Titans Beast World Tour: Gotham #1 – Chip Zdarsky, Grace Ellis, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Sam Maggs, Kyle Starks, Writers; Miguel Mendonca, Daniel Hillyard, Ivan Sharvin, PJ Holden, Kelley Jones, Artists; Mike Spicer, Rico Renzi, Lucas Gattoni, Jose Villarrubia, Colorists
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: With five stories and countless Gotham vigilantes, this is the biggest anthology to come out of Beast World yet. So how do they play out?
“The Good Boy” by Zdarsky and Mendonca picks up right after the events of Beast World #2, with Batman being transformed into a feral wolf-man. He escapes from Nightwing early on and lets his animal instincts take him back to Gotham—where he immediately starts to fight crime again, in a much more brutal and animalistic style. At the same time, Killer Croc encounters a spore—and begins to transform into a crocodile! Awkward! While this story seesaws between being jokey and intense, it works really well as a unique character study of Batman.
“Wild Harleys I Have Known,” by Lumberjanes co-creator Grace Ellis and Daniel Hillyard, focuses on a small-time conman who believes he’s being stalked by a giant rabbit. His therapist thinks he’s unstable—until the rabbit bursts through the door. And the rabbit is actually a giant, mutated, oddly muscular Harley Quinn, who is on a secret mission for Ivy (who seems to like animals as much as she does plants). This one is just a strange little bit of comedy amid all the chaos of the event.
Scavengers is a darker tale by Felker-Martin and Shavrin—and let’s just say one of those names is a bit more controversial than they were when this story was greenlit. Yikes, but I’ll judge the story on its merits. It’s a darkly cynical tale involving Red Hood, who has become a giant red wolf with a design that is sure to excite certain corners of the atmosphere. Along the way, Jason opines on the state of the Gotham criminal justice system and police force in a way that feels like writer on board—but also isn’t entirely OOC—while fighting a Naked Mole Ratcatcher. Kay.
There isn’t much to say about “Claw and Order” by Sam Maggs and PJ Holden—it’s literally a one-joke story, but that joke is really funny. Huntress is on the trail of a corrupt politician when she gets hit by a spore, becoming a vicious were-panther. Cassandra Cain comes along to stop her, and finds an unconventional defense mechanism to keep cat-Huntress occupied—one that will be hilariously familiar to all cat lovers.
Finally, Starks and Jones—a heavyweight creative team—bring the curtain down with “Wild Thing,” a Stephanie Brown tale that finds Spoiler facing off against a mutated Killer Moth—who has now become a giant cockroach man terrorizing a food pantry. Stephanie is sent in to investigate, and winds up in a particularly gross situation. This is a quick story with only a thin plot but good dialogue and fantastically creepy art.
The stories in here feel a little slighter than the average, but overall it’s a strong, fun anthology that shows Gotham at its craziest.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
