Batman: City of Light #3

December 1, 2003

Quick Rating: Average

Batman sits vigil for a comatose boy while attacks on Gotham City call Batgirl to the fray..

Writer: The Pander Brothers & Mark Paniccia
Pencils: The Pander Brothers
Inks: Alvaro Lopez
Colors: Moose Baumann
Letters: Janice Chiang
Editor: Bob Schreck
Cover Art: The Pander Brothers & Moose Baumann
Publisher: DC Comics

Coming in on the third issue of a miniseries is never the best idea, but this one gives me enough to sort of piece the story together. Batman’s city is falling apart, with Wayne Industries holdings apparently being the target of malicious bombings. Batman is out of the game, though, sitting at the side of a hospitalized boy whose chances for survival appear slim. It seems this is one child Batman could not save.

Batgirl takes up the slack, investigating the bombings and finding cryptic, glowing clues. Meanwhile, a developer that is responsible for a glowing “Neo-Gotham” is plotting to demonstrate the dark side of the city. The Neo-Gotham is plaguing the Batman somehow, taking up residence in his mind, starting to control him.

This story has a weird sci-fi angle that isn’t my favorite for Batman. The artwork, however is rather good. The Pander Brothers draw a suitably dark Batman, while still doing a good job with the brilliant light-city of Neo-Gotham.

It’s nice to see some use getting made of Batgirl – something to ground this special in the current DCU as opposed to the nebulous, in-between time that a lot of Batman miniseries seem to occupy.

This isn’t a bad book, but it doesn’t really seem to add too much to the Batman saga either. In the end, it unfortunately feels like just another miniseries.

Rating: 5/10