Batman and the Monster Men

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Batman and the Monster Men
Publisher	DC Comics
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Limited series
Publication date	November 2005 - April 2006
Number of issues	6
Creative team
Writer(s)	Matt Wagner
Artist(s)	Matt Wagner
Penciller(s)	Matt Wagner
Colorist(s)	Dave Stewart

Batman and the Monster Men is an American comic book limited series featuring the DC Comics super-hero Batman. It is set during Batman: Year One and before the events of Batman: The Man Who Laughs. It is the first part of Matt Wagner's two part Dark Moon Rising series, which are expanded and modernized versions of early Batman stories. It was followed by Batman and the Mad Monk.

[edit] Plot

Batman and the Monster Men is developed from an early Hugo Strange story from Batman #1. In Wagner's version, this is Batman's first encounter with Strange. The story depicts a young, optimistic Batman shortly after the events of Batman: Year One. Julie Madison, historically Bruce Wayne's love interest in early comics, is reintroduced in this series. Madison had not been seen as a regular supporting cast member since 1941, in Detective Comics #49. Batman and the Monster Men also gives a retroactive role to Sal Maroni, a character closely tied to the character Two-Face, as a crime-boss funding Hugo Strange's experiments on Arkham Asylum patients. This story is intended to depict the first time Hugo Strange is involved in creating violent giants out of human patients.

[edit] Continuity

Based on the fact that Jim Gordon is referred to as "Lieutenant" in this story and that he did not become "Captain Gordon" until the end of Year One, it is obvious that this story takes place during Year One. The above statement is backed up by Salvatore Maroni, who states that "Bad enough I got that pretty boy DA Dent crawling up my butt," indicating that Dent was in the process of trying to link the mob to the corrupt cops. It should also be noted that the current police commissioner is Peter Grogan, who replaced Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb towards the end of Year One.

Batman's first unofficial encounter with The Joker happened some time before this story, since a newspaper headline in the beginning of the first page says "Red Hood Gone? Eyewitnesses claim mystery thief falls to doom after Ace Chemical heist attempt foiled by run-in with vigilante Bat-Man."

Instead of being an actress as in her Golden Age incarnation, Julie is a freshly-graduated law student.

Jim Gordon is shown to still be married to his first wife, Barbara Kean-Gordon, who leaves him shortly after the events of Batman: The Long Halloween.