Art By: Brian Buccellato, Francis Manapul
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 3, 2014
Sticking It To The Establishment
Alright all you Detective loving fans of Batman, we're back to this title with Manapul and Buccellato on the title and man am I relieved. I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, but the writer and artist who gave us that Terminal story arc over the last two months were just not for me and they actually made me realize how much I rely on Manapul and Buccellato to bring me quality Batman of the Detective variety. Okay so our man crushes are back and this month we begin our look at Anarky and what he has in store for Gotham. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
This issue is a little weird in the beginning because, well because it seems to have two beginnings. I'm going to look at this like it's a television show and our soft opener is Anarky setting a man on fire and knocking him out a window. It's at this point where I like to imagine a title sequence possibly accompanied with Imagine Dragon's Radioactive as it's theme. So imagine all that as we pan though Gotham and see glimpses of Batman's cape as we tour the skies and streets of the awful city we love. Okay that' enough of that, so after my imaginary title sequence, we head over to the East End Waterfront on Christmas Eve where Mad Hatter appears to be homeless with his henchmen and he's going off a little bit more than normal. Yeah, Hatter is out there among the homeless and their burning trashcans screaming about Alice and what happened to her and before he can get violent with his Alice inquiries, Batman shows up to take the Hatter down. Batman kicks the Hatter onto the ice of the area and we see that when he breaks through, he's surrounded by skulls. Merry Christmas everyone!
Back at the Batcave we see Batman analyzing the skulls and we find out that they have been dead for about six years and that they range from 10 year olds to 16 year olds. So at some point an awful child killer was running around the East End Waterfront and the explosion from the end of the Icarus story arc somehow dislodged these skulls from their resting place. Okay now Bruce has to wait for the 3D imager to analyze the skulls and for the Bat Computer to cross reference them to missing children from that time and you know what? He doesn't just sit in the cave and brood. No I'm serious, he actually goes outside with Alfred and Titus to get a good view of Alfred turning on the Christmas lights on Wayne Manor. It's actually a really nice moment and I'm kind of pissed off that we haven't really gotten any Anarky yet, but that's not exactly what I mean. I want to see Anarky, but after all this.... I really don't want to leave this section of the story. I really want to see more Mad Hatter here and Bruce and Alfred at Christmas time, Oh well.
So we've seen how Bruce and Alfred have been spending their holiday, let's see how Bullock and Detective Yip are spending theirs....... Oh, they're working. Yeah it seems that Bullock has been obsessed with the anarchy symbol he saw during the last story arc and has been mapping where he's seen them all over the city, but all this interesting mapping is put on hold when there's another murder our detectives have to go investigate. Merry Christmas Everyone! We find out that the person Anarky fired........ get it? He fired him......... whatever. The person Anarky killed was Jeb Lester who we saw in the last story arc was the person in Wayne Enterprises that was connected with the human trafficking that Sumo was apart of. So Jeb's dead and Lucius Fox takes Bullock and Yip to Lester's office, where we find a computer counting down. That's always a good thing.
In the end Batman comes cruising in through the broken window and tells Bullock to evacuate everyone who's still working because Wayne Enterprises' computer systems had been compromised. This is a weird part for me. Now I know that Bullock doesn't like Batman, but when he enters the office Batman walks around looking at the computer screen and talking to Lucius and Yip and the whole time he's doing it, Bullock has his gun pointed at the back of Batman's head. What is the point of this? Hell Bullock could of killed him because when he doesn't listen right away about evacuating the building, Batman eventually throws a batarang at the fire alarm and when he does he knocks Bullock back and he fires his gun. It just doesn't seem right to me. Anyway the people try to evacuate but the doors are locked and Batman makes his way up to Wayne Tower's roof when the timer hits zero and Wayne Tower's front explodes into an anarchy symbol.
That's it for this issue of Detective Comics and I know I said this all over the beginning of the review, but MAN IS IT GOOD TO HAVE MANAPUL AND BUCCELLATO BACK ON THIS. I can't wait to see what the New 52 Anarky has in store for Batman and the people of Gotham. Hell this issue was so good that it had a small section with Mad Hatter and Bruce just chilling and I would of read an entire story arc of that. It's all about characterization here and I'm digging it real hard. The art was beautiful and the writing was fantastic. This is the kind of Detective Comics that I want to read. See you next month as I continue to gush all over the creators. See you then.
Bits and Pieces:
This is the issue that I've been waiting for. I was not a fan of the last two issues of Detective while Manapul and Buccellato were taking a hiatus, but now that they're back on here, I'll be clutching the comic to my chest in love and respect for what I realized I was missing while they were gone. This is just another fantastic story from these two and if you're not reading Detective Comics you're missing out. Go get it!
9/10
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