Detective Comics #790

December 7, 2004

Quick Rating: Good
Title:Scarification & The Tailor Part 2

A new designer drug is polluting Gotham – so why is the Batman taking it so personally?

Writer: Anderson Gabrych & A.J. Lieberman
Pencils: Pete Woods & Jean-Jacques Dzialowski
Inks: Cam Smith & Dan Green
Colors: Jason Wright & Giulia Brusco
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Bob Schreck & Matt Idelson
Cover Art: Tim Sale & Mark Chiarello
Publisher: DC Comics

This done-in-one story is one of the better issues of Detective Comics that’s been put out in quite some time. A new drug called G.H.D has been on the streets for three weeks and it’s already claimed 16 young lives. Batman, of course, is hot on the trail of the source, but he’s acting far more aggressively than even he usually does, and Batgirl wants to know why.

Although Detective Comics is really where Batman should get the best mystery tales, this issue is much more of a character study than anything else. We get a nice insight into why Batman reacts a certain way to crimes like this one, and it’s a bit that makes perfect sense. It also finally sheds a little light on a plotline that’s been dangling in the Bat-family titles for far too long – why Batman “fired” Spoiler some time ago. Fans of Stephanie Brown who want to know why Bruce doesn’t want her going out in her mask anymore really should read this issue.

Pete Woods, hot off a decent run as the Robin penciller, tells a good story in this issue. An early splash page at the coroner’s office is suitably gruesome, and his bits with Batman and Batgirl swinging across the rooftops is especially good. Colorist Jason Wright deserves credit here as well – he employs a very dark palette, mostly a mixture of blues and browns, that give the issue a very hardboiled look.

The second part of future Batman: Gotham Knights writer A.J. Lieberman’s “The Tailor” is our back-up story in this issue, and again, it’s a good one. It focuses less on Batman and more on a man who makes costumes and weaponry for the superhero and supervillain set, and what he does when the crime of one of his clients hits too close to home. If that sounds familiar, it’s because J. Michael Straczynski did a similar story in Amazing Spider-Man just a couple of weeks ago, but with a far more humorous bent – this is a very different tale, and you shouldn’t be put off by the familiar premise.

This is not a great Batman issue, but a solid one, and one that most Batman fans will be pretty much satisfied with.

Rating: 7/10

Detective Comics #789

December 2, 2003

Quick Rating: Good
Title: The Randori Stone Part Two & The Tailor Part One

Juiced up on the power of the Randori Stone, Batman goes on a tear through Gotham City’s underworld.

Writers: Paul Bolles & A.J. Lieberman
Pencils: Mike Lilly & Jean-Jacques Dzialowski
Inks: Dan Davis & Dan Green
Colors: Jason Wright & Giulia Brusco
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Bob Schreck & Matt Idelson
Cover Art: Tim Sale & Mark Chiarello
Publisher: DC Comics

I thought part one of “The Randori Stone” was a fairly generic Batman Vs. Magic storyline, and part two didn’t change my mind about that. Batman, high on the power of the stone, cuts through the Gotham mob as an almost unstoppable juggernaut, much crueler and harsher than he normally behaves. The ending of this issue is absolutely no surprise, which is the problem with telling this sort of story. There are some things that Batman just doesn’t do, and if the story hinges on teasing the reader with the idea that he might, it will always be a letdown when he doesn’t.

I was quite impressed with Mike Lilly’s artwork in this issue, however. I really like his interpretation of Batman, drawing a much more utilitarian costume than you see from your standard “superhero” artists. He allows you to see the ridges and the seams – all in all, it looks much more realistic, and it’s a look I find I really like.

The bright spot in this issue was the back-up story by A.J. Lieberman, whom I believe has been tapped to take over Batman: Gotham Knights in a few months. If this story is indicative of his work on that title, I’m tempted to take it up again. In “The Tailor,” Batman is faced with a crook in some sort of incredibly powerful body armor. Batman knows he can’t stop the man himself, so he turns to the man who makes the best body armor in the business to help him find a weak point.

Batman is a character who knows a little about everything, but that means he simply can’t know everything about everything. So, like every great detective from Sherlock Holmes to Ruse’s Simon Archard, he has a cadre of “agents” to call on for specialized tasks and information. This story introduces us to another of those agents, one who isn’t quite as squeaky-clean as most of them. This is a guy who apparently cares about only one thing other than money, and it is that one thing that will be his driving force.

The cover of this book, I must say, is also very good. Tim Sale could draw every Batman cover from now until the heat death at the end of the universe, and I’d be perfectly happy. I just wish the image actually related to the story inside — of course, a generic cover for a generic story. Why not? If only you weren’t paying most of the cover price for the lackluster main story, I’d have no trouble giving this book a much higher recommendation.

Rating: 7/10

(2010 Note: Lieberman did wind up taking over Gotham Knights, but his run didn’t quite live up to this short story.)