Author John Jackson Miller has waited his entire life to play in the sandbox of Tim Burton’s Batman. Good news: some dreams do come true. Miller’s new book, Batman: Resurrection, picks up right where the 1989 film left off, finding a clever way to bring Clayface, a member of Batman’s classic rogues gallery, into Burton’s grounded, gothic universe.
As a lifelong comics fan, Miller was in the theater on opening night in June 1989 to watch as Burton met every expectation of what a Batman movie could be. Between his noir-lit Gotham and Jack Nicholson’s wicked spin on Joker, the only trace of the old Adam West Batman TV series was the occasional quip from Michael Keaton’s pensive Bruce Wayne. The movie rocked pop culture — but even as a mega-fan, Miller was left with questions. What happened to Gotham after the Joker spread so much terror? Burton’s actual sequel, Batman Returns, never dealt with the fallout.
Never in a million years believing he’d get those answers, Miller went on with his life, building a career that led to writing books and comics in the Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica worlds, among other franchises. So when he got an offer to write a Batman sequel, he knew exactly what he wanted to do: follow Burton’s impulse to meld 1930s pulp comic sensibilities with a grittier 1980s comic style. That’s how he wound up bringing in Clayface, who has been stretched into a fantastical villain over the years, but whose early incarnations as Basil Karlo, actor and master of disguise, made him a natural fit for the Burtonverse.
“We do empower him here, but we empower him in a way that I think is consistent with what we saw on screen,” Miller tells Polygon. “In the Burtonverse, the Joker is evil, but everybody else is broken, everybody else has got something really wrong. There’s a tragic undertone to all of these characters’ lives. There’s even a tragic undertone to the Joker’s life, it’s just — he was a snake to begin with. And what happens is, in this particular microcosm, their angst gets played out on this gigantic level in this city. Batman is working his problems out, Catwoman is working her problems out […] What we do with Karlo, I think I give him a tragic arc that I think fits in [and] feels right.”
Ahead of Batman: Resurrection, which arrives Oct. 15, Polygon is exclusively debuting the first chapter from the novel, which gives fans an idea of how Miller has translated the tone of Burton’s Batman, and the body horror of a grounded Clayface.
Batman’s daytime kit was significantly lighter, especially given the absence of a cape. It came in handy now, as he had a lot of ground to cover, part of it obstructed. Decades earlier, Georges Hébert, a French naval officer, had developed the parcours du combattant as a fitness regimen; Batman doubted that any of his obstacle courses involved vaulting air-conditioning units and sliding down fire escapes. But he was glad he’d incorporated such training into his workouts. Had he arrived by Batmobile at this time of day, he likely wouldn’t get near the errant bus without doing more vehicular damage himself. Going on foot was faster—and crossing busy streets was less of a problem when one had the ability to zip-line across.
He’d traversed four blocks—and descended four floors—by the time Alfred reported next. “The bus is now at Seventh and Walcott.”
“Getting closer.” He could hear the sirens—and a distant blat. It gave him an idea. “Where’s the fire engine coming from?”
“The dispatcher has not said. But in this area, it’s sure to be Oak Plaza Station.”
Batman had already surmised that—and guessed that it would serve him.
Breathing hard, he rounded the side of a ledge and looked onto a long boulevard: Atlantic. A mile to the left was Oak Plaza; to the right, he saw a trail of damaged vehicles, some of them smoking. The bus was just visible at the end of all of that, farther ahead than any line could carry him.
He had other plans. Hearing the emergency vehicle approaching, Batman reached for the longest cable spool on his Utility Belt. Figuring that he was on the fourth floor, he sought a sturdy surface more than twenty feet down across Atlantic. He fired a dart attached to a line—and then tested its stability. It would provide a much faster ride than the ones he’d used before, and it would be more difficult to stop, especially as there was no place to light on the other side.
That didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to ride all the way. Hearing the siren growing louder, he spied the fire truck out of the mass of police vehicles to the left and did some fast mental calculations.
Then, as the hooting vehicle screamed closer, he snapped a carabiner onto the line and leapt toward the street.
He slid down and across—but mostly down. The world whisked past, and part of his brain initially asked him what the hell he was doing. It still did that in moments like these. But with the truck hurtling toward his location, he was back to calculating. Leaping on the vehicle without falling off would require him to release the line at the right time; landing somewhere relatively flat with something to grab onto required even more precision. He found the moment and let go.
“Ooof!” Even with boots designed to absorb impacts, the hard landing hurt—but he couldn’t think about that. Grabbing hold of something was the first order of business. Once he did, he began slowly making his way forward.
It wasn’t a ladder truck, but an urban rescue vehicle; that made sense, given the kinds of damage the bus was doing—and which might be done to it. He found a perch on the cab and looked ahead. Police cars in all three lanes of the boulevard formed a chevron, with the fire truck behind. The bus was just ahead of them, clipping parked cars as it charged ahead with abandon.
Alfred spoke. “It’s at Atlantic and Tenth.”
“I’m looking at it.”
“Then you should know the police are placing spike strips at Twelfth. They have the area beyond surrounded.”
