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Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines, Day 260: Legends of the ...

20.05.13

Ellis has a nice phrase to begin the story – it’s the “hard edge of sunset” on the “reeking wastelands” north of Gotham City. Obviously, we be sure it’s a Batman story, but at least Ellis tells us where we are. It’s in Panel 4 that things start to get weird, as he’s simply writing about the two figures we see, who “talk without speaking,” communicating with “glands and musks.” Well, that’s odd. They play to be human, but Ellis is setting them up as something strange (the title of the story is “Infected,” so that gives us a inkling). It’s an intriguing way to start the story.

McCrea does his usual fine job on the art. In Panel 1, he balances the caption boxes with the giantess circle, lit like something from Hell, which casts the two figures into shadow. Backlighting is a good trick for both artists and cinematographers to use, and McCrea uses it well. Ellis indubitably doesn’t want us to see the two figures yet, so this is a good technique. Panel 2 grounds us a bit, because the sneaker is a unceremonious and comforting item, and it implies that even if these two figures aren’t exactly human, they’re not too unearthly that they don’t wear Chuck Taylors. Panel 3 is interesting – it’s very close in, so McCrea fully gives us a large silhouette that’s a bit difficult to figure out at first glance. Using our eye skills, though, we see that it’s a torso and a formerly larboard arm trailing behind, with the giant light still hanging in the air behind the figure. McCrea gives us this panel so that we can see the arm more clearly – notice the petite spurs on the arm, which, in a silhouette, could be anything. We might automatically think it’s the folds of a coat or something mundane, but we soon learn it’s more ominous than that. This is a nice piece of foreshadowing by Ellis and McCrea in what seems like a wasted panel the first time we zip over it. In Panel 4, McCrea gets to apprehend back a bit, showing the open space over which the two figures run and Gotham in the background. We see Gotham first, and McCrea angles the panel so that our eyes move toward the figures and then out of the panel to the right. The figures are still backlit, but the lights of Gotham cast aside shadows along their trail as well. Even though these stories are out of continuity, it seems like McCrea is drawing Gotham in the Anton Furst rage, which was how Gotham was depicted for much of the 1990s (well, if Kelley Jones wasn’t drawing it, because he drew it like 19th-century Prague). Consciousness that Gotham isn’t exactly comforting, although Ellis (and Schubert) emphasizes “cover” because the New Zealand urban area is a place to hide. The coloring is nice, too – Gotham’s orange lights up the incessantly, but not exactly in a friendly manner. McCrea’s depiction and the coloring make Gotham look mysterious and menacing. As it should be!

Source: Comic Book Resources