Detective Comics #942

Script: Steve Orlando
Artist: Andy MacDonald
Colors: John Rauch
Letters: Marylin Patrizio
Publisher: DC

Detective Comics #942 picks up immediately where Nightwing #6 left off, with Hugo Strange wearing a Batman suit and grinning at the camera and a big Monster Man.. coming together out of.. smaller, dead Monster Men.

I thought seeing the Batfamily directly interact with Gotham citizens was the more interesting part of the arc early on but that was completely eschewed in the second half of the event. But pretty much every single plot-point from the first four parts was dealt with on Nightwing #6 so at the start of this issue we jump directly to the big showdown between Hugo Strange and Batman. There's a huge problem with the role that Strange played during the arc, it's explained to us from the first few pages of the event that he's the antagonist and the characters seem to know that unequivocally. But since Batman #7, Strange really only appeared in-page grinning maniacally and providing the most ill-informed fanservice I've seen recently. Everything he does seems to happen off-panel. The writers do very little to sell him as an antagonist.

Orlando and Seeley hint at the type of deep insight into the character of Batman that every Batman story apparently needs to have but it falls flat because there has been no effective build-up towards what should be the climatic moment of the story. Furthermore, the big themes introduced in this issue are very tenously tied to the rest of Monster Men.

The best thing this book has going for itself is by far the art. MacDonald and Rauch work in perfect lockstep for the entirety of this issue. A lot of the action doesn't lend itself to great visuals, after all, the Batfamily spend the first half of this issue throwing harpoons at a giant mushroom and the second half of it swimming in uh… monster puke. However, Rauch makes the big mess of monster puke flooding Gotham work with his gaudy colors. And even though the scene with Hugo Strange and Batman doesn't work in the context of the book and the dialogue in it is clunky, MacDonald builds compelling tension and drama within it.

Detective Comics #942 brings Night of the Monster Men to a close. Despite being released within 4 weeks and having good art from start to finish, this story felt too long. It delivered a lot of action and a heavy-handed reflection on What Batman Means, so on some level it does what you would expect but neither of those things are particularly exciting on their own, especially since they aren't all that well-executed.