Batman #132 – Chip Zdarsky, Writer; Mike Hawthorne/Adriano Di Benedetto, Miguel Mendonca, Artists; Tomeu Morey, Roman Stevens, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: Zdarsky took a huge risk with a sci-fi-heavy kickoff to his run—so naturally, for his second arc he’s going even crazier. Bruce Wayne has been catapulted into a whole new world in the multiverse—a world without a Batman. Here, Alfred and Leslie are a couple doing good work in a hopeless place. Harvey Dent is a ruthless enforcer for the mysterious vigilante Red Mask. A corrupt corporate Arkham Asylum finds ways to declare any undesirables insane and lock them up for good, and the closest the city has to a hero is a young woman named Jewel—and now, a broken and confused Bruce Wayne who is haunted by the spectre of a skeletal Jim Gordon. It’s a fascinatingly bleak world with shades of Judge Dredd.
Zdarsky’s Bruce voice is fantastic, and Bruce already seems to be mentally fitting Jewel for the next Robin costume. But to get home, he’ll have to find out more about the world—and that means infiltrating high society in disguise. Along the way, he encounters some very different versions of Gotham’s heroes, antiheroes, and villains. Mike Hawthorne’s art is brilliant, especially during Bruce’s daring escape from the party. It’s still not clear why Failsafe sent Bruce here, but this seems to be a world that never had a Batman—and it may be one too far gone for Batman to make a difference. I think Zdarsky has pulled off the near-impossible—this run so far is truly a type of Batman story we’ve never seen before.
The backup is just as strong, a Tim Drake-focused tale as he tries to track Bruce through the multiverse. Unwilling to accept that Bruce is dead, he finds clues linked to a recent Toyman rampage in metropolis that seemingly left several people dead—but left behind traces of multiversal energy. With the help of Mr. Terrific, he’s able to put together a way to travel the multiverse, but makes sure to spend some time with Bernard first. As he begins his journey, he finds the villain—and this might just be the darkest Toyman story since the 1990s, if the cliffhanger is any indication.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
