Reading Issue #1 of Oz-story Aloud to My Kids

Oz-story Magazine ran for six years, collecting a mix of archival and original Oz and Oz-adjacent fiction and comic strips. It was published by Hungry Tiger Press, with editing by Hungry Tiger publisher David Maxine and art direction by his partner, Eric Shanower. It contains a number of pieces of Oz short fiction you can't find elsewhere, so I decided to incorporate it into the Oz books I've been reading my kids. Even though it's called a magazine, it's bound like a book and runs 128 pages and even has an ISBN.

Oz-story Magazine, Number One
edited by David Maxine
art director: Eric Shanower

Anthology published: 1995
Contents originally published: 1906-95
Acquired and read aloud: September 2025

The first issue contained four short stories that I read aloud to my kids. The first was "Percy and the Shrinking Violets" by Rachel Cosgrove Payes; this brings back Percy the giant white rat from her novels The Hidden Valley and Wicked Witch of Oz. Unfortunately, even though it was just over a year ago that we read these books, my seven-year-old did not remember Percy at all! The story, where Percy—and then later, Ozma—is shrunk by a magical violet is fun enough, though one feels like Ozma and Percy are a little slow on the uptake at times.

Before Ruth Plumly Thompson became an Oz writer, she published short tales of a kingdom called Pumperdink, which she revealed in Kabumpo in Oz was actually in the Gillikin Country. This volume collects one of those older stories, "The Dragon of Pumperdink," a fun story about a dragon running out of coal (Thompson's dragons die if their internal flame dies out) who needs to seek employment.

The longest short story in the book (I serialized it over three nights) is "Gugu and the Kalidahs" by Eric Shanower. This brings back Gugu the leopard from The Magic of Oz—given we read this back when my kid was three, no way did they remember Gugu! Thankfully, Kalidahs were memorable from their recent experiences of various adaptations of the original book (both the Shanower/Oz comic and the Yoto audio adaptation have gotten recent play), because otherwise there are no familiar Oz characters. The story is about how Gugu's forest gets invaded by Kalidahs, in violation of ancient treaty. and Gugu must do his best to push them out... alone. It's a tense, dark story; it's been a long time since I read The Jungle Book, but it felt like an Oz refraction of Kipling. The illustrations are not in Shanower's usual style, but they are striking.

Lastly, there's "The Balloon-Girl of Oz," credited to Stephen Kane, but actually by Eric Shanower. This focuses on my kids' eternal favorite, Scraps the Patchwork Girl, who here swells up like a balloon, and has to desperately make her way back to the Emerald City for help without floating off into space. I always like Oz stories that put the characters in a weird situation they must think through logically in order to solve, and of course pictures of Scraps looking like a balloon are going to be delightful. My kids were very much into the absurdity of this one. I particularly liked the ending, where Scraps gets to mad at all the people laughing at how funny she looks, so she just lets go and floats off into the sky!

In addition to all this, there's a couple comics; I read "The Pathetic Losers of Oz" by Ed Brubaker, about all the Oz residents with powers not worth mentioning. I did not read Walt Sprouse's comic adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz, but my comics-loving seven-year-old did.

Additionally, there's two stories I didn't read to the kids. One is a nice little piece of literary fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Outside the Cabinet-Makers," which mentions Mombi, so I guess Fitzgerald was a fan!

The other is a complete novel (over fifty pages of small type) by L. Frank Baum from 1906: Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea, or The Boy Fortune Hunters in Alaska. This I read to myself after reading everything aloud to the kids. I think I made the right call there, I don't think they would have been into it, but I actually found it surprisingly fun, a boy's-own adventure about an orphan boy to enters into a partnership with his late father's business partner to hunt for gold in Alaska, but ends up finding a whole different adventure instead. (As David Maxine points out in the intro, despite the subtitle, there's only one boy fortune hunter and they never make it to Alaska!) Baum is good at putting people into tough situations they must work they way out of. Maybe once we get through all the issues of Oz-story, I'll seek out the other Sam Steele novels. (The novel was not illustrated originally, but cleverly, Shanower selects a bunch of John R. Neill illustrations from various other projects that work perfectly well; you never would have guessed!)

