Review: Detective Comics #861
I've devoured the latest Detective Comics and I'm left with mixed reactions. I liked it, but two tremendous things happen to the current state of the franchise in this issue and I'm not really sure how I feel about either of them.
Read on for more!
The two big changes are the art and the scope of the characters included in this Detective Comics issue, and I'm starting with the art. The more sketch-styled art by Jock is an interesting departure from the razor-sharp lines of J.H. Williams III. It's not bad by any stretch and Jock does an excellent job of describing a Gotham that is windswept and full of shadows, every tree covered in dead leaves and every hood dreaming of a life of super-crime. He is definitely presenting the Gotham we all know, but it's seen through very different eyes.
At the same time, he's preserved a lot of the overall style we've seen: huge panels with much smaller insets framing the action, large spreads of portraiture that illustrate the central theme of that issue or illuminate some new facet of this iteration of Batwoman. The big centerfold with the new/current Batman on one page and Kate Kane's Batwoman on the other, divided down the center as mirror images of one another, serves as a perfect demonstration of the ways this Batman and Batwoman can be compared and contrasted, as people, as crime fighters, their methods and their motivations. That was the first moment in this issue that generated the spine-tingle to which I've grown accustomed in Detective Comics these last few months.
Aside from the shift in the art, though, this is the first Detective Comics since last summer in which Batman makes an appearance. It's fun to see the interactions of Batman/Gordon and Batwoman/Maggie, but I'll tell you which one is more exciting: the latter. I don't just want to be teased with the possibilities of the asymmetrical relationships between Kate and Maggie and between Batwoman and Captain Sawyer, though; I want to see them explored. We all know Batman is going to return to the starring role in Detective Comics this year. Much as I love a good origins story - and I thought Kate Kane's was excellent - I came to the table for an entree, not an hors d'œuvre. A handful of exchanged lines is not enough and the clock is ticking. I am in love with Greg Rucka at the moment, but he needs to make something happen there or I'm going to feel like there was some wasted potential.
And yet, how cool is it to see Batwoman having what is, by Detective Comics standards, a more or less standard adventure? I love that we have the potential for the most pure form of superhero story: a superhero, a mad villain and a victim to save. If Batwoman's time in Detective Comics is only a few months from being over - I don't actually recall which issue is to be the last before she gets her own book later this year - then I want to get to see her swing in, exchange fisticuffs and save the day. If she keeps using those awesome thrown weapons that look a little like sharpened metal kisses when she does so, even better.
Klarion
Posted to Review on 8 February 2010
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