Detective Comics #16 – Review

By: John Layman (story), Jason Fabok (art), Jeremy Cox (colors)

The Story: On the plus side, clown-nose sellers are making a killing—so to speak.

The Review: I don’t often feel too competitive with my fellow reviewers across the web, but every now and then I’ll stumble upon a piece that dismays me because it happens to make nearly all the same points I want to make, but better.  David Pepose of Newsarama did just that in his review of this issue, which very properly calls it a “hidden gem…a tie-in comic done right.  It may actually be the best tie-in comic I’ve ever read.”  Damn you, Pepose—I totally agree.

Tie-ins usually have an entirely incidental quality to them.  They pop up unexpectedly during a series’ run, make some obligatory references to the main event, then wheedle their way out as unobtrusively as possible.  Catwoman threw Selina right into Joker’s way and somehow she came out of the experience completely unscathed and unaffected, if the totally unconnected following issue shows anything.  Batman and Robin did a much better job using Joker’s presence in the series, but this was a more direct tie-in which still seemed to interrupt the title’s flow.