Young Avengers Presents by Ed Brubaker, Brian Reed, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Paul Cornell, Kevin Grevioux, Matt Fraction, Paco Medina, Harvey Tolibao, Alina Urusov, Mark Brooks, Mitch Breitweiser, Alan Davis, et al.

After Civil War, the Young Avengers next appeared in a miniseries called Young Avengers Presents. This is collected in the Young Avengers by Heinberg & Cheung omnibus, but I picked it up on its own in a used bookstore way back when, so I read that copy instead. Much easier to hold a trade paperback than a giant hardcover!

Young Avengers Presents

Collection published: 2008
Contents originally published: 2008
Acquired: December 2012
Read: July 2025

Writers: Ed Brubaker, Brian Reed, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Paul Cornell, Kevin Grevioux, Matt Fraction

Artists: Paco Medina & Juan Vlasco, Harvey Tolibao, Alina Urusov, Mark Brooks & Jaime Mendoza, Mitch Breitweiser, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer

Colorists: Nathan Fairbairn, Jay David Ramos, Christina Strain, Brian Reber, Paul Mounts

Letterer: Cory Petit

The miniseries consists of six issues, each focused on a single member of the Young Avengers (except for #3, which teams up Wiccan and Speed) in the wake of Civil War. I'm not as plugged into big Marvel events the way I am into DC ones, so I had to work out some stuff here from context that must have happened in titles not focused on the Young Avengers: mostly they are working on the side of the Avengers who have gone underground because they are illegal, except for Cassie "Stature" Lang, who is working for the Initiative, which I think is the legit, government-registered superhero team? Since (or in?) Civil War, Captain America is dead, the Young Avengers met Bucky, and Hawkeye and Captain Marvel came back to life. Mostly this fine, though; I was able to follow along, except it would have been nice to know what made Cassie part from her comrades and pick the Initiative instead. 

Each story has a different creative team, but there are no duds here. The writing in each story is great, and in most cases the art is too. I'll take it story by story; the first is Ed Brubaker, Paco Medina, and Juan Vlasco's tale of Patriot. This is one of the highlights of a strong volume; Eli "Patriot" Bradley is questioning his own name. How can he be a "patriot" for a country that did what it did to his grandfather and so many others, that refuses to see patriotism unless it's jingoism? With Hawkeye's help, he seeks out—in the absence of Captain America—his erstwhile sidekick, Bucky Barnes. Bucky can't give him any answers, which I think makes the story all the stronger: two people trying to find the America they aspire to. Brubaker is generally a strong writer but not one I'd associate with teen heroes, to be honest, so it's pleasing to see him do such a good job here, and the art by Medina and Vlasco matches him well, detailed and realistic, with good command of faces, which is needed in a dialogue-heavy story. A strong opening to the volume.

Is that really an appropriate outfit for a high school teacher? (It definitely is very mid-2000s, though.)
from Young Avengers Presents #1 (script by Ed Brubaker, art by Paco Medina & Juan Vlasco)

The second story, about Hulking, is equally strong. In the original Young Avengers story, Hulkling discovered that his mother wasn't really his mother, but that he was the son of the Kree warrior Captain Marvel and a Skrull princess; his supposed mother was killed. At the time, his parentage was academic because Captain Marvel was dead—but this is comics, and Brian Reed and Harvey Tolibao's story begins with him seeking out his recently resurrected father. I found this really sharp and astute, a boy and a man trying to reach out and forge a connection where none exists. Sure, they are father and son, but they share only DNA, not any kind of emotional bond. It's quite sad, and really well done. I think of the five OG Young Avengers, Hulkling and Wiccan were the two who felt the least fully formed to me, and this does a good job of remedying that when it comes to Hulkling.

