I really hope this won’t be the last time we see Harvey and Jason team up. Never in a million years would I have expected them to have a bickering failure duo dynamic right out of a Shane Black movie like The Nice Guys or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Absolutely inspired use of both characters.

Is TASK FORCE Z in continuity? (Or: “A Fool’s Errand”)

A lot of people, including myself, have been wondering if Task Force Z (the book where Jason Todd and Harvey Dent lead a team of undead villains hopped up on Lazarus resin) is canon or an AU title.

I’d initially assumed it was the latter, given that it was a zombie book launching around the same times as AU titles like Dark Knights of Steel and DC Vampires, co-written by TFZ writer Matthew Rosenberg. However, I didn’t realize that TFZ was initially established in a backup story in Detective Comics over the preceding months (explaining how Jason ended up with this team), thereby making it in-continuity! Right?

(”They’re DYING to meet you.” One can just imagine Harvey patting himself on the back for that joke, like the embarrassing uncle he is. Also, that fish guy isn’t even on the actual team in the book and only shows up in flashbacks as a lab rat. Is this the first indication of the book changing plot details at the last second?)

But as the little blurb says on the bottom, this is where things get complicated.

First off, there’s Bane. He was supposedly murdered around the time of the Joker War, wherein the Joker showed he did not approve of Bane’s methods in Tom King’s run and wanted to show his displeasure. It was a pretty ignominious end for a villain like Bane, and as far as deaths in comics go, that looked pretty final. There’s a body and everything!

(Also, Astrid Arkham supposedly died... at some point? I can’t find any scene where she died. Did someone forget to actually show her getting killed off before this happened? At least Man-Bat died onscreen, also in the Detective Comics backups.)

So having him show up in TFZ makes sense. He’s dead, now he’s a zombie shell of his former self, slowly regaining memories of who he is and what he’s done (like murdering Alfred). Which is something Jason made sure of before kicking him off a roof to kill him all over again.

However, thanks to Lazarus resin, Harvey and his team were able to scoop up the gooey pieces of Bane and regrow him in a tank. Because as a wise man once said, “A lot of tape and a little patience makes all the difference!” So zombie Bane is back, still carrying out Harvey’s orders much to Jason’s displeasure.

EXCEPT he showed up the very next month alive and well in the pages of the Joker solo series, written by James Tynion IV, the guy who killed off Bane in the first place!

So what the fuck?

We don’t yet know how Bane survived what seemed to be a pretty clear death, and I imagine answers are forthcoming in the next issue of Joker due out in late April. It seems like Bane’s faked death was likely part of Tynion’s personal long-game, and it’s entirely possible that either he or Rosenberg will explain what’s going on in their respective books sooner or later.

Like, we know clones play a role in TFZ, so maybe ZomBane is a clone? But how would that explain him having Bane’s memories like killing Alfred? Well, maybe he was programmed with them. But that would assume that some clone-programmer would’ve had to have known about Bane killing Alfred and why Alfred was important to Jason, so CloneZomBane would express understanding about why Jason is re-killing him. The only person who might have been able to supply that information is Harvey, and that’s even assuming that Rosenberg remembers that Harvey knows that Bruce is Batman. A lot of big “ifs” here! 

Now, there may be an explanation forthcoming, if this little tidbit from the very bottom of the final page of the most recent issue of TFZ is any indication...

... but I can’t shake the suspicion that any twist about ZomBane not being the real Bane wasn’t always the original plan for Rosenberg’s story. The Bane reveal in Joker happened well over a month ago, plenty of time to change story details at the last minute (see also: the zombie fish-man who was set up to be a main team member, then was gone one month later).

Look. So long as there’s an explanation, that’s fine. But there really needs to be an explanation, especially one that holds SOME water (the bucket can be a little leaky, that’s fine), and I’m still not confident that one is forthcoming. This is DC, after all, a company that has a long history of making shit up as they go, with editorial teams who don’t communicate with each other or even care about consistency. 

Which brings us to the other big problem: Mr. Freeze. He shows up in the first issue of TFZ and promptly dies in an explosion.

Another ignominious death of a great villain, only without even a body being left behind, so it’d be easy enough to either ignore or have it be a setup for Freeze becoming a new zombie member. So what happens? DC does both. First, he shows up alive and well in Mariko Tamaki’s Arkham storyline in Detective Comics:

Then, little over a month later, he pops up as a zombie in TFZ alongside the reconstructed possible-clone-possibly-not ZomBane:

The events of TFZ follow a clear trajectory, with Freeze dying in the first issue and then getting reconstructed with Lazarus resin to appear in the fifth issue. But his appearance in ‘Tec plainly ignores that, which again feels like editors either not communicating or caring.

