by Jonathan L. Switzer
Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan
By Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, and Saul Ferris
Story & Art by Jiro Kuwata
Published by Pantheon Books, $29.95
www.pantheonbooks.com
www.dccomics.com
There was a period in the late nineteen-nineties where American comic books were dead to me. Sure, I was still stopping into the comic shop to grab the comic book serializations of manga titles like Dominion, Dragon Ball, and Evangelion, as well as manga-style stuff like the latest Robotech comics, but after the massive cash-grab-disguised-as-a-storyline that was Marvel’s all-encompassing, all-terrible Onslaught crossover, the idea of self-contained comic book narratives of finite length was … well, it just made so much more sense to me from a storytelling standpoint, where clearly Marvel was only thinking from a move as many units out the door as possible standpoint. Shared universes could be cool and exciting, but from where I was sitting, as a teenager with limited financial resources, Marvel had abused the concept to the point that I was out.
However, I still had some affection for the characters at Marvel, especially the X-Men. When I discovered in 1997 that Marvel was publishing manga takes on both Spider-Man and the X-Men, originally published in Japan in the early 1970’s and mid 1990’s respectively, I added those to my then-meager pull list and gleefully ate up these offbeat cultural curios.
The Spider-Man manga was an early effort of one Ryoichi Ikegami, who would later go on to much greater fame as an artist on macho crime manga such as Crying Freeman and Sanctuary. Ikegami recast the character of Spider-Man in a Japanese setting, replacing high school science nerd Peter Parker with Japanese junior-high student Yu Komori. He’s still bitten by the radioactive spider, he still winds up fighting a rogue’s gallery of freaks and weirdos like Mysterio, the Lizard, Electro, and the Kangaroo, but the stories are grimmer and moodier than even the classic Lee-Ditko years of the original, American Spidey material. Interesting stuff, but Marvel’s presentation of the material left a lot to be desired.
Far different and more crassly commercial was the X-Men manga; it was a direct adaptation of the 1992 Fox Kids X-Men animated series. Each episode was adapted by a different manga artist, which produced a wide variety of interesting takes on the series cast with differing degrees of (sometimes inappropriate) cartooniness. Where Ikegami’s Spider-Man provided some insight into how an American hero could be refashioned for a different culture in a different time, all this take on the X-Men offered was some nifty Japanese-style visuals overlaid on stories originating here in the States.
Having experienced those Japanese takes on Marvel’s heroes, I found myself deeply interested the minute I heard that there was an even older Japanese take on one of DC’s most famous icons. Having now read it, I can safely say that the material found within the pages of Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan finds itself somewhere in-between the two approaches to bringing an American hero to a Japanese audience. This hefty tome was compiled by famed book designer (and Batman fan) Chip Kidd and his frequent collaborator, photographer Geoff Spear; it contains six Japanese Batman serials, most of them incomplete, written and drawn by Jiro Kuwata, best known in his home country as co-creator of the cyborg superhero 8 Man (known in the U.S. as Tobor The 8th Man; his animated adventures aired here in 1965). These stories originally saw print in issues of Shonen King magazine from 1966 to ‘67 as a tie-in to the Japanese airing of the Adam West Batman TV series; as such, Bruce Wayne is still Batman, Dick Grayson is still Robin, and the two of them still fight crime on the streets of Gotham City here in the States. However, the stories and many of the villains are unique to Kuwata’s work; one of the few complete stories pits Batman against the villainous Lord Death Man(!!), who dies after being caught only to rise again, while another tale called “The Man Who Quit Being Human” has Batman battling a man who has willingly been transformed into the next stage of human evolution in the name of science. The only classic villain found in these pages is a version of the shape-shifting Clayface.
None of these are world-shaking, mind-blowing stories, but they’re good, solid fun and cleanly, excitingly drawn; heck, during the Lord Death Man caper, there’s a very nifty two-page spread of Batman swinging through the air, landing a two-foot kick on a couple of Lord Death Man’s black-clad goons. That particular tale is probably Kuwata’s finest hour, filled to the brim with striking iconography and eye-catching staging. What makes these stories most remarkable, beyond the cultural exchange, is their rarity; these were never even reprinted in Japan after their original serialization, making this the first time they’ve seen print since their original publication in the ’60s.
Despite the tie-in to the old TV show, none of these stories come off as campy; if anything, they most remind me of the solid work done on the Batman Adventures comics of the 1990’s; both those comics and the stories in Bat-Manga! provide well-crafted, self-contained capers that do an excellent job of scratching a fan’s Batman itch.
Or rather, they would be self-contained, if each story in Bat-Manga! were complete. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the book, most of these stories are not. Most of them begin with part two of three; one, where Batman faces the weather-controlling Go-Go The Magician, starts at the beginning but leaves Our Hero trapped in a block of ice, suffocating to death in the sort of cliffhanger familiar to fans of old movie serials — and, of course, the Adam West Batman TV series. The book’s art is reproduced directly from old, worn 1960’s copies of Shonen King magazine, complete with wear and tear, bent corners, ink bleed-through, and other effects of the original printing process and age; given this fact, I suppose Chip Kidd couldn’t locate the missing issues to fill those gaps as of press time. Personally, I find the effect of reading from these unretouched, dingy old pages rather charming, especially as the stories are interspersed with magazine spreads, advertisements, and photography of Japanese Batman toys of the era. The whole affair gives off that feeling of discovery one gets digging around in a musty old flea market or antique store, only without the smell. Certainly I would like to know just how Batman gets out of Go-Go’s icy death trap, but Kidd has stated he’s got enough material now for another volume; maybe in a year’s time we can all find out together.
Bat-Manga! brought a smile to my face not only as a life-long Batman fan, but as a fan of vintage manga and comics in general. Jiro Kuwata’s comics hold up beautifully, and Chip Kidd’s design sensibilities present them in a way that frames them in their time and place without robbing them of their energetic, joyful immediacy. Honestly, I don’t think anything could do that — really, Kuwata’s work is just that good. If you like Batman, buy the book. If you like vintage manga, buy the book. If you like Batman AND vintage manga — what in the blue blazes are you doing still reading this?! BUY THE BOOK.
–JLS
Jonathan L. Switzer has a clear and vivid memory of sitting in his dad’s lap and reading the third issue of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns at the tender age of five. That early experience, along with a couple of die-cast Shogun Warriors toys and the local library’s copy of Frederik Schodt’s Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, seemed to set his fate in stone. For three years, he worked at a Southeast Kansas Japanese animation specialty store, immersed in anime & manga to the point that it started to give him a nasty rash. He was a contributing writer on The Art of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, had an article on the Robotech franchise published in Protoculture Addicts magazine (issue #94, Nov-Dec. 2007), is a founding member of Ally Comix, and — when he finds the time — writes & draws the ongoing comic series Scwonkey Dog. Oh, and he writes a manga review every month for this very website. 
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