Not too surprising he has father issues, I guess.
from Young Avengers Presents #2 (script by Brian Reed, art by Harvey Tolibao)

We then move onto a story of Wiccan and his twin-from-another-mother, Speed; they theorize that they are the lost souls of the children of the Scarlet Witch, and in this story they set out together to find her. Once again, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Alina Urusov really nail it. It's good to see some actual interaction between the twins, there are great jokes, and I appreciated getting some depth on the often glib Speed. Urusov's art is strong, and I really liked the way the two interacted with a former Avengers villain.

Merriam Webster says transmogrify is a word, going all the way back to Aphra Behn... but its origins are a mystery!
from Young Avengers Presents #3 (script by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, art by Alina Urusov)

Next comes Paul Cornell, Mark Brooks, and Jaime Mendoza's story of Vision, who has the consciousness of the former Iron Lad (and future Kang the Conqueror) loaded into him, though it's almost equally a story of Stature, with whom Iron Lad shared a kiss before he returned to his doomed place in the timestream. Cornell of course does a great job by both characters; I have been a little skeptical of including the kind-of adult Vision as one of the Young Avengers, but Cornell sold me on him for the first time here. Particularly strong is the depiction of Cassie, though; it seems more like her story than his to be honest! It is let down a bit by the art, which struggles to depict Cassie's size-changing in general, and a moment where she size changes at the same time the Vision phases in particular.

I can't complain about the "reused identical artwork" trick because I didn't even notice it until I made this scan!
from Young Avengers Presents #4 (script by Paul Cornell, art by Mark Brooks & Jaime Mendoza)

The actual Stature-focused story is also a good one. Kevin Grevioux centers the story around her family: Cassie is struggling with her mother and stepfather much as they are struggling with her, and her emotional state causes her to progressively shrink further and further. I liked the focus on the Young Avengers as friends here; the story isn't just about her, but also Kate, Billy, and especially Eli trying to help her, and it's well done. Cassie is probably my favorite Young Avenger. I did find Mitch Breitweiser's art a bit stiff, not always up to the emotional moments.

Lots of fun stuff with scale in this one: Stature and Patriot are on the microscope slide.
from Young Avengers Presents #5 (script by Kevin Grevioux, art by Mitch Breitweiser)

Finally, we end on a story about Hawkeye finally meeting Hawkeye, that is to say, Kate Bishop finally meeting Clint Barton. It's written by Matt Fraction; I think this is the first time he wrote either character, and he would go on to write an acclaimed run featuring Clint with Kate as a co-star. It's a bit predictable but fun enough; Kate is my second-favorite Young Avenger, and he captures her well. And, of course, you can't go wrong with Alan Davis and Mark Farmer on art.

Hm, but do I buy that Kate actually needs Speed to persuade her to "do some crime"?
from Young Avengers Presents #6 (script by Matt Fraction, art by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer)

Overall, it's a strong volume; I had expected to like maybe half of the stories, not all of them! Handing characters largely the work of one creative team off to others can be a fraught undertaking, but every writer here demonstrated a great grasp of their Young Avengers, and in all but a couple cases they were well-matched by the art. In the absence of ongoing adventures for the Young Avengers, I'm glad Marvel saw fit to release this.

This is the second in a series of posts about the Young Avengers, Loki, and Hawkeye. The next installment covers part 3 of Young Avengers by Heinberg & Cheung. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Young Avengers by Heinberg & Cheung, part 1 (2005-06) 

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Gotham, Part V: Batman: The Man Who Laughs

Comic trade paperback, 141 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2003-05)
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2014

Batman: The Man Who Laughs

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Pencillers: Doug Mahnke, Patrick Zircher
Inkers: Doug Mahnke, Aaron Sowd, Steve Bird

