Martin Deer reviews the latest issue of Batman…
“Twists and turns are around every corner as Bruce Wayne takes the final steps toward his destiny! And in the backup story, learn more about how different Gotham City was at this dangerous point in time.“
Since DC restarted the DC Universe back in 2011, things have been a bit of a mess, continuity wise. Some elements remained from the past, yet others were removed, and some things just didn’t add up at all time-wise. Many felt that the New 52 should have wiped the slate clean completely and started from scratch across the board – and in truth that would have worked much more effectively. Here now though Scott Snyder is being given the chance to retell Batman’s origin, which won’t solve any of the issues the continuity has, but it is a chance for new readers who jumped on board back in 2011 to see the origin play out. Whilst many seem to be unhappy with this, it has been a while since the origin was told, and the reboot does give the opportunity to tell it again, and so as long as it gives us something fresh, what’s the issue?
So does it deliver? Well, not really. The story is completely flat and despite promising to flesh out unseen years, this first issue simply repeats things we already know. Snyder knows who Batman is, he gets it, and he again does not falter in his characterisation of Bruce, but the story doesn’t really give us anything new to sink our teeth in to. There’s the Red Hood, there’s Bruce training and out there on the streets in rough form and it’s all very familiar. It seems we may be getting to know more about Martha Wayne’s family, which could be quite interesting, but at this point, family related villains are getting a little tiresome. The prelude of the book, which last for merely a few panels, is absolutely the most interesting part. Zero Year takes place six years prior to the events of the New 52 restart, and the main story in this first issue occurs months before the prelude, and so we are building up to a very interesting aspect that I look forward to seeing. As a whole, this issue was fairly bland, but given what the first few panels depicted, future issues could be very interesting.
Greg Capullo’s art is once again terrific. The way he brings Gotham to life, and with Danny Miki’s inks and FCO Plascencia’s colours, the city pops out in extravagant vibrancy. It’s really quite a beautiful issue. Speaking of vibrant colours, an old villain is introduced to this world for the first time, and whilst this sort of element for this character has been seen before, we’ll have to wait to see how he is characterised, but it’s nice to see an old face.
Not the greatest, most powerful of starts to a new arc, but it has a few elements which I look forward to exploring in further issues. We’ll see how it all pans out.
Martin Deer
Originally published June 16, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
