels, even writer Steve Englehart’s most leaden lines work out. It’s a great start and just gets better: after leaving her apartment, calling her from a phone booth in Bruce voice, some fishermen hail Batman down to tell him their catch is all Joker-faced.

The Joker has poisoned all the fish in the sea to look like him. Presumably, they don’t die, and they’re still safe to eat because the next great scene is the Joker going to the copyright office to demand legal rights to all the fish. I’ve tried to be as honest as possible about my dated nostalgia for the comic and Englehart’s disappointing writing, but, holy shit, Batman, Englehart’s Joker is phenomenal. Rogers (and inker Terry Austin) obviously play a big part, but all the problems Englehart’s had writing the comic disappear when he’s writing the Joker. It’s magnificent.

Joker’s going to kill the copyright clerk at midnight unless he gets the paperwork through; Batman goes to help Gordon protect the clerk. It’s a speedy locked room mystery with a fantastic visual finale. I feel like the locked room mystery is an homage to an early Batman, possibly something reprinted in Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. This issue showed up in Greatest Joker and, well, duh.

The other excellent bit is Rupert Thorne’s continued meltdown. He gets into a fight with the Joker in the men’s room (it happens) before running out on his pals and skipping town. On the way, he picks up a familiar hitchhiker to set up more of next issue’s peril.

I wonder if skipping the previous issues, regardless of their continuity value, is the best way to read Laughing Fish. Silver’s never had this much characterization, Englehart’s Batman-in-love has never been anywhere near this good, the Joker’s singular, and the Thorne subplot seems interesting. Plus, Rogers was stilted at the beginning.

Or is it confirmation bias because I’m describing how I first read it as a kid when it really hit.

Anyway.

Great comic. Finally.

When I was eleven, I first read this comic in the Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told hardcover. Then there was the next part in Greatest Joker. It’d be years before I could read the complete Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin arc. But this issue is where it all started.

So as I break through the bonds of my earthly confinement, traveling through time and space to remember… “Batman: The TV Show” was still a thing back then. It regularly reran. Bad Batman-related narration was a thing. Hell, it might’ve saved the Schumacher movies.

Because while I’m not going to strain myself singing this issue’s praises, it’s the best issue of Detective I’ve read so far from this era. Like, lots happens. Englehart’s pacing is a lot better. Rogers is finally able to do quick action sequences, which means the issue’s got at least four action beats. Five. See, so many I forget them.

The issue opens with Batman and Robin wrestling in the Batcave because bros. Then there’s something about Robin being a ladies’ man just like Bruce, which is problematic, but it sets up Bruce Wayne as having an emotional arc this issue. Englehart doesn’t do a great job, but it’s not bad either. The way he plots the arc is outstanding. The central drama this issue is Bruce becoming convinced Silver St. Cloud suspects he’s Batman and being awkward through lunch with her.

Well, and Deadshot breaking out of prison for the first time since Batman locked him up twenty-five years earlier or something. It ties into the Penguin’s arrest after last issue. Everyone makes fun of the Penguin in this issue, but in ableist, shitty ways. It’s weird.

Deadshot gets a flash new costume—his last outfit was a society dandy with a top hat and Zorro mask—and goes Batman-hunting. They have a delightful six-page fight ending in Silver’s convention hall. She’s a convention organizer because Bruce Wayne’s not falling for an unaccomplished gal. Englehart’s never written Silver particularly well, so this issue’s probably the best; she gets to talk the most she’s ever talked, interrogating Bruce about his history with Batman.

There is a lot of bad writing from Englehart, though. Lots of the narration is terrible.

But it’s Rogers’s best issue so far. He does a better job breaking down the page, how the panels interact with each other, not just how they exist on their own. Still very design-oriented, but learning. Fast learning.

Or maybe I’m still just ten years old reading it.

Steve Englehart writes Bruce Wayne as a narcissistic asshole who bullies and psychologically abuses ward Dick Grayson. Grayson, for his part, has drunk the Kool-Aid; at one point, he talks about how mental illness is no excuse, and at another, he waxes on about Batman’s such a great man. It’s such weird, bad writing.

Though Englehart does his version of a Bob Rozakis, “can you solve it,” and Englehart’s a complete prick about it. It’s not even a good mystery. It’s a boring one and a distraction. This issue has Batman and Robin going after the Penguin, who’s in town to rob some gallery. The Penguin’s giving them clues, which Robin’s overconfident about solving, and Batman gleefully berates him for his mistakes.

There’s also Robin being creepy about Silver St. Cloud, who has a kiss-and-make-up scene with Bruce. She apologizes for investigating Bruce’s weird behavior, even though she’s the one who got the ball rolling on saving the day. The boys try to assuage her, but then it’s just kissy time. The scene might play better without Robin being a creep. Unfortunately, he’s a little creep multiple times in the issue.

The issue opens with them just a moment too late to discover Hugo Strange is dead—and piece together who killed him since the thugs dumping the body work for Councilman Rupert Thorne. There’s lots this issue about the people of Gotham still liking Batman even though Thorne’s outlawed him. Robin agrees elected officials have no right to limit Batman’s vigilantism, so they’re going to buck the system and go on the Penguin hunt.

