The grief that binds.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom King
Art: Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Oclair Albert, Scott Hanna
Colors: Marcelo Maiolo
Letterer: Deron Bennett
What They Say:
“I AM GOTHAM” epilogue. In this stand-alone tale, Batman seeks redemption as he tries to keep Gotham Girl from going down a dangerous path. But can the Dark Knight save someone who doesn’t want to be saved?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a fairly decent opening arc overall that provided for some solidly emotional material along the way with Gotham himself. Batman has been… well, decent. Having not read a Batman proper book since the start of New 52 for a few issues I’m still not sure what to make of this run beyond the understanding that it’s setting up bigger things. I liked what we got with Gotham and Gotham Girl in the opening storyline but I felt like an outsider reading the book more than anything else. I liked the ideas but the execution left me a bit uncertain about its intent. With that opening storyline done we get an epilogue issue here that works better than I expected and rises above the occasion a bit thanks to some fantastic artwork from Ivan Reis and great color work from Marcel Maiolo.
Taking place over the course of a few days we get a look at how Claire, aka Gotham Girl, is handling the fallout from Hank’s death. With the way her use of powers ends up costing her her life along the way, the idea of going out day after day and doing heroic things is painful to watch but is also the crux of many heroes themselves. Unfortunately, Claire’s also in a state of grief and is essentially broken at this point because the one true constant in her life is gone. There are some moments where you can see her looking almost like a variant on the Joker with her expressions and eyes and that’s painful to watch, especially as you know it registers for Batman pretty well. He and Duke are doing their best to figure out how to help her but it’s such a difficult situation even when you know someone well that someone like Claire, a near absolute stranger in all reality, is far more difficult.
The moment that Bruce asks Alfred about what he did to help him cope when he was a child is one of the more humanizing moments and it works really well. Especially since you can hear Alfred’s near sarcastic and accurate response about Bruce and coping. But it does turn into a strong sequence where Bruce pulls back the cowl and does his best to connect with Claire in a way that’s really meaningful to try and help and likely helps to unburden himself as well. The two share a deep grief of different kinds, hers raw and in the moment and his built upon years and years of guilt and anger, but it’s just that simple human contact and sense of compassion and understanding that goes a long way toward helping. I like what we got of Claire before and what we get here is certainly curious as to how she’ll be on the other side, but I’m admittedly looking forward to the book shifting gears as we get Batman going on… a suicide mission.
In Summary:
There are some genuinely strong moments in this book that will resonate more so for people that have suffered grief and loss and that works really well here. It’s something that doesn’t land as strong as it could since we’ve burned through the first five issues quickly and there hasn’t been a huge amount of investment in Gotham himself, never mind Gotham Girl. But as an epilogue and push forward into the next arc it definitely works well. It’s also a strong issue with Ivan Reis on the art duties as I really loved that two-page spread with Gotham Girl leaping into the city, something that just clicked really well with Maiolo’s color design on it. Reis is an artist that I really admire for what he’s capable of and he does a great job here in bringing it all together. While this may not be a great epilogue as it feels more like setup for what’s to come it does get the job done.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: September 7th, 2016
MSRP: $2.99
