Detective Comics #20 – Review

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

The Story: Batman encounters a three-for-one deal of villains that he’d rather avoid.

The Review: I don’t always engage in fruitless speculation as to what goes on behind the scenes in a comic, but I imagine that Layman has got to be a little exasperated about how long it’s taken to get to this point in his Emperor Penguin story.  It’s been six months, just about, since Layman took over this series, and it still feels like he’s only in the middle of his first arc, having been sidetracked by the return of Joker, the death of Robin, and a thinly veiled anniversary issue.

Despite all that, Layman has striven valiantly to keep his agenda on course, and here, at the climax of his story and the peak of Oglivy’s powers, the timing seems fine for a confrontation between the new Penguin and the Dark Knight himself.  Fine, but not ideal; any battle with Batman inevitably ends with the villain’s defeat, and as quickly as Oglivy has asserted his presence in Gotham’s underworld, he could stand some more time at the top.

Detective Comics #19 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Gotham’s always had a bat problem, but now they have a bat problem.

The Review: In the grand scheme of things, the number of issues a series has under its belt isn’t really important—quality over quantity and all that—but it does quantify a title’s longevity, which sort of says something about the title’s popularity.  Obviously, reaching 900 issues is a pretty big achievement, and you know the most painful thing DC had to accept when they relaunched their entire line was resetting Detective Comics’ numbering back to square one.

Here, they make an attempt to have their cake and eat it too by incorporating the 900 number into the story, which John Layman faithfully does.  Unfortunately, the number has no real value or purpose in context other than as an ominous reference, and the story itself is just yet another variation on the virulent transformation premises that have been infecting the DCU lately: Rise of the Third Army, Rotworld, Demon Knights (not to mention I, Vampire, in which you literally have murderous creatures spreading across Gotham’s citizenry).

Detective Comics #18 – Review

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

The Story: Penguin is driven to the lowest point a modern man can get—using a pay phone.

The Review: The use of a shared universe and “family” of titles definitely has its benefits, with each writer able to work off of the ideas of their peers to create a more substantial storyline with more impact than a single writer can achieve on his own.  But there are downsides, too; if something major happens to a character in one title—particularly if that character appears in all the others—suddenly every title has to deal with the ramifications of that development.

You don’t get anything more major than the death of a son, and since the son in question is Robin and the father is Batman, it would be churlish, to say the least, if the rest of the Bat-family titles didn’t address it in some way.  Sometimes, however, the timing can be a real drag.  Layman hasn’t had much time to be left to his own devices on his run so far, what with the effects of Death of the Family taking over #16 and #17.  Now he has to give attention to the death of Robin when it’s clear he’d rather get back to the Penguin story he’s had to put on hold for a while.