Written by Scott Snyder
Illustrated by Francesco Francavilla“There are some cases that come screaming back at you…like phone calls in the night…”
For years, Jim Gordon has been haunted by the unsolved case of Gotham’s notorious
“Peter Pan Killer.” Now, armed with new evidence, Gordon is determined to put the case to rest. But as he digs deeper, he’ll unearth a shocking discovery about his own past — a revelation that will shake him to the core. Skeletons will be exposed and secrets revealed in this special issue featuring art by Francesco Francavilla!
We here at Multiversity have been saying nothing but good things about Scott Snyder’s new run on Detective Comics. As such, it would be silly to believe that this issue would be anything less than awesome… right?
You’ll have to follow the cut to be sure.
I was just messing with you. It’s still awesome.
Well, you probably want more than that. You readers can be so demanding.
I’ve said in previous reviews that I’m very much a Dick Grayson fan, and I also have been very satisfied with the way that Snyder writes the character. This issue proves, though, that I could just read a Gotham P.D. book written by Snyder and be more than satisfied. Snyder has that pulpy narrative of Gordon’s down to an exact science, to the point that I could just read the captions and the speech balloons and be perfectly okay with that – though I’d be severely deprived, as we’ll get to later. As much as I love Gordon, though, those first few pages with Harvey Bullock were such a great way to open the issue. On the one hand, the pages did a beautiful job in terms of setting the tone for the issue as a whole before jumping into the story, and on the other it’s Harvey Bullock, one of the greatest yet sadly underused characters of the Batman supporting cast (in this decade, at least).
This issue particularly shines as a psychological roller coaster. To very roughly paraphrase fellow Multiversity Comics writer Josh Mocle, up until now Snyder has been showing us readers how twisted our own minds are by making us root for the worst outcome anyone could want: for Gordon’s son to be a terribly screwed-up murderer. Snyder manages to pull the wool over our eyes by doing the same thing to Gordon as well. And if Gordon believes it, why shouldn’t we? He’s the best, most pure cop that Gotham has probably ever had. Who are we as readers to disagree with him? I won’t spoil the ending twist, but I can tell you that it is extremely well done, and that I honestly didn’t see it coming. That being said, it’s not one of those “twists” that just seems pulled out of nowhere, leaving the reader to think “well of course I didn’t see that coming, how could I?” – something that seems to happen all too often in a medium where issue-ending cliffhangers are all too frequent. The beauty of this issue’s ending is that there really is no inherent twist. Rather, we as readers create wild assumptions out of the little bits of information Snyder gives us, only to be punished for making such assumptions. And it’s awesome. I’ll stop now before I risk hinting too much and inadvertently spoil anything.
I love Snyder’s work on this title, but let’s take a moment to hear it for Francesco Francavilla. Originally starting out as the co-feature artist, Francavilla now trades off with Jock on artistic duties for this title. Jock’s art is typically that which is given more attention because… well, let’s face it, he’s Jock and he’s one hell of an artist. Still, I would argue that Francavilla deserves just as much praise. His style fits these Gordon-centric stories like a personally-tailored glove – perhaps more so than Jock’s fits those stories about Dick. I don’t mean to suggest anything negative about Jock’s work at all, it’s just that Francavilla is that good. Everything has this great sense of implied movement: yes, it feels like you’re looking at a still image, but you can see in every panel how it got there and where its going. His linework is great, of course, but what really makes his artwork sing is his use of colors. During the more “subdued” parts of the story, he uses equally subdued colors to match the tone, but the colors that he chooses tend to be a bit unnatural, leaving the reader in a state of discomfort – and if Snyder didn’t want the reader to be completely uncomfortable throughout this story, then I read it wrong.
I have a lot of great things I want to say about Snyder’s run as a whole, but perhaps five issues in is a bit early to start describing it as the Detective Comics run of the 21st century. Come back in a year, though, and I’ll probably say a lot of outrageous things (presuming it stays consistent in its quality, of course). This issue is my favorite of the run so far, and I have no problem with admitting that I’m loving this more than Batman Inc. – something that’s difficult for a diehard Morrison fan to admit. If you say you’re a Batman fan and you aren’t buying this… well, you’re wrong.
Final Verdict: 9.6 – Buy. It.