Colorists: David Baron, Jason Wright
Letterers: Rob Leigh, Todd Klein

Year One, November - Year Nineteen, May
Ed Brubaker collaborated with Greg Rucka on Gotham Central: Jokers and Madmen, which is the best Joker story in my opinion, so I was looking forward to seeing his take on the character's first meeting with Batman here. Unfortunately, the slim story told here doesn't really impress. It would be fine as one of any number of confrontations between Batman and the Joker, but I came away with no insight into their dynamic. What makes the Joker the greatest of the Batman's foes? From this story, I have no idea; it doesn't seem like he'd leave any more of a mark than Hugo Strange or the Scarecrow. It comes across as a fannish box-ticking exercise that was left better off unticked until someone had a better idea.

To fill out this volume, there's also "Made of Wood," a three-issue Detective Comics tale set almost two decades later, about Batman, Gordon, and Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern. Not amazing, but a competently-executed, thoroughly-enjoyable procedural. I don't know why it was collected with The Man Who Laughs, but I guess I'm glad it was.

Next Week: Three of Batman's greatest foes plus Man-Bat emerge on the Gotham scene in Four of a Kind!

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman Spin-Offs, Part XVI: The Sandman Presents: The Dead Boy Detectives

Comic trade paperback, 102 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2001)
Borrowed from the library
Read August 2012

The Sandman Presents: The Dead Boy Detectives

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Penciller: Bryan Talbot
Inker: Steve Leialoha

Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterer: Willie Schubert

My long, ambling journey through all things Sandman continues with The Dead Boy Detectives, which brings back two character who previously appeared in Season of Mists (and in only one issue, I think): Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine. Edwin was murdered at boarding school in 1916 and went to Hell, but escaped during Season of Mists. Charles, attending the same boarding school in 1991, was murdered during the same storyline. Due to the general chaos, both of them escaped Death and were not forced to go to the afterlife.

By the time of this story, they've set up as detectives. Why not? I'm sure there are worse ideas for Sandman spin-offs out there. And it's written by Ed Brubaker, who did an excellent off-beat take on the police procedural in Gotham Central, giving me confidence that he could do a mystery here.

Unfortunately, the book itself is not as fun as the premise "teenage ghost detectives" would imply. The mystery is as about as simplistic as simplistic could be; the characters spend the whole book being blatantly mislead, which is just frustrating to the reader. Who wants to read about a pair of detectives who are complete idiots? And like too many stories set in The Sandman universe, it revolves around the realm's ill-defined mysticism a little too much. Ghosts have the power to make miniature ghost versions of themselves, apparently. Why?

Worse, the characters are just dull. I couldn't ever remember which one was which, and given that one of them comes from 75 years before the other, that's a problem. At the very least Edwin could have been given comedy about being out of the loop from 1916 to 1991 (the story takes place in 2001). But we don't even get that. They're just interchangeable enthusiastic kids with creepy eyes.

Good premise, but nothing interesting after that point.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Gotham Central, Part V: Dead Robin

Comic trade paperback, 184 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 2006-07)
Borrowed from the library
Read December 2010

Gotham Central: Dead Robin

Writers: Greg Rucka with Ed Brubaker
Penciller: Kano
Inker: Stefano Gaudiano
Letterer: Clem Robins
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Fill-In Artist: Steve Lieber

After some of the lackluster stories of the previous volumes, Gotham Central goes out on the top of its game. Unfortunately, writer Ed Brubaker leaves early in the volume, and longtime artist Michael Lark isn't here at all, but that doesn't dampen these excellent stories. The first is one of those Batman's-relationship-with-the-police tales I love so much, "Dead Robin." The G.C.P.D. finds a corpse wearing a Robin outfit-- but he couldn't be the Robin, could he? They're forced to confront just how little they know about the Batman and his "family," and their already sour relationship is further tested when Romy Chandler shoots the Batman, still on edge after the death of her partner in the previous volume. There's even an appearance by the Teen Titans, which is fun if a bit dissonant, and Robin himself puts in his only appearances in the series, with some nice scenes between him and Stacy, the Major Crime Unit's temp. And the climax of the mystery was just great; Kano and Gaudiano draw an amazingly frightening Batman.

