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Today, we look at whether Batman and Midnighter really somehow have never met each other.
In Comic Book Questions Answered, I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com).
My pal Alex Jaffe, who writes a regular feature for DC Comics’ website where HE answers questions, was discussing with me a while back about whether Batman and Midnighter had ever met. He was pretty sure they had not, which is amazing, if true, so I figured I’d take a look. I was waiting for him to write about this, but since he hasn’t, I guess I will!
In 1997, Warren Ellis launched a brand-new volume of Stormwatch with artist Oscar Jimenez. The problem was that Ellis very quickly grew disinterested with the series. However, in Stormwatch #4, fill-in artists Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary revealed that before he was killed, the previous leader of Stormwatch had created a black ops superhero team who were clearly intended as riffs on the Justice League of America.
Five of the seven members were killed, but the Batman and Superman of the group (who were also lovers), Midnighter and Apollo, survived, and went on the run as rogue superheroes of their own.
Eventually, Stormwatcb brought them in from the cold and they eventually joined the black ops version of Stormwatch. Very quickly, it was clear that that was the only version of the team that Ellis was interested in, especially now that he had Hitch and Neary on art, so the book was rebooted as The Authority, with Stormwatch Black becoming its own powerhouse team acting outside of official rules.
During this period in time, Wildstorm was still part of Image Comics. Despite that fact, Wildstorm had crossovers with both Marvel and DC and the Justice League, for instance, teamed up with the WildC.A.T.s and when Jim Lee sold Wildstorm to DC, there were more crossovers, including another Ellis team, Plantery, teaming up with both Batman and the Justice League. However, there was not an Authority team-up.
The Authority’s first DC comics team-up was with, of all characters, Lobo, in a Christmas crossover, Jingle Hell.
During the year-long Countdown to Final Crisis, there were a bunch of stories set throughout the DC Multiverse as Kyle Rayner, Donna Troy and Red Hood traveled through the Multiverse searching for Ray Palmer, and in Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer: Wildstorm #1 (by Ron Marz, Angel Unzueta and a bunch of inkers), Midnighter met the first member of the Batman family in Red Hood and Kyle Rayner noted that Midnighter sure seemed familiar…
This, then, brought us to the major Wildstorm/DC crossover in 2008 called Dreamwar. This one surely would be where Batman and Midnighter meet, right? Heck, they are even right next to each other on the Mike McKone and Andy Lanning cover for the issue!
And, okay, things get SUPER DUPER CLOSE in Dreamwar. The whole concept is that the crossover is sort of kind of technically a dream, but that doesn’t matter, as it still counts if they meet in this event. It’s just a question of whether they actually ever DO meet.
You see, in the second issue (by Keith Giffen, Lee Garbett and Trevor Scott), the Justice League (including Batman) infiltrate the Authority’s inter-dimensional ship, The Carrier. However, in classic Silver Age style (well, not so much, but sort of kind of like that), the teams split up, with one group of the Authority fighting the League in one section of the Carrier and the other fighting them in another section.
Midnighter and Batman are not in the same section and they don’t get a chance to see each other as Midnighter is taken down by the Atom…
In the following issue, Midnighter is in custody when the Justice League attack the remaining Wildstorm heroes and during that fight, Zealot kills Batman (a good sign that there was something weird about the whole crossover, right?)…
So therefore, Batman is off the table for the rest of the crossover, so even thought Midnighter comes back into play later on in the series, Batman isn’t around for him to team up with, so the two never meet.
In 2011, Wildstorm was merged with the DC Universe as part of the New 52, but even with Midnighter firmly entrenched into the DC Universe, he still just would not meet Batman! Batman even nominally appeared in two issues of Stormwatch (a new series set in the DCU starring the Authority characters), but neither of his two scenes were with the other members of the team (and he had another appearance that was just a vision of Batman and not actually Batman).
In 2014, Dick Grayson became an agent of SPYRAL in Grayson #1 (by Tom King, Tim Seeley, Mikel Janin and Jeremy Cox) and Midnighter became a regular cast member of the series, frequently interacting with Dick, but not Batman!
Then, in 2016’s Batman and Robin Eternal #23 (by Genevieve Valentine; James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, Christian Duce and Gabe Eltaeb), Midnighter teamed up with essentially the rest of the Bat-family in Red Robin, Spoiler and Batgirl, but still, no Batman!
One of the weird things about something like this, though, is that it could change at literally any minute. Batman and Midnighter have not met as of 1:30 PM on July 31, 2021, but I could easily see that changing, like, next week or the week after that. It just seems like the odds really favor the two of them meeting at SOME point. Even if people don’t want to give them their own specific team-up, you’d think that they would meet during one of those various big DC crossovers where all of the heroes team-up together, but nothing just yet!
Thanks so much to Alex for bringing this up. Go check out his stuff over at DCComics.com.
If anyone else has a comic book question, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com
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