Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2

I've read Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2 (written by Mark Millar, pencils by Terry Dodson, inks by Rachel Dodson) and...
( cut for the spoiler phobic, because it's very recent )

Mafia families in Gotham

Has anyone been able to make sense of all the mafia families that pop up in the Batman books? I mean, in Huntress' backstory it's made sound like the "Five Families" had divided Gotham among them. Those five families were the Bertinellis, the Berettis, the Galantes, the Inzerillos, and the Cassamentos. In the gang wars during the prohibition the Bertinellis came out on top. The Cassamentos had been their rivals, supported by the Inzerillos, but the latter changed sides. Anyway, later the Panessas arrived, but the Bertinellis didn't want to share with a sixth family, not even when Franco Bertinelli, Huntress' father married Maria Panessa. Then came the Palm Sunday massacre, orchestrated by the Cassamentos(?). In its aftermath the Galantes were on top, the Panessas were in, once again Five Families.

So how do the Falcones (from Year One and Long Halloween/Dark Victory) and the Maronis (Two-Face's origin, e.g. in Batman Annual #14, also Long Halloween/Dark Victory) fit in? Both of those play fairly important roles in the early career of the trio of Batman, Gordon, and Dent, so it's not like they could be discarded, and they don't just appear in LH/DV which could be disregarded as apocryphal in the details. And assuming Anthony Zucco (the one responsible for Dick's parents' death) was some kind of lower level mob, to which family did he belong?

Of course in addition to the Mafia there's some other organized crime in Gotham too (the Lucky Hand Triad, the Escabedo Cartel, the Odessa Mob, the Burnley Town Massive...), though some of that is confined to certain neighborhoods. But clearly the Maroni and the Falcone families are supposed to be mafia.

And how does Malfetti fit in? (in case you lost track that is the mob boss from the Nightwing/Huntress series) Do I even want to know if there are any more? Do we get diagrams at some point?

Sigh.

thoughts on Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood

After reading about Huntress, I've now read the 2000 retcon of her origin story myself, Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood (written by Greg Rucka, pencils and inks by Rick Burchett, except in #5 and #6 which have inks by Terry Beatty), and overall I liked the story. I was of course spoiled by reading summaries, but I have to say that from just knowing Huntress from guest appearances in BOP and such, and the Nightwing/Huntress series, I wouldn't have expected her to act like this.

Even having read summaries, the end still had something of a sucker punch effect on me. I mean, she doesn't do it herself, but she arranges for Santo Cassamento, the man who ordered her family to be wiped out and also her biological father, to be killed, because she wants revenge, because "blood cries for blood." She asks her uncle Tomaso Panessa for a favor, and while we don't hear her words then (I guess mostly so that it'll hit you harder as a reader later on), it becomes clear that she asks him to kill Santo, and tells him where he'll be able to find him, or something to that effect. Then she arranges it so that Santo has to be at that drug shipment personally, by beating up on his goons, meets Santo outside, letting him believe that he's still blackmailing her with his knowledge of her identity, calmly takes off her vigilante garb after he went inside, and stands by outside while he is murdered, not swayed in the least by the Question/Vic's pleas to stop it either. She also placed an anonymous tip so that Tomaso will go to jail. And as her final act we see her throwing her crucifix down into the water by the pier (which, as far as I can see doesn't reappear in her guest appearances in Batman and Detective after this series, even though she still wears her old costume, not the current one).

I think what hit me, is how she takes off her costume before standing by his murder, as if she somehow doesn't want her vigilante persona tainted by this revenge killing she arranged. It was a really powerful scene, but it changed my view of her.

Unrelated to the Huntress stuff, what's up with Tim and Barbara in this series? Here Barbara knows Tim's identity, when she didn't in BOP #19 which was published the same month as #2 of this series. It's not so much that I have a problem with her knowing, I mean, in a way it's kind of weird that we were supposed to believe she didn't in BOP #19, despite things like Tim's rescue from NML, which should have made the connection between Robin and Tim quite obvious to Oracle, I think. It just doesn't fit.