Detective Comics #970

Writer: James Tynion IV

Artist: Joe Bennett

Inkers: Salvador Regla, Ricardo Jaime, and Marcio Loerzer

Colourist: Jason Wright

Letterer: Sal Cipriano

I wasn't impressed with the last issue but this issue flowed a lot better for me. It set up a whole lot of stuff for the next few issues but the inclusion of the Victim Syndicate greatly worries me.

The Victim Syndicate story has never grabbed me, mostly because it's quite generic at this point. All the First Victim wants to do is dismantle the Gotham Knights by making them look bad to the public. We've seen this kind of story many times before and I wish James Tynion IV could have done something more interesting with the Knights instead of generically wanting to tear them down before they can rise again, better than ever.

Joe Bennett is an artist who's always impressed me with his work but I'm not really connecting to his art in this series. There's something blocky or rigid about it that I can't quite put my finger on, and I don't think Jason Wright's colouring is helping it. Tomeu Morey or Adriano Lucas would make the art fit the style of the book better since these two colourists have been on this book more or less since the beginning. His take on Clayface is the worst part of his art. He gives him too much shape when he's been presented as more of a hulking character. I don't know if it was intentional to get the reader to sympathise with him more by giving him a more rounded and relatable figure, but it doesn't look good.

I'm mostly bored with this story, and it's disheartening to know that it'll continue for at least a couple of months. The Victim Syndicate needs to go away and Bennett's art isn't as good as it should be.