The draw’s the art; Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin do a much more design-oriented book than the last couple. It’s all superhero stuff with Batman and Robin, no mood, no time for tone. It’s good art, sometimes beautifully designed, but rarely exciting.

The pacing’s good, which helps. It only drags once Penguin’s silly caper is revealed. Until then, Englehart’s got a good momentum going.

It’s just it’s momentum for a middling issue.

I’ve the sneaking suspicion last issue, when the evil nurse commented on Hugo Strange and Batman complementing each other’s physical and mental prowess when they should be fighting, it wasn’t writer Steve Englehart acknowledging the absurdity of the machismo; it was him making fun of the silly woman for not getting it.

There’s a scene with Robin, and he’s a little fascist, muscles bulging and breaking his uniform to leave him with a heck of a V-neck. Throw in the ending, which has a character ruminating on the pure machismo of Batman… I think Englehart’s on the level with this nonsense.

Bummer. It’d be nice for the story to have some black comedy.

That not inconsiderable observation made, it’s a reasonably good issue. There are some genuinely great moments thanks to Marshall Rogers’s pencils, Terry Austin’s inks, and Jerry Serpe’s colors. Not great Batman moments—for reasons—just great comic booking. Silver St. Cloud is a thunderstorm, for example. It’s five panels; four vertical rectangles (two of them skinny) and one horizontal. She’s mad at Bruce Wayne for breaking up with her, so she decides to go to the private hospital where he was being treated. It’s just a beautifully visualized sequence.

There are a few of them throughout the comic. Makes up for some of the shortcomings.

Hugo Strange has assumed Bruce Wayne’s two identities; he’s Batman now, too (something the cover makes a lot of noise about but has zip to do with the comic); Alfred’s imprisoned with an unconscious Bruce Wayne; Silver’s gotten dumped by an imposter; that imposter is set on bankrupting Wayne Enterprises and selling Bruce’s secret identity to the highest bidder. There are three bidders—corrupt politician Rupert Thorne, the Penguin, and the Joker.

One of them will skip the auction and attack Strange, even if he’s traveling with his monster men. Rogers and Austin do a great job with Strange and the monster men. Just something about the designs and how they fit in the panels; they look great. Rogers does well with those layouts—they’re a gangster movie homage. When it comes to acrobatic Robin action? Not so good. Rushed and not so good. The issue turns it around because Rogers can handle the finale. His sense of design works for the overwrought, dramatic finish, but he can’t do simple fisticuffs.

There aren’t really any story highlights—though, depending on next issue, the plot might be quirky. It’s too soon to tell here. Maybe Englehart’s got some ideas; maybe he doesn’t. He needs to follow through. This issue is a delay but also an often gorgeously illustrated one.

I’m not as enthusiastic a fan of this run as I used to be, but it’s got some definite pluses.

So, I figured out where Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers’s Detective Comics belongs. As a comic strip in late seventies Playboy. Seriously. Rogers’s art is detailed but plain, intricately designed but not artsy. Englehart’s exposition is childish—“comic book-ish”—and treats Batman as a fascist action figure, but it’s incredibly consistent. Lots! Of! Declarative! Statements!

Plus, this incredibly banal writing—dialogue too, the dialogue’s just! As! Declarative!—is just the style; the content’s adult. Political corruption and sexual innuendo for Bruce Wayne and Silver St. Cloud. It’s a lousy cologne commercial.

And a well-illustrated one. Rogers visualizes the heck out of Englehart’s script with a phenomenal combination of detail and personality. It’s excellent comic booking.

But I don’t like it. I always considered myself a big Englehart and Rogers Batman fan; since the early 1990s, since The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. But I’m not digging it. Yet. I might dig it. But it’s too didactic, too pragmatic, too effective. To be that asshole, there’s no slippage.

I get it too. Englehart’s done a couple issues of Detective already, and they look terrible when they don’t have an incredibly tight artist on them. It’s infinitely impressive how successfully Rogers is illustrating. But the story’s camp. The art’s not camp—and the art before on Englehart’s issues wasn’t camp—but Englehart’s script is camp. Maybe it’s intentionally camp; I hope it’s intentionally camp. It might not intentionally be camp.

Doesn’t matter. It plays like camp, and it clashes with the art; only the art is able to successfully package it. It’s a hell of a comic.

It’s just not a very good story. Lots of moody art—not a lot of moody Batman yet, mostly Bruce Wayne—but Rogers’s just doing setup. Bruce checks into a ritzy hospital for his radiation burns while the corrupt politicians conspire against Batman. It turns out the hospital is fake, set up to kidnap rich people.

Bruce Wayne might be locked in his room, but Batman can get to the bottom of it, leading up to a big reveal cliffhanger. Right after introducing the deep-cut villain return.

Wait, someone makes fun of how Batman and the villain talk to each other. Englehart knows what’s up. Still not a good story. But, damn, does Rogers tell it well.

And great inks from Terry Austin, obviously.