Gotham will be judged..
Creative Staff:
Story: Ray Fawkes
Art: Ben Templesmith
What They Say:
Jim Corrigan can’t keep The Spectre at bay any longer! Now he’s arrived to judge Gotham City for its many sins. Does anyone, even the Midnight Shift, stand a chance against Heaven’s blade?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Gotham by Midnight has been building a pretty solid story here with what it’s been doing, giving us things in piecemeal form while introducing the style of this precinct and the characters that are new to it all. Bringing in new and unusual supernatural elements in each issue and then tying it all together is standard fare, but I really liked the way those individual elements played out while letting different characters shine during it. With it all coming together in the bigger picture the last time around, and having Corrigan losing to the Spectre as the really big bad guy has shown up, the book has reached its opening arc climax and it has to really hit it with the payoff.
What we get here is largely an action piece in a sense as we get the Spectre going up against the massive black piece of supernatural work named Ikkondrid, but it’s not action in the traditional sense. The two tower over Gotham and their struggle is told through narration, mostly from Corrigan’s point of view as he talks about how he has a way to listen in on the Spectre to try and understand him. There’s some good stuff in it with how it plays out in that regard, getting to know more of how the Spectre operates itself but also with Corrigan in that he refuses to just be a lapdog for this spirit of vengeance. We also get narration and dialogue from the others as they see what’s going on from a distance, but also with them trying to stop things from getting worse. Drake is ready to shoot herself after her scream means someone will die and Justine is doing all she can to pray for something bigger to intervene. Everything is going bad and everyone sees no way out of it other than divine intervention.
What I like about this as it unfolds is that we really do have a true issue here as the fear of the Spectre agreeing with the grudge that Ikkondrid has about what happened to this land over the years and its people. There’s such a level of guilt and sin in Gotham that should he turn his gaze there, it’s very easy to imagine that the place would be razed in an instant. But seeing the approaches used by everyone to try and reach him, to stop him from doing it, it really works well because we get into the characters well enough and their passion in trying to stop it works well, as does the variety of ways that they act. Hell, even the Batman scenes aren’t bad since he’s largely ineffective with the Batplane and taking down the Spectre really isn’t his thing. But there’s some great, raw looking illustration artwork for it that almost makes him look like a demon possessed as he tries to protect the city.
In Summary:
Gotham by Midnight brings its opening arc and massive threat to a close, though with it more set up as a delayed kind of closure as opposed to something with some finality. What it does is mostly give us the grand battle between the two large supernatural entities, but it’s almost all processed through the eyes of Corrigan and everyone else from the team. There’s a great scale to the events and it’s well balanced by the personal side so that we really feel invested with everyone, and with the loss that comes with it as well. The book has plenty of places to go from here and I’m definitely curious to see what approach it’ll take and if the cast changes much, but overall this has been a great arc as a whole that’s filled with some great artwork to bring it all together. Definitely a book to pick up in trade format if you’re not a fan of monthlies.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 25th, 2015
MSRP: $2.99