Here’s the thing, we comic fans know that continuity is a joke. If it really mattered, we’d also have gotten some acknowledgement of how Freeze managed to overcome where he was left off in Peter Tomasi’s run of ‘Tec, where a now-evil Nora Fries injected him with a serum which made it so that he couldn’t survive without being kept in cryostasis.

How did his condition improve back to the point where he could be awake and in his cold suit again? Fuck you, that’s how. He just is. In fact, that story may never have happened. In fact, what story? You’re imagining things. Buy more comics.

By the way, I checked: all these stories were overseen by the same editors, Paul Kaminski and Dave Wielgosz. So this isn’t a case of different editors not being on the same page as they rush to put out several monthly titles. It’s all the same guys.

Thing is, I’d be willing and able to overlook all of this if it weren’t for one problem: I’m actually invested in the plot of TFZ. Particularly, I’m invested in the brilliant new use of Two-Face as a complicatedly redemptive figure, doing shady work with good intentions and becoming a protective figure to Jason Todd. I love seeing Harvey Dent finally be something more than just a villain, and I’m amazed at how much I love his dynamic with Jason.

I don’t want to see this get ignored next year or even next month by whatever writer wants to come along and use Two-Face as a bad guy again. Hell, I’m already not comfortable with how TFZ is ignoring how Batman cares about Harvey, and bent over backwards to save his best friend’s soul in Tomasi’s story from 2020, all just so Rosenberg can stoke more tension between Bruce and Jason.

Despite this, I’m loving this take on Harvey and I want it to stick. But how can I do that, knowing it could be undone at any point? Possibly even by another writer in a different book before TFZ is even finished!

Look, we all know continuity is a joke at DC. At a certain point, trying to look for any consistency seems like setting yourself up for mockery. Ha ha, foolish little baby fan is trying to make sense of comics! To paraphrase MST3K, perhaps it’s best to just repeat yourself “It’s just DC, I should really just relax.”

But at a certain point, this callous disregard for even a semblance of canon--especially within weeks apart!--just becomes exhausting. Why bother getting invested in anything? If DC doesn’t care, then why the hell should I? Why should anyone? I’ve seen that question lead more than one person to quit superhero comics. Maybe that’s just the nature of the industry, and it’s foolish to expect anything better. But if I weren’t a fool, I probably wouldn’t still be reading DC, would I?

So is Task Force Z in continuity? As with any other DC story, it’s Schrodinger’s Canon: both in and out until otherwise stated and even then subject to change at any given time. Buy more comics.

I think this may be my favorite superhero team roll-call ever.

And with this, Arkham War went from "bland and forgettable" to utterly fucking ridiculous. For god's sake, didn't we already just do this back at the start of the New 52 with one of the stupidiest Batman stories in recent memory? Looks like even decent writers like Tomasi are still taking the worst lessons from the first Arkham game.

Also, "isn't it a poison?" Of everyone there, why the hell are you so concerned, Pam?

Has anyone read today's Villain's Month issues for Bane, Croc, and Man-Bat?

The Bane one interests me because it's drawn by his co-creator Graham Nolan, whose work on Detective Comics I grew up reading in the 90's, so I'm attracted to the nostalgia factor.

The Croc one looks potentially good too, if only because someone actually remembered that he's African-American and that he has a sympathetic origin. Both of these factors seem to have been largely forgotten in favor of making him either a half-feral cannibalistic mutant monster and/or a stupid "I-threw-a-rock-at-'im" mutant monster. Croc should be a much more complex character than he is, but much like Clayface, he's usually just used as a stupid powerhouse and nothing else. So I have high hopes for this issue, even as I'm sure that it's all setup for Bane versus Croc 2: Back to the Sewers.

The Man-Bat one, however, looks most distressing. Never mind that Man-Bat's not a villain, but based on the seven-page preview I read, it looks like another long-time DC Comics marriage has been trashed by retcon. Kirk and Francine Langstrom have been together through thick and think since the early 70's, but now, it looks like Francine is revealed to have ALWAYS been a evil duplicitous manipulator who is now, in bat form, snatching up children to eat.

So yeah, it looks like we can't even have stable, happy marriages even amongst the C-list characters. And who wrote this? Oh right, Frank Tieri, the same guy who wrote the "Sometimes the bullies get it right" Penguin issue last week! But maybe it's all a misdirection. I will be shocked if any writer at DC would be clever enough to play off of the lowered, pessimistic expectations of their readers (I think the last time DC did that was with 52), but if Tieri is going somewhere with that, then I will eat my words like Francine Langstrom eats children now.

So yeah, if anyone reads these issues, please let me know what you think!

Batman and villains, MAD fold-in style, by the one and only Al Jaffee.

It's kinda weird to look at this and realize that he pretty much directly copied Greg Capullo for the Riddler, David Finch for the Scarecrow, and Jason Fabok for the Penguin.

"It's a rough world, pal."