By: Scott Snyder (writer), Jock (art), David Baron (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters) & Mike Marts (editor)
The Story: When we last left Dick Grayson, he was about to get mobbed to death by a bunch of rich/disturbed Gothamites wearing gas masks. Will he get away? Will the poison gas affect him?
What’s Good: Whoa! Super trippy! By choosing the storyline that he did (a weird auction house of supervillain paraphernalia), Snyder was able to have Scarecrow gas as a plot device. In the last issue, the menace of the gas was mostly that somehow Dick would be overcome by the gas and be beaten to death by the other attendees at the auction. But, in this issue Snyder goes to a wonderfully trippy place by using the gas to warp Dick’s impressions of everything. This leads to a whole manner of scenes that make you wonder, “Was that real, or was it just the gas making Dick hallucinate?” I don’t want to spoil any of the scenes for you because they are best enjoyed raw, but they are very creepy (especially one scene with Dick and Barbara Gordon) and give this comic an almost horror vibe.
The other thing that Snyder has established in this opening story arc is that he wants to write a Dick Grayson story. Dick is not the same as Bruce, but it seems like some writers are just writing generic “Batman” stories. Many of the plot elements are things that are unique to Dick (such as how to escape from bad situations). With the flood of Batman comics on the market right now, I love that Snyder is doing something to differentiate what his run on Detective Comics will be like.
Jock just nails the important stuff in this story arc. Earlier he showed that he could do straight up, noir-detective Batman. In this issue, he kinda goes to a place that reminded me of Ben Templesmith with a few of the more monstrous characters. I really didn’t know that Jock had this kinda stuff in his arsenal. He could totally do a horror comic! Not only are the characters suitably monstrous, but they are drawn from odd, jarring perspectives with unsteady lines that continue the “is this REAL?” emotion that you have while you’re reading. Very nice job!
What’s Not So Good: I really miss the Francesco Francavilla back-up story, but I guess if we comic fans are going to demand $2.99 comics this is what we get.
The only other quibble is that I thought Dick looked kinda old in the scenes where he was escaping from the auction house. Granted he was in disguise, but was it a good enough disguise that his secret identity isn’t out now? The auctioneer surely knew he was Batman and yelled it to the crowd who were fellow Gotham socialites. Wouldn’t one of them recognize Dick? Oh well….
Conclusion: Just AWESOME. This is so the best Bat book out there right now. It is smartly written, has great art and because it is focusing on Dick (and not Bruce) it can explore and do more experimental stuff. Bonus for telling a story in 3 issues and not dragging things out to make a better trade paperback.
Grade: A
-Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion