Some evil magical dude who thinks he owns Gotham is coming to Gotham to take ownership of Gotham with some other evil magical dudes. Guess Batman’s gonna punch some evil magical dudes? Buh huh.
Not all Batman comics are slop but unfortunately quite a few are, including this one.
The tone of it worked for me: the framing of this story arc as a grand opera, the sombre tone, the presentation - it’s great. I know nothing about opera or how it’s structured so maybe Ram V is doing something clever here that I’m not noticing.
But it’s still a largely empty book with very little happening besides this new villain making his way from “Svatrstal” to ‘murica to slap Batman around. Two-Face turns evil again (who thought that would last?!) while Batman’s marginally slowing down for plot reasons. Gangsters fight each other, Batman fights Talia for the umpteenth time, Batman fights some League of Shadows dorks - it’s all so boring and unimpressive.
The backup by Simon Spurrier and Dani is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen printed in Detective Comics. It’s about Gordon and a weird kid teaming up to stop a corrupt cop. Spurrier’s an awful writer and the story is unsurprisingly garbage but I don’t recall Dani’s art looking as bad as this before. It looks smudgy and gross.
Maybe it’s because it directly contrasted with Dani’s art but Rafael Albuquerque’s art stood out as by far the best aspect of this book. Very moody and dramatic - it really sold the operatic angle of the story.
The ending is really where the book should’ve started with the baddies arriving in Gotham - none of the preceding guff was necessary. As it is, Batman: Detective Comics, Volume 1: Gotham Nocturne: Overture: Was A: Whole Lot Of: Quite Dull Anticipation: With: No: Payoff: Don’t Bother.
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