It's Bat season in Gotham City.
To the best of my recollection, Batman/Elmer Fudd Special #1 is the first comic that literally made me laugh out loud with its first sentence. This comic is every bit as ridiculous as one would expect from an ultra-serious mash-up of the Looney Tunes and Batman universes. But beyond the humor and sheer novelty factor, there's a surprisingly deep story here about two deranged men fighting and bonding over the one thing in life that unites them. It's a far better comic than it has any right to be.
Each of the DC/Looney tunes crossover specials has taken its own approach when it comes to merging the two franchises. Writer Tom King and artist Lee Weeks have chosen to play things 100% straight here, offering a dark, gritty, noir-flavored version of Gotham City where the traditional Batman rogues have taken a backseat to realistic, humanoid versions of all the iconic Looney Tunes. King and Weeks play it 100% straight here, which is the source of much of the book's humor. Elmer Fudd is cast as a brutal, lonely killer much in the vein of Marv from Sin City, yet he still speaks with that trademark speech impediment. Batman is every bit as tortured and ominous a hero here as he is in King's regular Batman series. The result is that you frequently get hilarious scenes like this where the pervasive darkness collides with the inherent ridiculousness of the concept:
Clearly, Weeks has found a way of merging the visual styles of these two wildly disparate franchises. Weeks' art is cut from the same cloth as classic Batman artists like David Mazzucchelli (Batman: Year One) and Michael Lark (Gotham Central). The art is characterized by heavy shadows, thick black lines and a generally gritty texture, along with a dynamic sense of power to the action sequences. His character designs manage to offer a grounded take on the Looney Tunes gang while still ensuring that each is instantly recognizable. It's about as realistic as we're likely to see fro ma Batman book, yet Weeks still captures the moody gloom and heightened reality of the story. Like King's prose, Weeks' art is completely straightforward on the surface but subtly deranged and off-kilter underneath.
Again, this clash of screwball comedy and detective yarn shouldn't work as well as it does. But this is a comic that only strives to be serious on the surface level. Beneath that, King and Weeks pay loving homage to both franchises and utilize every opportunity they have to offer fun new spins on familiar characters. It's enough merely to soak in the sights of Porky's bar and savor the numerous sight gags, cameos and bizarre new interpretations of old Looney tunes favorites. If any of these DC/Looney Tunes specials deserves a full-length spinoff, it's this one.
But as is pretty much always the case with King's Batman, there's a great deal of emotional weight beneath the humor and bizarre trappings. King and Weeks could have simply told a fun, straightforward story about the world's greatest detective clashing with the world's most dedicated wabbit hunter. But they make a concerted effort to cast both men as kindred spirits who share far more in common than one would ever expect. The same goes for low-level gangster Bugs "The Bunny," who proves a surprisingly compelling figure in his own right. There's a surprising sense of gravitas to this story, one that elevates it from merely being a fun romp to something much more memorable and ambitious.
And for those who want a Batman/Elmer Fudd crossover that skews in a more traditional Looney Tunes direction, the backup feature has you covered. There, King and artist Byron Vaughns basically cast Batman as the Daffy Duck figure caught in the middle of Bugs and Elmer's eternal feud. It's a completely silly and nonsensical alternative to the main story, and so the two halves complement each other nicely.
The Verdict
DC truly saved the best for last with their DCU/Looney Tunes crossover specials. Batman/Elmer Fudd is a gleefully absurd mash-up of the two franchises, one made all the more ridiculous by the fact that it presents itself as a completely serious and gritty noir tale. But as goofy as this comic can be, it also treats its two leads with a huge amount of care and gravitas, resulting in a crossover the delivers on multiple levels and somehow emerges as King's best Batman comic to date.
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