Batman #35

Batman is one of the most recognized, most influential, and most beloved comic book characters of all time.  When it came time to decide on a comic that I would both enjoy and be able to write on, I knew I wanted it involve Batman in some capacity.  I just happened to get lucky with the release of Batman #35.  The reason I chose this particular comic is that with this issue, Scott Snyder and his team are starting a new sub story with the title of ENDGAME Part 1.  The comic overall impressed me, but I was amazed at how Thierry Groensteen's ideas of Arthrology were represented and how they made sense in the context of this story.

With Batman being known as the "world's greatest detective", almost every issue with his name on it is presented as a mystery; we are constantly uncovering new truths, finding new evidence, and eventually putting the bad guy behind bars.  This is a setup issue so at the beginning we are not even sure who the bad guy is, but by unraveling this story's web of information we begin to get a clearer picture.  I'm going to make reference to three panels right now but it is important to know the premise of this issue, which is: Members of the Justice League (Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman and Superman) attack Batman/Bruce Wayne in Gotham.  No one, much less Bruce himself, know why this is happening.  The first two panels that I want to show are near the front of the comic:

 Here Bruce Wayne has just been woken up and from both his speech bubble and the image below it, we gather that "Crane" was behind it; Crane of course being one of Batman's greatest villains, Scarecrow.  Both the word and picture combine here to demonstrate who Crane is.  The reader is still expected to bring a certain amount of prior knowledge to the work, but enough is done, I believe, to give even the most inexperienced comics reader an understanding of who is being talked about.  The reason I chose to show this panel is that its effect is felt with the very last panel of the issue which is:

These two panels combine to express, in my mind, Groensteen's mode of General Arthrology.  After my first reading I did not make this connection right away, but with the mention of Scarecrow, his 'strain of fear toxin', as well as the toxin's effect on Batman, I realized the events laid out in the issue are not entirely stable.  What this means for the story is not really important in context of what I'm attempting to get across but the connection is there.  The starting point in this case had just as much of an impact on the final panel as the final panel had on the beginning.  The reveal that Joker "might" be influencing the minds of the Justice League brought me to reconsider what was actually taking place and this goes right along again with Groensteen in that we are constantly reevaluating the meaning of a comic.  I finished the issue and I was still reconsidering things.  Upon reading the comic again, I was starting to slow down and speed up even more so than I did the first time.