DC Comics Review: Arkham Reborn #1

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Rating: ***

A few months ago during the Battle for the Cowl series, DC Comics released accompanying one-shots that expanded on the state of Gotham City and its inhabitants during the initial disappearance of Batman. Some were good and some were bad, but one stood out as great. Batman Battle for the Cowl: Arkham was the story of Jeremiah Arkham and his attempts at recovery after the destruction of Arkham Asylum. The story was similar to the mini-series Arkham Asylum: Living Hell in that it focused more on the inmates of Arkham and not Batman. This Battle for the Cowl issue introduced us to several unseen inmates who were special to Jeremiah: No Face, The Hamburger Lady, and the Mirror Man. This is the first issue of a three part mini-series that continues the story of Jeremiah and the inmates from that issue.

The first issue of Arkham Reborn begins with the reopening of Arkham Asylum. Now I didn’t catch this until after I read the issue, but in the opening scene Jeremiah Arkham is showing off the new asylum to a group of Gothamites. Some of these characters include Commissioner Gordon, new Gotham D.A. Kate Spencer aka the super-hero Manhunter, Aaron Cash head of Arkham security, Jeremiah’s new assistant Alyce Sinner, and ....Bruce Wayne?! I had to do a Wikipedia search to discover that Thomas Elliot, who surgically altered his face to look like Bruce Wayne, escaped from his cell and is now out and about as Bruce Wayne. I think the editors should have mentioned this, as I believe this all happened in the Streets of Gotham title and I don’t read that book.

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DC Comics Review: Batman #685

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Another solid issue by Paul Dini.  Dini was one of the masterminds behind “Batman: The Animated Series”.  When it was announced that he was going to write for Batman, I was thrilled.  Although his run has not lived up to my expectations, his run has still been quite good.  This issue continues the “Faces of Evil” storyline that began in “Detective Comics”.

If you read part one of this story and the “Heart of Hush” story before that, you know that Tommy Elliot aka Hush has had his face surgically altered to look like Bruce Wayne.  Catwoman has sworn revenge over the incident in where Hush stole her heart - literally.  She gets revenge by stealing all of the Elliot fortune and leaving Tommy penniless.

Because he looks like Bruce Wayne and Bruce is missing, Hush takes advantage and uses this to score some cash - unfortunately for him he wasn’t expecting to meet up with Catwoman again.

Spoilers….......

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What’s next for Batman after Final Crisis?

Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, DC Comics,

Batman is dead.  In this week’s issue of “Final Crisis”, Batman died at the hands of Darkseid.  I always felt that if DC were to ever write this story, (I’m not including the death of Earth 2 Batman or any Elseworlds stories) Batman’s death would come at the hands of one of his rogues.  It would be an epic tale where the Joker or Ra’s would finally succeed in getting one over on Bruce in a moment of weakness. 

So now that he’s dead, where do we go from here?  Well we know DC will be putting “Detective Comics” and “Batman” on hiatus and in it’s place will be a three part miniseries entitled “Battle for the Cowl”.  We can assume from the title that there will be a fight of some sort to see who will take over as Batman.  The players are: Nightwing, Robin, Jason Todd, and Hush.

This is much different that what we saw during the “Knightfall” trilogy where the mantle was simply given to Jean Paul Valley aka Azrael.  Bruce’s relationship with Dick Grayson was estranged at the time and Tim Drake was too young, so for some reason it was deemed fitting that the character of Bruce Wayne would rationally relinquish the most important thing in his life to this guy he barely knew - but that’s ancient history now.

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