Now we can talk about Michelle, introduced way back in issue 4 as the put-upon wife of Rickson, the other notable resident in Bledin Towers. Rickson is Scarface’s main enforcer when he’s not busy being the worst husband in Gotham. And their shared apartment is where the hostage has been strung up like a puppet the whole time. Michelle is initially presented as little more than his doormat, but there are hints from the beginning that there’s more going on. At the end of issue #5, the twist is that she is Scarface, or at least temporarily holds the mantle after being mentored by Arnold Wesker. Wesker is also trapped in the apartment building, but with his tongue cut out, betrayed by his protege. At the end of issue #5, Michelle kills her husband, Rickson, after he fails to keep Batman out, prompted by the Scarface personality now firmly in control in her head. It’s a great setup leading to the final issue of this arc.
Issue #6 picks up in the aftermath of issue #5. Scarface’s henchmen (the other residents in wooden masks) find Michelle in a pool of blood next to Rickson’s dead body, and she convinces them that Batman killed both Rickson and the hostage. Batman, meanwhile, has found Wesker, who offers to help him take down the monster he’s created in Michelle. It is during the interactions between Batman and Wesker that we get the full backstory: Wesker grew up in Bledin Towers and used a back stairwell to get around and spy on others. That’s how he found Michelle and decided to protect her from her abusive husband. Wesker taught her how to be a ventriloquist, and using the hidden stairwell and the building’s reputation for being haunted, they both convinced Rickson that the Scarface dummy was alive. Michelle provided the voice and ordered her husband and everyone else around. Pretty good setup for a Scarface story, and it’s why “he” wanted everyone to stay when the building was set to be demolished.
We get some good Batman detective work putting all this together, because Wesker isn’t telling him this because he can’t talk at this point. But not to worry, Wesker gets his tongue out of Michelle’s freezer and gets it reattached, his gross happy ending. Batman also notices some important details in Michelle’s apartment that add more tragic layers to her story, and maybe explain some of her decisions, even as Scarface. Once Michelle knows Batman and the police are going to find her, she decides the best way to “free the voices of the tower” is to burn it all down. The rescue mission for the police officer quickly turns into an evacuation mission for the whole building. Batman and the police can get almost everyone out, even the kidnapped officer Pryce. In another twist, she wasn’t killed after all, seemingly a compromise between Michelle and Scarface. But her throat had been cut, preventing her from talking about anything she’d seen or from calling for help. Yet another neat story beat related to the theme of voices and how the characters in this book can and can’t communicate. True to form for Bledin Towers, a mysterious voice leads Officer Pryce safely out of the building through the smoke and locked doors. Michelle doesn’t come out with the other residents, but her body isn’t recovered from the debris either. So did she help Pryce? Maybe we’ll see her again? Hard to say, but there are still six issues left and two more stories to go, so there are opportunities to revisit in this book or future ones.
What Works: The story comes together really well here. I wasn’t sure about Scarface taking over a building for a body, but it wasn’t as outlandish as you’d think, and the way the building was portrayed made it a great setting. The building is his body in the sense that it’s possessed, like Scarface is omnipresent for the whole story, which gives it a cool supernatural horror vibe. Props to the creative team for thinking outside the box and making a memorable Scarface story. And the art in these three issues was outstanding, especially the panel layout with the different geometric images. It was such an inspired choice for showing us what it would look like inside an almost-haunted old apartment complex in Gotham. From the first issue with the first look inside, to the panels shaped like everything from semicircles to glass fragments, the art puts you in Bledin Towers in an engaging way. It’s a great example of what comics can do that no other medium can quite replicate. And Batman is wearing his best batsuit the entire time, that dark blue and grey with a big yellow oval. I’ve got to call back to a brilliant panel in issue 4 where we see the Scarface dummy for the first time. The speech bubble appears to be coming from the dummy, but Michelle is perfectly positioned in the background so that after reading the whole story, we know it’s coming from her. It was this panel that first got me thinking her involvement was more than it seemed, and it’s great to have it pay off. There are subtle hints like this throughout, so this will be worth rereading. In fact, there are plenty of details related to themes around puppets, voices, people in control, and people rebelling against control.
What Doesn’t Work: Nothing here doesn’t work; this is a great way to wrap up this arc. I’m loving the three-issue arc structure so far, the stories are just long enough without losing focus. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next story, “Pareidolia.” Loving this series and its commitment to Batman stories that are both traditional and new. – Trey Jackson