The story I wasn't expecting to like here was "Sunday Bloody Sunday," which tells what effect the Infinite Crisis had on Gotham. Though I know that things like that have to affect the city, it just seemed like the multiverse being remade would be so tonally inconsistent with this series. To my surprise, it wasn't-- the whole story is told first-person from the perspective of Crispus Allen, and he doesn't understand what's going on one tiny bit, but he still knows he has to do his duty getting Montoya to safety and finding his family, even if he did just run into Captain Marvel and the Spectre. It's the story of Allen's faith, as he begins by ruminating on how he doesn't believe in God anymore... and ends by praying with his family. I don't think the story of the Infinite Crisis could have been told in Gotham better than this.

The last story is "Corrigan 2," and it follows up on the events of the Corrigan story of the previous volume. The focus of the story is again on Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen, as Allen tries to stem Montoya's descent into anger and violence, with disastrous consequences for them both. This is completely a traditional cop story, with no Batman elements at all, but it really works here, with many of the character elements seeded throughout the series coming into play. The story is riveting and moving, a fantastic end to what had been a strong concept.

My only complaint is that there are some character threads from earlier volumes we'll never get to see now, not unless Sarge gets a larger part in your average Batman comic than I suspect he actually does. It's a real shame this series came to an end. But this was a great way to go out-- though I preferred "Soft Targets" in Jokers and Madmen, this is the most consistently strong of all the installments.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Gotham Central, Part IV: On the Freak Beat

Comic hardcover, 222 pages
Published 2010 (contents: 2004-05)
Borrowed from the library
Read December 2010

Gotham Central, Book Three: On the Freak Beat

Written by Greg Rucka & Ed Brubaker
Pencils by Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano, Jason Alexander
Inks by Stefano Gaudiano, Jason Alexander, Kano, Gary Amaro
Colors by Lee Loughridge
Letters by Clem Robins

The best story in this book is Greg Rucka's "Lights Out," a single-issue tale that follows on from some of the events in the main Batman titles that I haven't read. Part of the peril of reading stories in collections like this-- apparently the Batman's relationship with the police really soured in that story-- is that major events happen in them that you don't know about. It makes sense that the Batman books would drive this one, but it's really unfortunate that we don't get to see exactly what happened, given the relationship between the Batman and the police is what Gotham Central is all about. Anyway, the G.C.P.D. takes down the Bat-Signal to repudiate any connection with him whatsoever, and we get to see reflections by a number of the characters on what the Batman and the Bat-Signal meant to them. I really liked Montoya's moment: "I was maybe seventeen, I was in my bedroom at my parents' apartment, it was late.... There'd been this story in the news, how the water supply had been poisoned. Everyone in the city was scared. I looked out my window." Crispus Allen, coming from Metropolis where you can trust your superheroes, is all for taking it down, on the other hand. And then you have the mayor, who says tourists expect to see the Bat-Signal. It's a nice summation of the G.C.P.D.'s often complicated relationship with the Batman, the relationship that drives this book.

The rest of the stories here are okay, but not great. There's a Catwoman tale by Ed Brubaker that didn't do much for me, where she interacts with Josie Mac some. Jason Alexander's ugly art doesn't help. The revelations about Josie Mac could be good, but the series never really follows them up. The book is book-ended by two Renee Montoya stories by Greg Rucka. It opens with "Corrigan," about a corrupt crime scene investigator, and ends with "Keystone Kops," where one of the Flash's rogues gallery comes to Gotham to cause problems. The first is fairly insubstantial, and the second focuses on an uninteresting villain too much to work, though I did like the stuff about Montoya and her father.

