Detective Comics #1 (DC) | Under the Radar Magazine Under the Radar | Music Blog for the Indie Music Magazine
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Detective Comics #1

DC

Writer and Artist: Tony S. Daniel; Inks: Ryan Winn

Sep 10, 2011 Web Exclusive Bookmark and Share


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

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Average reader rating: 4/10



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Kyle Lemmon
September 10th 2011
10:34pm

Just read this. I totally agree.

Owen
September 12th 2011
4:17pm

I bailed once I read the “I own the night” line. What a disappointment.

Cheap Dissertation
April 16th 2012
12:47am

Great article. Wonderful thoughts provided. Really like your web page. buy thesis Best of luck.

Mike
June 12th 2012
4:54am

These sets look crappy! (except for joker.) Why is it lego has reelased info on the dc and marvel hero factory sets but not on the actual lego sets?! So far we got bad quality images of a few january sets and the names of a few marvel sets. It’s as bad as the POTC images were this year! (I couldn’t find them online until feburary and the sets came out in april!) It’s starting to seem like we might have to wait for the actual catolog to even see these things! (sorry about the rant, but I needed to get it off my chest.)