New To You Comics #130: I Am Become Death In ‘Batman & Dracula: Red Rain’

Everyone has different tastes in comics. Here at New To You Comics, we explore that as Tony and Scott dive into comics that, well, it’s right there in the column title. This week, we continue all-horror October with a Batman classic neither of us have read.

Batman & Dracula: Red Rain is probably the most well known story of DC’s Elseworlds line. Doug Moench, Kelley Jones, Malcolm Jones III, Lee Dorscheid, and Todd Klein first teamed in 1991 to give us this horrific tale of the Dark Knight. This version of Batman continues to have an impact today, as his earth has become a part of the DC multiverse.

A series of brutal murders is rocking Gotham City. The Batman has to stop him before the killer sweeps through Gotham’s underworld. Unfortunately, there’s no way he’ll be able to stop the threat menacing his city without losing everything…

Tony Thornley: Scott, welcome!

Red Rain is one of those stories I’ve known by reputation for years, but have never read. The idea of a vampire Batman is a natural extrapolation of the whole idea of the Dark Knight. I was surprised though how this story embraces that idea practically from page one. Moench is probably one of the three most notable Batman writers of the 90’s, including co-writing Knightfall. I don’t know if Knightfall or this is his most well-known story but wow.

Scott Redmond: Same here about this story really. Being someone that had a steadier diet of Marvel growing up, I have a lot of gaps in the DC side of things. Whole eras really. So I missed out on all the Elseworlds stuff for the most part. I have read most of Knightfall so I’m at least familiar with Moench. 

There is something to be said for the classic way that comics many times just dove right into things. Not to say that taking time to explain and set up is bad, but when your premise is man that stalks the night like a creature comes up against creatures that stalk the night, diving right in is the strongest choice.

Tony: So I have a couple problems with the story, but overall, I think this is a fantastic Batman story. There’s a slow build- obviously these are vampires hunting the Gotham streets, but getting to the fact that it’s Dracula himself takes a minute. Gordon and Bruce both hunting the killers is well handled, but the moment that they realize it’s vampires it goes straight into a supernatural action book.

Which brings me to the first problem I have. The pacing on this is WEIRD. I don’t think it’s bad, but it goes in starts and stops. The initial 20 pages is slow, then it gets a burst of action, then a few slow scenes, then Moench hits the pedal and holds it to the floor until the end. 

It’s almost like they didn’t know how many pages they had? Or maybe Moench wrote it Marvel style, and Jones made some weird pacing choices from the plot? I’m not sure, but it makes for a fitful reading experience.

Scott: For all that I said about getting to the point, as you said it sure does just come to some jarring slow down stops. There were at least a few portions that felt like natural endings that just actually led to more stuff. 

It’s strange how there are a lot of these multiversal possibility stories that go that route. Try to do a ton to build something and then realize they are almost out of space and just sprint for the finish line. Honestly, there were a few spots where my eyes were starting to glaze over a bit because of the spots where it just moved back to a crawl. Good stuff overall but definitely quite a bit of a read.

I will say it was an interesting choice to keep the Batman and Gordon portions separate for so long. Naturally one would assume they would connect sooner, but that might also be coming at this from a 2023 perspective. I’m not exactly sure what the dynamic was between them fully back in those times. 

Tony: I really think it’s a great story though. Every character is fleshed out fairly well, even if they have limited page time. Bruce is driven but not obsessed, which is always a nice way to see Batman depicted. I dig this version of Gordon.

I kinda think with the story my only other complaint is that it’s very limited in scope beyond Bruce, Alfred and Gordon. It doesn’t need the full Batman pantheon, but Selina, Dent, Penguin all could have made it a lot richer. (I know the Joker is in the sequel, so Moench starts to do more there.) 

Moench does at least avoid the common trap of most Elseworlds stories of including EVERYTHING. A lesser writer would have probably set Dracula loose in Arkham, and given us vampire versions of every villain. Moench holds back and that’s to the story’s benefit.

Scott: Total agreement on this end, on both accounts. 

It was smart to keep it contained, a lot of these stories fall into the trap of trying to do too much. Some of the best alternate reality stories at either company are usually ones that ask and answer just one simple question. Then explore some but not all of the ripples. 

That being said, as you mentioned, it’s just a bit too limited in some respects. Even some hints to how much richer a canvas Gotham can be would have been nice. Some name drops, cameos, glimpses or something. In many ways this sort of feels like a very empty Gotham which is jarring somewhat. Then again, it bears repeating that this is a story from a different era so maybe it fit more.

