The holly jolly holidays have arrived in Gotham which of course means nowt to Batman or his rogues gallery! Mad Hatter’s off his meds and raving about Alice once more surrounded by children’s skulls, and Anarky’s returned to blow up Wayne Tower. Merry Christmas, Dark Knight!
Nope. Another bad Batman book! Sigh…
Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato’s main Anarky story is boring and pointless. Anarky wants something, there’s a dreary mystery involving Mad Hatter, and you know Batman’s gonna stop them both, which is always a given, but he doesn’t do it in an interesting way. And speaking of predictable, you know instantly who Anarky is beneath the mask - like a guest star on an episode of Columbo, the villain’s the important new character who’s just appearing in this story.
A two-part story called Terminal written by Benjamin Percy and drawn by John Paul Leon is also included where a plane full of dead people infected by a lethal virus crashes into Gotham Airport. It’s another blah story where Batman goes through the motions to save the day. Leon’s heavy ink style was nice though.
The volume closes out with an awful Endgame tie-in featuring We Are Robin and an even worse Future’s End issue where Calendar Man’s holding Gotham hostage somehow and Batman effectively kills Riddler by proxy!
I like Manapul’s art - he draws a mean Batman - and Buccellato’s colours are great too but their writing on this one was really sub-par. Detective Comics, Volume 7: Anarky is definitely worth skipping, even for Batman fans.
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