A solid Japanese take on the American dark knight.
Creative Staff
Story: Kia Asimiya
Art: Kia Asimiya
Translation/Adaptation: Max Allan Collins
What They Say
If you could be anyone, who would you be? There’s a drug on the streets of Gotham that will make your dreams come true. For a minute, for an hour, for a whole night if you’re lucky, you can literally become your idol – provided your idol is one of Batman’s greatest enemies. The price for your fantasy come true? It’s steep. As steep as it gets. But for a taste of criminal glory, it’s a price many are willing to pay. It’s up to Batman to find the supplier for this surreal and deadly drug – and the search takes him to Tokyo for a confrontation with the ultimate chemically enhanced enemy…
The Review
Technical:
The cover is a removable dustjacket with a colorized version of Batman sitting in his chair in the Batcave. There are credits and descriptions of the premise on the rear (beneath a more shadowy rendition of The Dark Knight) and inside the front cover. The general overtones are black-ish through out this cover. The inside paper is rough but sturdy, a little more so than newspaper quality. The general aesthetics are grayish, with the black & whites contrasting only in the heaviest action scenes, where the definition of the artwork really shines through. Some scenes appear to have been blacked out a bit though in comparison to the original Japanese release. The sound effects are Romanized and spelled out in a variety of different sizes, colorings and fonts, which do lend more impact to the action sequences.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The story beings with our focus character, Yuko Yagi. She’s just come from Japan (literally right from her flight) with her news crew and producer Mr. Nagai to do a story on Batman in Gotham city. Police radios indicate the criminal Two-Face has taken hostages for some unknown reason and that Commissioner Gordon has cordoned the area off. Yuko and her crew manage to sneak past the cordon but become hostages themselves, with Two-Face initially sparing them to document his violent actions. However, only the timely intervention of the World’s Greatest Detective prevents Yuko from becoming another victim of Two-Face’s coin toss. Strangely though, Gordon and Batman note that Two-Face is supposedly locked up at Arkham Asylum, and so the mystery behind the identity of this criminal begins.
As the investigation continues, Yuko comes to cover more incidents of Batman’s villains seemingly out of character in violent incidents. Meanwhile, word spreads of a strange new drug called “Fanatic” spreading through Gotham’s underworld and causing a public health crisis. These elements send Batman on one of his strangest and most dangerous cases yet, all while Bruce Wayne comes to know this young reporter who has her own agenda, and may unwittingly be following someone else’s…
I recently walked around a few comic shops in and out of my home city, and no one I’d spoken to had heard of this manga. It’s really sad to see this as Kia Asimiya wrote and drew here one of the best Batman stories of the 2000s. There’s need to know the ins and outs of the DC Universe (whichever version may exist these days). Child of Dreams is simply a well-written action / mystery with some interesting artwork. The backgrounds are rendered in crisp detail, and Asimiya emulates the best aspects of Batman’s rogues here. The element that may throw some people of is seeing Bruce drawn with well, a rather large nose. Compared to typical American renditions, Bruce seems like he’s doing a Cyrano De Bergerac here. The original was a 2-volume release and a couple images that were clear in those books are blacked out a bit in this collection, possibly to help make room for a couple of sound effect fonts.
But once you get past that, Asimiya still has him in a heck of a storyline and shows he understands the Batman’s psyche that has been crafted in the modern comics era. The plot unfolds logically as Batman follows the clues as to what’s really going on. The story is pretty self-contained and none of the usual supporting characters except for Gordon and Bullock make an appearance here, so there’s no need to know what’s come before. Everything concludes in a solid enough fashion that I wouldn’t mind seeing a future writer incorporate this manga into the regular DC continuity someday.
Also, Yuko is a fun focus character to follow in her own right and proves competent and capable at times, giving Japanese fans someone decent to follow and help them learn about this American comic book hero. American writer Max Allan Collins (best known for his manga styled comic-turned-gangster movie Road To Perdition) gets a lot of the nuances of Bruce’s inner detective voice written correctly, and does a decent job with the text, though he does get the names mixed up in a couple spots.
In Summary
It’s been some years since this was released but Child of Dreams remains a good work to enjoy, especially in an age of countless events and reboots of the DC Universe. If you just want a good mystery to read, look no further than this story. I believe it’ll appeal to newer and veteran Batman fans alike. Recommended.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: March 1st, 2003
MSRP: $24.99
