Category: Batman

 

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.

 

By David Lapham, Ramon Bachs & Nathan Massengill

(DC Comics) ISBN 1-84576-336-X

David (Stray Bullets) Lapham makes his Batman debut in a monolithic tale of the dark underside of Gotham. This bleak and sordid story sees the Dark Knight tackle the horrors of dead and missing children, baby-breeding rings, corporate skullduggery, blue-collar brutality, and the sinister machinations of an inhuman monstrosity that can raise the dead and easily replace his most trusted companions and friends.

Calling on his facility with the modern crime genre Lapham examines the master of disguise Batman deep, deep, deep undercover in search of an abducted child, through the uncommon lens of true contemporary evil that would not be out of place in a Vertigo comic. In a style that owes much to such movies as Donnie Brasco or Serpico we see how taking on another identity can affect even the Batman, and through a seemingly unconnected stream of excursions and capers we perceive a vast plot forming. Street shtick and super hero staples combine in an electrifying high-octane finale that owes much to Assault on Precinct 13 and Dawn of the Dead, as well as any comic showdown you’ve ever seen before.

Grittily illustrated in a methodical, underplayed manner by Star Wars artist Ramon Bachs, this stark fantasy is Batman at his evil-busting best.

© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.