Unfortunately, this is probably the weakest set of Gotham Central stories thus far, especially given that at this point, the series' end was imminent. It's probably the lack of strong Batman stuff again; the books don't quite work when they're just generic cop stories with the occasional supervillain.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Gotham Central, Part III: Jokers and Madmen

Comic hardcover, 285 pages
Published 2009 (contents: 2003-04)
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2010

Gotham Central, Book Two: Jokers and Madmen

Written by Ed Brubaker & Greg Rucka
Art by Michael Lark, Greg Scott, Brian Hurtt, Stefano Gaudiano
Colors by Lee Loughridge
Letters by Clem Robins, Willie Schubert

One of the neat things about the setup of Gotham Central is that the cast is divided up into a day shift and a night shift. Greg Rucka writes the stories about the day shift, and Ed Brubkaer writes the ones about the night folks. They cowrite the stories that are so big both shifts get involved. In the first two GC collections I read, nine of the twelve stories were Rucka day-shift ones, whereas just five were Brubaker night-shift ones, so it was nice to get Jokers and Madmen, where Brubaker's characters seems to dominate. Mind you, the writing the two do is so well-integrated that if it wasn't for the character thing, I wouldn't've known who was writing at any given point.

The first story, Brubaker's "Daydreams and Believers," is a one-off about Stacy, the temp who operates the Bat-Signal. She's a bit of an outside in the G.C.P.D for obvious reasons, and the story nicely capitalizes on that to show her perspective on the various other people who work in the Major Crimes Unit-- not to mention the Batman himself. There's a hilarious two-page sequence featuring Batman here that I didn't see coming. Brian Hurtt's detailed art doesn't really fit the Gotham Central style, but it works for this one tale.

The next story, "Soft Targets," is co-written by Brubaker and Rucka, and it seems to have been the basis for the recent Batman film The Dark Knight, as it sees the Joker terrorizing Gotham City solely as a way to get at Batman. (Okay, this probably happens a lot, but the political assassinations and the scene with the Joker in the interrogation room really made it seem Dark Knight-esque to me.) This is the single most successful story in all of Gotham Central, I think, seeing the cops scrambling to stop the Joker when really the Joker just sees them as ways to aggravate the Batman. All of the characters here are just caught in the intense struggle between these two figures, and the story is all the more intense for it. From the second page, I was gripped, and like "In the Line of Duty" in the first volume, it really manages to merge the considerations of a police story with a Batman one, as the characters have to negotiate city politics and the media as they try to do their jobs and take down the Joker before he blows the city to kingdom come. The story's set at Christmas, which helps too, as the art (which sees Stefano Gadiano taking over for Michael Lark and doing just as good a job) can be all snowy and moody. This story actually has the cops figuring it out before Batman, which is nice. But in the end, as far as they can tell, they're just paws in his insane game with the Joker.

After this is "Life is Full of Disappointments," a story which has an interesting form, as it take the form of a case that keeps on getting bumped from detective to detective, meaning each of its three different parts focuses on a different pair. This lets the series focus on some people who haven't had much page time thus far, like Sarge Davies, who is one of my favorites. Some of the tales are kinda tritte, though, like the one about the mother whose son plays in the Orchestra. Greg Scott's frankly weird art, which struggles to ape Lark's style unsuccessfully, doesn't help, either. I did like the one about the cop who knew the Huntress, though. The mystery here is so-so, but it's of minimal importance in a decent character exercise.

The last story in the book is Brubaker's "Unresolved," which has Driver and Josie Mac investigating a long-closed case that Harvey Bullock-- longtime member of the G.C.P.D. forced into retirement after killing a suspect-- was never able to figure out. The best part of this story is again the character work, especially Bullock's. A cop's cop, he can't deal with being off the force, and it's killing him. The scene between him and his old partner Montoya is particularly good. It's not really a Batman story, nor even a peripheral-to-Batman story, but it works all the same on the strength of the characters. Lark and Gaudiano work together on the art for this one, and it looks great, too.

