Batman finds himself under siege from new villains and old as five world-class assassins headed up by Deathstroke arrive to wreak havoc in Gotham, while Riddler, Penguin and Joker ally under the mysterious Designer who has some dark designs for the Dark Knight…
Back when Scott Snyder was wrapping up his Batman run, I was wary of Tom King taking over the title because, up until then, I hadn’t read anything of his that was much good. So I was very surprised and delighted that King’s Batman run turned out to be one of the greatest ever with numerous excellent books added to the Batman canon.
I had deja vu recently when I heard James Tynion IV was taking over Batman from King. I’ve never read a good Tynion comic before and I wasn’t convinced his Batman would be anywhere near as high quality as King’s was. The difference this time is that Tynion has been writing Batman comics for some time now on the Rebirth line of Detective Comics, so I had an idea, going into this one, of what to expect: garbage, basically. Tynion’s Detective Comics run - based on the books I finished, as there were a couple I started and abandoned because they were so tortuously crap - was dismal. Overwritten, boring stories with zero excitement.
Disappointingly, the same goes for Batman, Volume 1: Their Dark Designs which is ten not very interesting issues (and a buncha even worse backups) that’s essentially just preamble to the Joker War storyline.
Like Snyder, who went from writing Detective to Batman, who in his first Batman book, The Court of Owls, set Bruce up as planning a major revamp of Gotham City while introducing new villains who’ve been somehow operating for some time now without being noticed by Batman, Tynion does the same thing here: Wayne Enterprises is embarking on major infrastructure projects in Gotham and the villainous Designer is introduced. It’s derivative but that’s what I’ve come to expect from Tynion at this point.
That said, Tynion does try some new-ish things. Batman’s new toy is the Nightclimber that is part mech-suit, part Batwing (or Batplane as there’s a character called Batwing now), that looks clunky and doesn’t look as effective as the Batwing. Lucius (doing his best Alfred impression) has invented some kind of portable device that turns any car into a temporary Batmobile but only holographically or something?! Nonsense.
Bruce has also funded the construction of a new high security prison called the Black Block which makes sense given how insecure Arkham/Blackgate have proven to be - at last, positive progress and a good idea too! Except Black Block turns out to be about as effective as Arkham at keeping prisoners locked up… So the new stuff is crap.
The story itself is a convoluted, dreary mess. Apparently there’s a wooden haunted house sitting in the middle of the ocean - what?! There’s also green gas the Designer has that can turn people into controllable zombies - how?! Really effectively too. One character in particular turns out to have been a corpse being controlled via green gas (and a VR headset and joystick!!!) but was talking and sword-fighting at Batman-level the whole time. It’s all stuff that probably seemed cute and interesting in the planning stages but seems way too convenient and silly for the finished product.
Harley in recent years has become one of DC’s most popular characters so they’ve moved her character away from villainous tendencies and into a more heroic alignment. But DC seems to still want an evil Joker girlfriend so we get (the yet again derivative) Punchline, a goth/emo Joker groupie with an on-the-nose name. There’s not much to like about the character given that her entire presence is so uninspired, transparent and uncreative - she looks like what she is: a pale imitation of Harley Quinn.
The Designer himself isn’t a great character either. His character design is bizarre - he looks like he should be in Grant Morrison’s Invisibles! But, like all weak writers, Tynion tells us who he is rather than show us. Designer (what a rubbish name) is a criminal mastermind - except we don’t see that. What are his motivations for doing what he’s doing? No clue. He’s a red herring placeholder for this book - the villain of the week - while the real villain, the more familiar one, does what he needs to do for the next story arc.
Similar in style to his Detective Comics run, Tynion takes a long time to tell a very simple story. Too much is made of the five killers who come to town - besides Deathstroke, the four are plain terrible characters. Cheshire is crappier Elektra, while Merlyn, Gunsmith (guess what he likes?) and Mr Teeth (guess what’s prominent about him?) are instantly forgettable nobodies. Besides wasting pages on them in the main story - when all they’re doing is fighting Batman, which is boring to read - they get their own backups, included at the end of the book, which were the worst part of this volume (they’re a dull group I didn’t want to know more about). Not that if the story had been streamlined and cut down more it would be better - Their Dark Designs would still be unimpressive - but it might’ve been less tedious to read at a shorter length.
Tony S. Daniel produces his usual sterling level of artwork and I really liked Jorge Jimenez’s pages too - his painted 3D effects are incredibly skilful. I’m not a huge fan of Rafael Albuquerque’s art though - his pages are only ever just fine, rather than stunning like Jimenez’s - and I didn’t love Guillem March’s art either, which is a shame as he draws the most pages here. March’s Penguin and Riddler designs are ridiculous - far too cartoonishly grotesque. Warping Riddler’s body into a question mark is contrived and Penguin looks like King Shark’s dad in some panels!
Besides the art, I did like that Bullock is now the (temporary) Commissioner - his hostility towards Batman makes for a spicier dynamic in that relationship - and I like where we do end up anyway. As overlong a prelude as this book turned out to be, I am intrigued to read Joker War. That said, Tynion’s still writing Joker War too so my hopes aren’t anywhere close to high for that one.
Derivative, leadenly-paced, unnecessarily complicated, never gripping, and far too long, Batman, Volume 1: Their Dark Designs is an underwhelming and poor start to Tynion’s Batman run.
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