Detective Comics #1069 // Review
It’s a rainy night in Gotham City. Some lunatic is babbling at Two-Face. The lunatic is told to leave. Two-Face has Batman at gunpoint. He threatens him. Says he knows he’s Bruce Wayne. If Batman ever comes after Two-Face, he’ll torture and kill anyone Bruce Wayne loves before committing suicide. That’s a brutal threat coming from a maniac in Detective Comics #1069. Writer Ram V gives Batman a hell of an obstacle course that is stylishly rendered for the page by the art team of Dexter Soy, Stefano Raffaele, and Miguel Mendonca. Colorist Adriano Lucas lends atmosphere to the page.
With the threat delivered, Two-Face leaves the room, and Batman is free to go on his way. Batgirl gets a call from her dad. He’s panicking over the disappearance of Batman. He’s well into the phone call by the time Batman shows up at his place. He’s had the Bat-Signal going for two days straight, which had to be absolutely charming for the people of Gotham. It’s not like things aren’t tense enough in the city. Criminal activity has been going down day by day, but that’s not exactly comforting in light of Batman’s absence.
Ram V focuses the story on the extended ensemble outside of Batman. Jim Gordon gets a rather clever close-up that peers a little further into his psyche while the subtle complexities of Commissioner Montoya get a bit clearer. Gordon comes across with greater intricacy than Batman, and Montoya has the kind of heroic conviction that could easily be at home in its own series. It’s refreshing to see crime drama filling out in and around the edges of a multi-millionaire with a bat fetish. Gotham City truly is a strange and compelling place. It’s nice to see Ram V casting the panels firmly in the direction around the edges of Batman.
Soy, Raffaele, and Mendonca frame some really stunning images here and there. They manage to find a simple menace in Two-Face pointing a gun ever-so-slightly away from the reader. Batman knocks out a few thugs in a way that improves on a dark style pioneered by Frank Miller. A scene on both sides of a wall between Jim and Bruce inhabits the page with impressive dramatic gravity. Lucas’s cool colors cast themselves across the page on a rainy night in Gotham City. It’s all quite well-articulated in the visual.
Seriously: just get rid of Batman in Detective Comics. Gotham City is a lot more interesting. Two-Face. Commissioner Montoya. Jim and Barbara Gordon. They’re all a lot more interesting than Bruce...and he’s got more than enough titles already. Ram V shows great potential for the city to exist on its own without Batman. There certainly is a hell of a lot going on without him. Montoya and Gordon would be more than enough to hold down the title of Detective Comics. Ram V has found a hell of a lot of life inhabiting the corners of Batman’s world. It would be nice to see a single title linger there in the corners of the panels for an extended period of time.
