Detective Comics #943

Writer: James Tynion IV
Penciler: Alvaro Martinez
Inker: Raul Fernandez
Colorist: Brad Anderson
Letterer: Marylin Patrizio
Publisher: DC

So, Rebirth's first event wasn't great. Before being crossed over into Night of the Monster Men, Detective Comics was coming out of a fairly strong arc with a, in spite of its importance to the larger DC story, disappointing final issue. I hoped that with #943, this book would get back to juggling the breakneck, thrilling feel of Rise of the Batmen with effective character moments but this is issue is considerably slower.

The issue starts with Renee Montoya and Batwoman conducting an investigation at a Wayne Enterprises building, which was recently attacked because it is Wayne Enterprises. The comic immediately goes into showing witnesses being interviewed superimposed with footage of the crime and photos of the victims. It's an ambitious sequence but it is undermined by a lettering mistake. There's a speech bubble attached to the wrong character, which makes the whole thing very confusing.

The rest of the issue is less engaging, Tim Drake's apparent death hangs heavy over this book, as most characters are seen dealing with that burden in their own way. There are some good character moments with Clayface but for most of the book, Tynion's mastery over his cast of characters doesn't show as much as it did previously. The slower pace doesn't work as well either. While the issue is clearly setting the arc's foundation, it never does anything too compelling within its pages.

This arc takes its name from a new group of villains that are introduced at the end of this issue, the Victim Syndicate. We'll see what Tynion does with them but their proclamations at the aren't making me anticipate the next issue. Ostensibly, this is a group of villains that is made out of people who have been affected by the rampant violence in renowned hellhole Gotham. It's always been weird to me when writers use Batman to deal with moral quagmires because Batman's superpower is always being right (have you seen Nolan's films recently? Yikes), even compared to other superheroes. Superman's had all this villainous turns and every single one of the X-Men have to make a mess at some point (it's actually in their contract) but Batman always wins in his own terms and that means none of his villains can really be all that sympathetic. So I'm not really enthralled by the prospect of seeing him face off against “the Victim Syndicate”.

However, Alvaro Martinez's art towards the end is really good, the final scene takes place in a high society-type party, and it would be easy to lose sight of the physical space amidst all the background bodies and motion but Martinez is great at framing characters within that space and that really sells that final cliffhanger. Marilyn Patrizio has lettered Detective Comics since the start of Rebirth and she's usually done a good job but her gaffe in that earlier sequence really messes up the lengths to which Martinez and Anderson went to differentiate between the witnesses and the footage of the Victim Syndicate's attack.

Between Night of the Monster Men and the death of Tim Drake, Detective Comics has been spinning its wheels for the past few issues. Hopefully once this arc kicks into its second act the book goes back to being as engaging as the Rise of the Batmen was.