Tony: I just had a cool idea that would have been a blast to explore- vampire Two-Face. And the scarring was done after Dent was turned via holy water.

Hire me DC Comics.

Man do I ever love the art on this. Even if the story had been bad (which again, it wasn’t), it would have been well worth it. Holy cow, does Jones, Jones, and Dorscheid come together to create a gorgeous comic. Jones’s pencils feel so far ahead of their time. He’s always energetic, everything is exaggerated, his layouts are different. It’s so cool.

Scott: One thing that can be said about a book featuring Kelley Jones, it won’t be boring to look at. This creative group just was perfect for this type of story. Gotham is just this looming exaggerated dark creeping thing, much like the people and things that populate it. 

Most who know me know how much I’m all about the Batman stories that are about the man and the struggle and feel grounded/real. That being said, gimme all the big gargoylish imposing gangly creepy Batman stuff and I’ll gobble it up. Everything here just sings, exuding that real horror energy but also presenting something that works even if you take the horror elements out. 

One of the strengths of a character like Batman is despite seemingly being one dimensional in concept, he seems to fold into any genre/feeling easily. This allows such a diversity of art styles to just sing with the character, which isn’t true of every long-running character out there. Books like this just reinforce that notion. 

Tony: Absolutely. It’s an amazing book to look at. Jones’ exaggerated style does not get enough hype. This book has two sequels, and this creative team created another Elseworlds universe. When he and Moench did the main Batman title, they did an absolutely gorgeous Deadman team-up arc in which they went after a treasure in Central America. Yet Jones is not the iconic Batman artist that he should be. It’s those sorts of stories that people should know Batman for, just as much as they know him for Adams, Aparo or Lee.

I did have a couple complaints. Jones’s depiction of Bruce is weird. I think he was going for Michael Keaton (this was a year and a half after Batman ‘89 and about a year before Returns). Instead we got a Bruce Wayne that looked more like Humphrey Bogart. And don’t get me wrong, nothing against Bogey, but he’s not Bruce Wayne.

And man, his design for Dracula’s human form fell SO flat for me. This is a book with a hulking-monstrous Batman, vampires that are in various states of decay, an absolutely gorgeous femme fatale and then Dracula is… some dude. I mean, his monster form is great, but human Dracula, not so much. I’m not even asking for something in the vein (hah) of Bela Lugosi or Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula. But he should look imposing and aristocratic. He should stick out in a crowd (especially a crowd of other vamps). He just didn’t.

Scott: I was thinking about the Bruce depiction and you saying that, now it totally makes sense ha! There are some elements of human characters that had that issue like you said. There were a few pages where I swear I thought we were going to learn that the rain makes heads pop because Alfred’s face and head looked swollen. Might have been the perspective choices but it just made him look like he was very bloated. All that sadness for his poor boy Bruce went to his head. 

On the note of Dracula, whenever Dracula is on the page, all the other characters should be saying, “It’s Dracula!” (Hello Simpsons reference!). Because otherwise I had no clue at all that guy was Dracula till it was finally off hand mentioned. Like you said, not expecting any specific iconic cameo look but Dracula should be something that screams biggest most known vampire of all pop culture. Not a guy I probably saw complaining about movie franchises on YouTube.

Tony: So while it’s not the greatest, I think it’s still really damn good. You can see how this story has endured like it has, even if it hasn’t had as much an impact as you might think. It’s absolutely fantastic though, even with its faults

Scott: I concur. It has enough stuff that makes it sing and stand the test of time. It gives what it’s promising from the first moment, Batman and vampires. It’s maybe not something I would feel the need to read again at any point but I’m glad that we did read it. I’m even intrigued enough that I’d happily check out the sequels just to see what else they pulled out of their collective hat. 

Tony: Yeah, I absolutely started reading Batman: Bloodstorm after finishing up Red Rain. And I’m glad I have. You should also check out their main Batman run. So what do we have up next week?

Scott: Keeping to our theme of things we haven’t read yet but also feature bloodsuckers of the night, we’re going to jump into 30 Days Of Night from Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. 

Tony: I’m so excited for this. I might have read the first issue years ago but I’ve never read the whole thing. It’s going to be fun.

Batman: Red Rain is available in various physical and digital editions now from DC Comics.