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Sep 10, 2011 Web Exclusive By Jeremy Nisen

It sure is a good thing that Batman is already popular. The venerable Detective Comics relaunched with a new #1 this week, and it’s just bad.

Tony S. Daniel impressively is the artist and the writer, and to be fair the art is pretty good. The visual storytelling suffers sometimes, but there were a few really beautiful splash pages.

The story is basically Batman vs. The Joker, and is set fairly early in their respective careers (Jim Gordon doesn’t have grey hair yet; Batman is just learning about the clownish villain).

The list of things taking me out of the story follows:

• Awful, clunky language. Example: “His modus operandi changes with the wind…and it’s been windy in Gotham City.” Worse: “Forget about it, Joker. You can’t run. I own the night.” Or, from a Jim Gordon narration box (why we need multiple narrators, I don’t know): “I trust him more than I do half the blockheads on the force.”
• The Joker himself. The menace of The Joker shouldn’t revolve around the gadgets he carries. It’s about his utter ruthlessness entwined with his utter unpredictability. In this case, that psychosis seemed obligatory rather than scary.
• The fight. Batman and Joker having extended fisticuffs is dumb. Joker as a threat is all about making Batman make decisions, causing later regrets, screwing with his mind. Not punch, knife, poison gas, electric joy buzzer.

I’ll say this—the final sequence and page, which introduces us to a character called “Dollmaker” and his gruesome interactions with the Joker, horrified me in a great way, and thus I think I need to check out issue two. (No spoilers). But it doesn’t save the issue. (www.dccomics.com)

Author rating: 3/10