Batman: Detective Comics #1100 – Tom Taylor, Writer; Mikel Janin, Artist; Norm Rapmund, Inker
Ray – 9/10
Ray: This arc has been a fascinating look back into the past of some of DC’s top street-level heroes, with Batman, Green Arrow, and Black Canary being joined by a fourth name – Prion, a young and idealistic martial artist who has been looking to form a team with them. He helps them disarm some train hijackers as the issue opens, saving Batman’s life and understanding him better psychologically than most – which makes it all the more tragic that we know he’ll be gone very soon. Taylor has done an excellent job of getting us invested in a new and posthumous character, something that’s never easy to do. But in the present day, the mysterious little girl who seems to be Prion’s daughter continues to try to assassinate the heroes, with Batman and Green Arrow barely getting away from her. And now, she’s in the gym, with Black Canary completely unprepared for her.
This issue does a great job with tension, with this strange girl shifting seamlessly from being a violent killer to being an incredibly convincing scared child. Or maybe it’s not all an act, as Batman notices – her body language changes in such a way that feels way too natural. That leads to Dinah tracking her down at the mansion where she lives, and we get a look into what’s happening to her – as well as the people behind it. This is one of the creepiest concepts I’ve seen in this book yet, and this book has had serial killers stealing the blood of juvenile delinquents! But there’s something uniquely unsettling about how the girl is used as a weapon against her will. And as the issue ends, we discover the dark secret that Dinah has been keeping this whole time, the origin of this whole crisis. Even though this is a Batman book, it’s really doing some great justice by the other characters so far.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
