Batman #105 – James Tynion IV, Writer; Carlo Pagulayan/Danny Miki, Alvaro Martinez, Christian Duce, Artists; David Baron, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: It’s the end of “Act one” of James Tynion IV’s Batman run, as he takes a two-month break for Future State. Despite not having any developments as huge as the last few runs—yet—it actually feels like one of the most ambitious recent runs for the sheer number of significant new characters it’s introduced. When we last left off, Ghost-maker had set up Batman in a no-win situation, trying to prove to him that Clownhunter was beyond redemption by letting him have a clear shot at Harley. That leads to one of the best scenes of this entire run, as Batman barely gets free in time to save Harley’s life and tries to get her out of there—only for her to stay behind and try to talk to Clownhunter. The speech she gives that sort of gets through to him—briefly—is one of the best bits of work done with the character in recent memory, and shows just how many writers have had a hand in turning Harley into one of the DCU’s most compelling characters.
Clownhunter seems to veer back and forth between being completely insane and surprisingly vulnerable, and we know that story’s continuing in only a few weeks. This is a character that could have easily been a stock player, but Tynion’s given him a lot of nuance. I’m still a little of two minds on the other major player in this, Ghost-Maker. In the prologue, we see the moment he and Bruce formally parted ways due to their different visions for crime-fighting. The twist this issue is that, well, they aren’t truly enemies. They’re rivals, and while Ghost-Maker has put Bruce through hell, he also hasn’t done anything unforgivable yet. He’s trying to prove a point to Bruce, and instead of Bruce taking the bait, he decides to prove a point right back. This is a smarter Batman, one more open to taking chances on unconventional allies, and it’s one of the most intriguing parts of this run so far. Bring on act two of this run in March.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
