Sometimes unorthodox is exactly what you need.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Russell
Art: Ryan Benjamin, Richard Friend
Colors: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Troy Peteri
What They Say:
When Commissioner Gordon suspects there’s a mole in his precinct, it’s up to Batman to keep a witness safe until he can testify. But this particular witness is a crooked lawyer with ties to every criminal operation in Gotham City, and Batman finds himself under attack from both sides of the law!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having come from really enjoying Mark Russell and his run on Red Sonja while also liking what he’s been doing with the Swamp Thing stories in DC Giant, I was glad to see him dabbling in the Batman realm too. He’s got a solid feel for the character and the voice, though we don’t really get a ton of time with Batman here. But he’s a writer I’d love to see doing something larger and move involved with. This installment keeps on Ryan Benjamin and Richard Friend as well and they’re able to give us a really good looking style for the book with the kind of rough and grimy design it needs but also leaning into the right elements to bring the action to life, whether from Batman himself or some fun with Harley.
The premise here is one that certainly amuses as Gordon has gotten himself a hold of Cicero Jenks, lawyer to the mob. A mob that just found out that Jenks doesn’t have a license to practice law and I don’t think even went all-in on law school. So they’ve now realized there is no client/attorney privilege with what they’ve told him and they want him dead before he can testify against them. Gordon knows he needs to keep this guy alive and there’s a history of moles within the GCPD that has him wary of trusting too many too far. So he’s enlisted Batman’s help for this in securing Jenks and getting him to the station to be transferred over from the safe room that he’s in. With a little help from Nightwing along the way and a few cops in the mix, it sets things into action as everyone is after Jenks.
This turns it into a pretty good action piece throughout Gotham as Batman sets things in motion to keep him protected. Harley’s not a big factor in this so she’s thankfully not overplayed, but it’d make sense that some of the mob would hire her just to cause chaos and try and take him out. Batman plays well in all of this as it moves from a couple of different places but I liked that it leaned into some good conversational pieces at first with Gordon and another beat cop named Foley who has a larger role here. The story moves across a few different characters so that you get a baseline for them, Jenks included, but it’s a team effort story overall. There’s always distrust by some cops for bringing in Batman but I thought this story worked well for not making him a true central figure in it.
In Summary:
The standalone nature of the tales here continues to be the big draw for me and Mark Russell nails another one with this story. It’s a little convoluted at first until you get into the rhythm of it but once it gets underway you can see it as a simple story that might be included in a TV show or film as an opening bit of fun before the big event itself. Benjamin and Friend continue to do solid work with this title as I really like their take on the characters and the city as well as providing for some good action and even a bit of lightness thanks to Harley. Hopefully, they have more stories in the future through the DC Giants and this form.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology and Amazon Kindle
Release Date: May 19th, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