Batman frowned. He figured this was coming, but it raised the chances of a tragic end. It posed dangers, and not just for the speeding bus; two Gotham City officers had been killed laying spikes for The Joker’s sedans months earlier. And if it turned out that the gunman on board was another copycat, then bringing it to a stop surrounded by cops might be the worst thing for the passengers.
It would be so much easier if he could just talk to the police, not manipulate them—but even with his new working relationship with Commissioner Gordon, that seemed like a step too far. It could lead to his detection, and also jeopardize any cases against people Batman caught. That was a problem as it was.
No, he had to get to the bus first—away from the police trap.
Standing against the wind, he spotted what he needed ahead. He drew the bulkiest trick from his Utility Belt: a handheld launcher loaded with two bat-shaped projectiles. The targeting system was similar to his Batarangs but resided on the launcher itself. He slapped the underside of the weapon against the top of his left wrist, where it adhered to a mount-point on his gauntlet. Internal gyros held the launcher steady while he worked the targeting with his right hand.
Firing solution resolved, he pumped the trigger twice. The bat-winged projectiles launched moments apart, their releases timed precisely. Each soared ahead, over the row of police cars—and then past the bus itself.
He hadn’t missed. They found their targets at nearly the same time: opposite ends of the cable suspending three traffic signals over the Eleventh Avenue intersection.
Each of the signal units weighed fifty pounds, and when the sparking contraptions struck the street, they sent colorful shards flying directly in front of the path of the wayward bus. Whoever was driving the vehicle braked violently.
With the bus screeching to an unexpected stop, the police cars veered off on either side to avoid striking it. Passing the bus, they sped through the intersection, bumping harmlessly over the fallen cable and remnants of the traffic signals. The spike strips beyond them were another matter. The police cruisers struck the impediments and spun out of control. Chaos ensued, with the squad cars finishing in a pileup that blocked the police approaching from Twelfth.
It all transpired in mere seconds, with no apparent harm to the drivers—and exactly as Batman intended. He figured it would be better if the police were kept at a safe distance while he did his work.
When the fire truck beneath him skidded to its own stop, he was ready. He leapt from the rooftop, allowing the momentum to send him toward the bus. He landed atop it, chest-plate first, and hung on, fully expecting that the vehicle’s reckless odyssey could begin again at any second.
Instead, the bus sat for several moments. The rear door opened, disgorging a stream of terrified commuters. As they hurried toward the sidewalk, Batman moved to the edge of the roof near the door.
He wasn’t surprised that the last person off was in uniform; the Army had its arsenal not far from here. Batman called down to her. “Who’s left?”
His voice caused her to stop in her tracks. She gawked when she saw him—but she answered. “Just the driver—and the guy with the gun.”
That meant the hijacker had apparently not stopped everyone from exiting. Interesting. He wondered if it was another of Lawrence’s masked reprobates—someone who’d lost his nerve. “The guy—is he a clown?”
Batman didn’t know what to say to that. “Get these civilians out of here.”
Reflexively, the soldier raised her hand to salute—before stopping halfway. She hustled to help the others.
The motor still running, Batman decided not to take any chances that it was over. He leapt to the street, grabbed a pellet from his belt, and hurled it inside the door. As smoke quickly filled the bus, he donned a face mask from his Utility Belt to cover his mouth and bounded up the steps inside.
Through the billowing cloud, he heard excited chatter up the aisle. It sounded like words being exchanged between the driver and someone—only the other half of the conversation was unintelligible, more like guttural grunts. He felt a jolt through the floor under his feet, as the bus went back into gear. The vehicle rocked as the driver forced it over part of a median divider as the vehicle cut across the lane, avoiding the disabled police cars beyond the intersection as it made for a side street.
No, we’re done driving. Batman strode through the smoke and drew a weapon from his belt. Ahead, a tall figure in the cloud held a gun on the driver. The hijacker had the brawny physique of a wrestler—but his attire was something else. He wore what looked like pajamas, spattered with blood. And no shoes.
An Arkham Asylum escapee, if Batman had ever seen one. It was time to end this. He uttered a single command: “Stop.”
Not looking back, the culprit spoke over his shoulder. It was the choked, gurgling voice the hero had heard before—but this time, the words began to sound like something familiar: “Go away.”
“I told you to stop.” Batman hurled the bolo he was holding through the smoke. The cable wrapped around the hijacker’s chest, pinning his arms such that the gun was pointed at the floor. Batman advanced and grabbed the subject’s shoulder to spin him about. “Drop the gun!”
The hijacker looked back at him. He wasn’t wearing a clown mask—but neither did he have a human face. The skin bubbled and shifted, like lava on a volcanic bed. But there was a man in there somewhere, baring normal teeth through a misshapen mouth. He flexed his chest, and Batman’s cable expanded—and fell to the floor as he exhaled. Then, like lightning, he reached out with his free hand and grabbed Batman by the neck.
Batman stared. “What are you?”The hijacker leaned in close, face to hideous, growling face, and shouted in a barely intelligible snarl, “I’ve had a really bad day!”
Batman: Resurrection hits shelves on Oct. 15.
