There suddenly exists a distorted mirror version of Gotham called Gotham Below where everything’s a little bit spookier for no reason. Now it’s affecting the rogues in the real Gotham and Batman Below (who has tentacles coming out of his mouth for no reason) has kidnapped some kid to be his Robin for some reason. Batman and a Talon from the Court of Owls have to portal over to save the day. Yay…
I’ve noticed that every comic Christian Ward’s the artist on is an absolute stink bomb but I put that down to odd coincidence and the writer’s limitations and/or having that occasional bad book. Well, there’s no excuse this time as Ward is both artist and writer on Batman: City of Madness which is, true to form, an absolute stink bomb of a comic!
Part of it is Ward trying to do too much. Besides the Gotham Below stuff, Two-Face is doing something, Ventriloquist is being weirder than usual, Alfred’s writing sentimental letters to Batman for no reason. Even though these are oversized issues, the story is still only three issues long and might’ve been better if Ward had cut out these irrelevant subplots that add nothing and focus on the Gotham Below stuff instead.
As it is, everything feels underdeveloped and confusing. Why is there a mirror version of Gotham? How did the Court of Owls create it? What’s Batman Below’s deal? How is it affecting Gotham Above? I had no idea - I barely knew what was going on anyway, and didn’t care because it’s such a boring read. Ward’s also just not a very effective writer who isn’t able to make sense of his half-baked ideas, let alone tie them together meaningfully or leave a strong impression on the reader.
I’ve never really been a huge fan of his goopy art style - it’s always looked like the poor man’s Dave McKean (who turns out be a major influence on Ward, as he mentions in his afterword - this is apparently Ward’s ham-fisted semi-homage to Morrison/McKean’s Arkham Asylum) and his design for Batman Below was just Pirates of the Caribbean’s Davy Jones - but Batman!
A poorly executed, pointlessly supernatural take on Batman, City of Madness is instantly forgettable nonsense.
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