With a new Arkham game on the horizon, fan-favourite Bat-writer Peter J. Tomasi and newcomer Viktor Bogdanovic step in to the fill the gaps and give us a first glimpse at a Joker-free Gotham.
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Illustrated by Viktor BogdanovicThe Joker is dead. Arkham City is closed. As a new day begins, Bruce Wayne finds himself in devastating pain, recovering from his injuries and questioning whether his role as Batman is still necessary to the city’s survival. But as the sun rises in Gotham City, dangerous new threats emerge from the shadows…and the Arkham Knight is just beginning. Don’t miss this in-continuity prequel comic set prior to the events of the brand-new video game Batman: Arkham Knight!
The first video game set in Gotham City that I ever played was a hand-held game on a nondescript cheap handheld system. It was based on Batman: The Animated Series, featured what seemed like one level of Batman running in one spot and beating up the same two bad guys, with everything in black and white. And I loved it. Twenty years later, Batman video games have received critical acclaim and commercial success with the Arkham series, which has hit all the right notes with gamers and Bat-fans alike. With a new game only months away, DC has launched a new mini-series to fill in the gaps between the two. While video game tie-ins don’t have a great reputation, by handing over the reins to fan favourite writer Peter J. Tomasi, this series is beginning with a lot of potential.
Opening with the final scene of Arkham City, Batman slowly walks outside cradling the Joker’s lifeless body and takes his first steps into a radically different Gotham. And he gets about 20 feet away before another bad guy swoops in for a fight. Batman probably really wishes he could just hit the pause button. It’s an immediate wake up call to the fact that just because the Joker is gone, it doesn’t mean that crime is going to evaporate, that Gotham will suddenly become the safest city on the eastern seaboard, or even that the Joker himself will stop being a nuisance.
Peter Tomasi, after years writing “Batman and Robin”, knows the Dark Knight inside and out. This, however, is not his Batman and while the differences are subtle, it’s definitely enough to give him a little bit of room to experiment. This Batman feels just a little less encumbered, possibly due to the absence of Damian Wayne, who has a major character and force in Tomasi’s other series.
The fact that Joker has been dead for less than ten minutes means that there aren’t any scenes with Batman brooding over his future, as there just hasn’t been the time yet. By having the unexpected villain fight so soon after this pivotal invent, and by Batman handling him so thoroughly, Tomasi is showing that just because his arch-nemesis is gone, Batman isn’t going to stop being Batman. He has spent years training himself into a crime fighting machine, and that’s not a switch that can just be turned off anytime soon.
The opening scene does make one interesting change from Arkham City. Here, Batman dumps the Joker’s body onto the roof of the squad car with a loud slam; while in the game Batman did the same basic action but much more gently. It’s subtle, and who’s to say the decision for the SLAMM sound effect came from Tomasi or artist Viktor Bogdanovic, but it does alter the tone of the scene.
Viktor Bogdanovic is a newcomer to DC, and he makes an immediate statement by resisting the temptation to produce art that is a carbon copy of the game’s graphics. He remains faithful to the familiar character designs from Arkham City, and he renders Batman with the near-iconic extended cowl that gamers know. Bogdanovic handles the action scenes quite feel, and his light line work gives a great feeling of movement to the images while keeping the visual clear. His style actually most resembles Greg Capulo’s work on the main “Batman” title, especially with his use of shadows and the detailed close ups of Batman’s fists in action.
Continued belowBogdanovic’s still has room to grow as an artist, and there are a few missed opportunities. He faces are less than consistent, which sometimes makes the emotion of the scene a little harder to grasp. There are also moments when his line work becomes a little too excessive and overpowers the images. Bogdanovic shows tons of potential, but there’s just bound to be a few growing pains along the way.
This series owes its very existence to the video game, but the creative team has no choice but to eventually circle around to the established game continuity and flesh out this story points. This is most apparent in the structure of the initial installment, which features not one, but two exposition-filled monologues that are designed to tie all the games together and set up a new antagonist. Tomasi wisely uses a fight scene to break up the first chunk of exposition as best he can, but despite his best efforts it’s just impossible to notice the immense amount of dialogue crammed into just a few pages.
The inherent nature of this series greatly affects the outcome of the story. There will never be a truly satisfying ending as it is all designed to make you run out buy the game. While this is surely a legitimate gripe on the part of readers, it would be best to remember that the vast majority of comics are designed to make you pick up the next issue, definitive endings be damned. It’s only slightly more explicit here, and Tomasi is a talented enough writer to fill the issue with interesting character moments that balances out the commercial nature of the project. The scene were Alfred prods Bruce into facing the reality of a post-Joker Gotham, where he might be able to do more good as a public figure than as masked vigilante, is a truly stand-out moment. And the way Bogdanovic draws Bruce’s face when Alfred rips off a band aid actually made me laugh out loud.
It’s hard to say that non-gamers will truly appreciate “Batman: Arkham Knight”, but the creative team has done their best to make a book that is fairly new reader friendly. This book easily could have been a corporate-mandated mess, (looking at you “Mortal Combat X”), but Peter Tomasi and Viktor Bogdanovic has clearly put effort into making this book stand on its own. There are strong character moments to balance out massive exposition, and they do seem genuinely excited to explore a new post-Joker Batman. If the only goal was to get us excited for the game then they definitely succeed, but the creative team actually created a decent book within the rather strict confines of a tie-in.
Final Verdict: 7.0 – A decent book which features some great moments that get bogged down by some unavoidable exposition. Arkham fans will love it, and at the very least you’ll want break out your copy of Arkham City.
