Batman: Face the Face

Batman: Face the Face 

By James Robinson, Don Kramer & Leonard Kirk

(DC Comics) ISBN 1-84576-377-7

After the never-ending calamity of DC’s Infinite Crisis event, the company re-set the time line of all their publications to begin one year later. This enabled them to refit their characters as they saw fit, provide a jumping on point for new converts and also give themselves some narrative wiggle-room.

In Face the Face Batman and Robin return to Gotham after a year’s absence. Why and where they went is unknown, but in their place as protector of the city they left arch criminal and literal head-case Two-Face. Although nobody’s safe choice for a hero, the ex-villain has done a sterling job of crime-crushing, so why has he seemingly returned to his old ways of murder and mayhem now?

As a number of small-fry super-criminals are killed in Two-Face’s signature style, Batman and Robin must either prove a frame up, or catch a man they thought they had reformed. Naturally there’s more to this than at first appears and new tragedy lurks around every corner. In Gotham City, nobody ever gets away clean.

Tightly plotted, and well illustrated, this nonetheless reads more like a private eye thriller than a tale of the towering and tormented Dark Knight that we’ve all come to know. Is that a portent in itself? Fans should, naturally, keep tuned…

© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.