Detective Comics #2 – Review

Written and Drawn by Tony S. Daniel, Inked by Ryan Winn and Sandu Florea, Colored by Tomeu Morey

The Story: Batman and Gordon discover the Joker’s face left behind in Arkham and begin their investigation. But first, Batman must save a little girl…

The Good: An issue 2 that doesn’t feel like filler to fit a trade. This has a story to it. Beginning, middle, and end. Character arc. Subplots. So many comics now are one note made-for-the-trade these days that getting something with a lot of content is almost overwhelming.  But Daniel gives us a lot of meat for our three bucks, whether it’s developing Bruce’s personal life, showing us how Gordon works, or building towards the crescendo of the issue, there’s nothing thrown in for filler. Everything is working towards something. And this mystery is just beginning to explode. It’s so hard to write about these issues without spoiling them or mentioning some very intriguing key parts. So, how to do this and be vague… The new villain set up in the last issue, the Dollmaker… I am now convinced that he is a credible threat to Gotham. Riddler, Two-Face, Penguin–you’ve got a new buddy in your league and he is young and hungry (well, maybe not young. And maybe a bit more hungry in a literal sense). But Dollmaker succeeds as a villain where Morrison’s Professor Pyg fails–in that, I didn’t give a crap about that villain and never saw him as a threat to Batman. Dollmaker is. I am interested in Dollmaker and his….agh…can’t say it. And he’s a villain with a scheme. Okay, all villains have schemes, but you get the sense that he really has something cooking in that deranged noggin.