Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham #2 – Rafael Grampa, Writer/Artist; Matheus Lopes, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: Rafael Grampa is one of the most acclaimed artists working today, so it’s no surprise at all that his Gotham is one of the most stunning things in comics at the moment. Brilliantly detailed and dripping with grit and blood, it’s the perfect staging ground for a brutal mystery that finds a new villain targeting Gotham’s rich with attacks that seem to have ties to a bizarre old cartoon. But we soon find out that this twisted “Crytoon” is just a pawn in a much larger game, one that involves several other new villains with unique themes. As they pull off their kills, Batman and Jim Gordon are pulled deeper into a mystery with roots to a long-shut-down Arkham program in child psychology—one that apparently also involved Bruce Wayne. And there’s the main problem with this issue. While visually it’s brilliant, it also takes Bruce and Batman to some seriously strange places that do not always work.
For one thing, there’s the insane reveal that the reason Bruce was in the program was because after his parents were shot, he went out and beat a homeless man until the victim was permanently paralyzed. That would seem to be the kind of unforgivable crime that would ruin the character going forward—but a later reveal that the victim was, in fact, Joe Chill just makes it an even stranger digression. Bruce’s interactions with Gordon and his desire to eliminate his secret identity make this version of Batman seem even more unstable than the usual. While this is a visually brilliant comic, it also seems like it’s a story featuring versions of the character that went through the looking glass a few dozen times. This version of Batman sort of lives down to all the bad hot takes about him being a mentally ill rich dude who beats up the poor, and the story doesn’t quite live up to the brilliant art for me.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
