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09/15/2003: this week's comics - the DC batch
Batman: Death and the Maidens #2 (written by Greg Rucka, art by Klaus Janson)
I'm not sure what to say about this one that I haven't already said last month. The story is intriguing and character driven, and the suspense certainly works for me. The story interweaves several timelines, and I want to know what exactly happened in the flashback events that let to Ra's Al Ghul's current predicament as well as whether Batman will make a deal with him in exchange for "speaking" to his parents. And I have to say again that I really like how Rucka writes Alfred. I noticed one thing about the art this month though, that is that Janson seems to have problems with drawing body language and movement in a way that isn't wooden and somehow awkward. I like the art style in general, but for example when people hold things the arms seem to be quite often in 90° to the body. People don't hold their limbs like that, it looks unnatural and weird, and a lot of the poses are a bit like that, like in one panel when Batman points to the potion, he looks really ridiculous. I found that quite jarring. But other than that I enjoyed this one quite a lot.
Gotham Central #11 (written by Ed Brubaker, art by Brian Hurtt)
This month's story is a one-shot, a POV piece focusing on Stacy and her view of the Major Crimes Unit as she describes it in a letter to a friend. It felt a bit like the one of those "clip shows" that tv shows sometimes have as a sort of "filler episode" highlighting things from the past from a certain viewpoint without any new stuff happening. That said, this story isn't quite like that, and I guess it would work quite well as an entry issue for new readers to get into Gotham Central before the next longer story starts, as it introduces many characters by name and shows their relationships to each other. And I guess that's the intention of this issue after the last longer arc finished in the previous issue. Something like that sure would have helped me when I started reading Gotham Central (with issue one) as I had trouble keeping track of all the characters at first (and said as much in my rec of the first issues here). However even for me as regular reader it had some scenes I really liked, like the scene in court with Mister Freeze and Detective Marcus Driver.
Nightwing #85 (written by Devin Grayson, pencils by Mike Lily, inks by Jesse Delperdang)
My opinion on the current Nightwing isn't quite as low as that many others seem to have, however I can't really say a lot of good stuff either, especially about the current issue. "Unremarkable" and "kind of bland" are the descriptions that first come to my mind. I mean, I have read worse Nightwing stories -- but I have read many that were better too. The whole plot around Chief Redhorn's murder, Tarantula, Nite-Wing and them framing each other left me mostly cold, and I have to admit that parts of how the case developed didn't make that much sense to me. But that might have been because I didn't pay enough attention, and the previous issues were unfortunately not so memorable that every detail stayed in my mind. For example I don't get why Tad would go to Nightwing and agree to be arrested and go back to prison. Also, I wondered whatever happened to the reporter chick in this issue, but I guess that dangling plot with her researching Dick will be followed up later. And the Dick/Babs interaction was definitely sub-par this issue. I liked that Gannon still hasn't given up on Dick though, he's very sweet.