Overall, the stories I find most fascinating in the series are the ones that really feel like peripheral Batman stories; the ones like that could be told in any cop story live and die on the characters, and though most of these characters are fine, there's too many of them to be effective, and not all of them are Renee Montoyas, Crispus Allens, or Marcus Drivers. Or even Josie Macs. Of those, some work, and some are kinda dull. It doesn't help that I can't always tell the characters apart, even with the handy (if inaccurate) guide in the front of the book. The book also has an overreliance on cop-killing to make things dramatic. It might be accurate to the way these things are shown in a Batman book, but here it sometimes feels like a gimmick to prove the situation is serious-- this department has a ridiculous rate of attrition. But this volume is definitely the series' finest hour, really showing what it's like to be an ordinary person caught in the middle of a Batman story.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Gotham Central, Part I: In the Line of Duty

Comic trade paperback, 116 pages
Published 2004 (contents: 2003)
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2010

Gotham Central: In the Line of Duty

Writers: Greg Rucka & Ed Brubaker
Artist: Michael Lark
Colorist: Noelle Giddings
Letterer: Willie Schubert

Gotham Central is about the cops who make up the Gotham City Police Department, specifically the ones in the Major Crimes Unit, the group personally selected by (ex-)Commissioner Gordon to handle the most difficult of crimes. They're also the cops Gordon trusted the most, the ones he knew wasn't corrupt. The stories are entirely told through their point of view-- Batman is in these stories, but only as much as the police see him.

The first story in In the Line of Duty has two cops, Driver and Fields, following up leads on the disappearance of a teenage girl when they accidentally bump into Mr. Freeze. Freeze kills Fields and runs off, leaving the police scrambling to figure out where Freeze is and what he's planning next. They know that summoning Batman is their best shot of finding the killer-- but they also know that once they do, it'll be the Batman who avenges the death of one of their own, not themselves. So they set themselves a deadline: figure out what Freeze's plan is before nightfall, when they can turn on the Bat-signal and hand the case over. What unfolds after that is a pretty typical "police procedural" like you might see on any number of television shows, as the police follow up leads by talking to known accomplices, hunting down people who might have sold Freeze the diamonds that power his technology, and so on. There's this nice device of a clock in the corner of the panels, telling you that they're running out of time. Lucky for them, they get a break just in time...

There's a touch that I like here-- since the official stance of the G.C.P.D. is that the Batman doesn't exist and the light is for deterring criminals, they can't activate the Bat-Signal themselves, legally. As a result, it's the office temp who activates the signal, as she's not a city employee. As they wait, Commissioner Akins asks Driver, "So you're okay with this then?" and he answers, "No... but I'm a cop in Gotham. I can't afford to live in denial." And even though the Batman wins the day against Freeze for them, you can't help but feeling that they've lost something in having to call the Batman in. The only thing I don't like about the story is that the cops' conclusion requires Freeze to have given them a cryptic clue at the beginning of the story, but I don't get why he'd do that-- he's not the Riddler or even the Joker.

The second story in the book, "Motive," also features Marcus Driver, this time working with Romy Chandler to follow up the kidnap case from the previous story. Though there's an appearance by the super-villain "Firebug" in this story, and some fun stuff about people who collect super-villain paraphernalia, it's essentially a normal cop story. Again, the resolution is weak because it depends on a leap of logic that seemed unfounded, but essentially it's a character story for Driver as he tries to come to terms with what it means to be a cop in Gotham. I used to make fun of the idea of the Gotham police-- why do they even bother?-- but these stories show them as people trying their best in a really messed up world, and I like that. The best bit of this story is the end, where Driver flicks on the Bat-Signal just to tell Batman they solved the case without them. Because sometimes they can do it.

The art by Michael Lark is great-- sort of sketchy, like you imagine the world that the G.C.P.D inhabits would look. Unfortunately, this backfires sometimes, as some of the white guy cops blend in to one another. But between his linework and Noelle Giddings's moody, suppressed colors, the art is absolute perfect for the bleak, despairing tone of this series.