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Jul 02, 2015 Web Exclusive By Cody Ray Shafer

With DC’s latest overhaul, Batman is dead again and someone else has stepped up to take on the mantle of the dark knight. There was no battle for the cowl—or, in this case, the robo-bunny-bat-armor—but rather a strategic operation carried out by the Gotham police department. The GCPD’s new commissioner manages to convince the one and only Jim Gordon to fill Bruce Wayne’s bat-boots. No, this is not some high-concept alternative universe version of Batman we’re talking about, this is the mainstream DC universe.

Setting aside the inherent silliness of the entire concept—even the characters in the comics find the new suit utterly ridiculous—Gordon’s tenure as Batman does significantly alter the power dynamic of the caped crusader and law enforcement. Detective Comics is the perfect vehicle to handle this shift, and issue #41 deals with this directly through Harvey Bullock’s hesitation. While the Gotham police prepare to take on the Batman enterprise, Bullock is skeptical and clings to his natural instincts to mistrust a masked vigilante. He also suspects Bruce Wayne is alive and well, and is far more interested in following through on that case than participating in the whole Robocop fiasco. It’s like he knows what we’re all thinking.

That’s the dilemma this issue sets out to resolve. By getting Bullock on board with the whole Batcop idea, DC is hoping their readers will join him. It’s an interesting perspective, to have someone so antagonistic to our hero suddenly fill the role of an audience surrogate. For Bullock, though, acceptance doesn’t come until he realizes his friend Gordon is the one behind the mask, and it is unclear at the end whether he’s really come around or if he’s just terrified by the reality of the risk Gordon’s made.

Issue 41 also reintroduces Renee Montoya, a character not seen in comics since before the New 52. Montoya returns to Gotham to head up the Batman task force—a job Bullock turned down—and she initiates the bridge of trust between Bullock and the new team. If anything, the new Batman gives writers Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul a perfect opportunity to shift the focus of Detective to characters like Bullock, and Montoya makes a perfect addition to the main players. There’s still no telling if readers will warm up to Jim Gordon as Batman, but at least in this book the writers have set an unavoidable hook to get us invested in the story. (www.dccomics.com)

Author rating: 5.5/10