Ricky Church reviews Batman – Detective Comics: The Rebirth Deluxe Edition Book 1…
As much as Batman is known for being a lone, solitary figure, he’s surrounded by numerous other heroes both in Gotham and abroad. With Detective Comics in DC’s Rebirth initiative, the book has become a team book featuring Batman and his many allies as he puts together a new team to fight a mysterious hidden threat that has come to Gotham City. James Tynion IV crafts an set of intriguing tales in this hefty book that examines the role Batman and his cohorts play in Gotham and their culpability for the insane dangers that plague its citizens.
The book starts with Batman discovering a mysterious group watching the moves of himself, Batwoman and several other of Gotham’s heroes. To combat this threat, he puts together an team of heroes, including some newcomers and fan-favourites, with Batwoman as the team’s lead. The mix of heroes is pretty great with Red Robin, Spoiler and Cassandra Cain filling out the rest of the team, but the one real surprise is the addition of the supervillain Clayface. Tynion puts Clayface on a redemptive path which Batman uses to coax him onto the team, hoping to nurture Clayface’s better instincts by recognizing the desire to connect and be human once again.
The chemistry between the team is great as Tynion captures each individual voice very well, especially when it comes to Red Robin. This first half of the story shows Tim Drake is in many ways the glue of the team, keeping them all confident and coming up with new ways to counteract their enemies. Tynion’s handling of Drake is one of the best aspects of the issue and is a return to form for the character after his characterization in The New 52 (which wasn’t totally terrible, but seemed to have much less significance. Its nice to see him back in the traditional-looking Robin suit as well).
Tynion also crafts a nice mentor/mentee relationship between Batman and Batwoman, though he does add a rather confusing retcon that Bruce Wayne and Kate Kane are officially cousins now through Bruce’s mother, making Jacob Kane officially his uncle and Martha Wayne’s brother. Its a little weird in the way that information is suddenly dropped given that in the old continuity (New 52 included), Jacob and Kate Kane were only distantly related to Bruce through the Kane family. It adds even more confusion when the events of Scott Snyder’s Zero Year are brought up, in which Bruce did have an uncle who was his mother’s brother named Phillip Kane, though that fact is never even brought up either.
Still, the relationship between Batman and Batwoman is given a nice amount of focus as Batman tries to use her military background for the team while also expanding her thought process at the same time. The focus on Batwoman as well and her inner struggle to remain loyal to the team’s goals or her father’s specific hopes for her is given a nice examination, diving a bit more into what drives her and why she acts the way she does.
After the first story, ‘The Rise of the Batmen’ which also contains some surprising connections to the overall mystery of DC Rebirth and possibly Doomsday Clock, Tynion shifts gears from a story involving saving the city to one that more intimately examines Batman and his team’s role in creating the very monsters they protect Gotham from. Rather than fighting typical villain like Joker, Scarecrow, Two-Face and the other rogues, ‘The Victim Syndicate’ instead has a group of innocent bystanders who have been caught in the crossfire coming back to haunt Batman and his allies.
‘The Victim Syndicate’ asks some pretty tough questions about Batman’s culpability in the innocent lives put at risk, especially in the wake of a terrible loss out of ‘Rise of the Batmen’. This focus on his beliefs though isn’t just put on him, but on Batwoman and, even more significantly, Spoiler. Each person responds to the accusations differently, forcing them to own up to and confront their own mistakes in preventing collateral damage and lives. The leader of the group, known only as The First Victim, doesn’t come across too sympathetic, especially since we are never given his or her name and backstory, but a couple of the group members, particularly Mudface who shares a history with Clayface, are fairly sympathetic after learning what happened to them.
The book also includes the Detective Comics issues to the crossover event ‘Night of the Monster Men’. Though it only includes parts 3 and 6 of the crossover, there is a brief recap of the events in the other parts so readers won’t get too lost. While these chapters are entertaining and the recaps do the best they can, they still seem oddly placed in this book and don’t focus enough on the fallout of ‘Rise of the Batmen’, making these two issues easily skipable. The closing story, however, is ‘Batwoman Begins’ and looks a bit more at how Kate decided to don her own Batsuit while examining her complicated relationship with her father. It also sets up a little of her solo Batwoman series as Marguerite Bennett co-writes those issues with Tynion. Unlike the ‘Night of the Monster Men’ issues, ‘Batwoman Begins’ is a fairly essential story that picks up threads from ‘Rise of the Batmen’ and also examines Kate’s character and history.
Several artists work on the stories, but the two main ones are Eddy Barrows and Alvaro Martinez. Their styles are fairly similar so it doesn’t create very much discontinuity when they switch between chapters. Both Barrows and Martinez do very well with the characters movements, creating some very easy-to-follow action and nice images of the team together. One confusing element, though, are the layouts in some of the issues; in this hardcover collection, it is sometimes a bit difficult to know when a scene is suddenly read across both pages rather than up and down on one, making it a bit difficult to follow on the first read. Still, their artwork is very well done throughout the issue.
Also included in the book is a small collection of variant covers, character designs and sketches from Barrows and Martinez. The sketches give a nice look at their early work on some of the book’s most memorable images, though it also would have been nice to hear a bit more about the creation of the designs, why they chose Clayface for the team or the layouts of the book.
Batman – Detective Comics: The Rebirth Deluxe Edition Book 1 is a nice collection of stories from Tynion, Barrows and Martinez that focuses on the characters and their development just as much as the action. It is definitely a thought-provoking insight into Gotham’s heroes and how they are viewed by people within and outside of Gotham. Despite a couple hiccups in the book itself, Batfans, and those who are Tim Drake fans, should really enjoy this collection.
Rating: 7/10
Ricky Church
