Gotham City Garage #5 Review

Gotham City Garage #5

Writer: Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing

Art Team: Aneke, Kelly Fitzpatrick

DC Comics

Release Date: October 4, 2017

Cover Price: $ .99

Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Batgirl

Hand up, I screwed up, I have no idea when this book releases anymore so I'm a little behind here with the series currently on issue #6.  What started out as a digital first bi-weekly has suddenly moved to weekly series on me and I have all these committment issues to begin with this is more on is plate than I anticipated.  Anyway enough about how I'm a knucklehead and let's get back to motorcycles and superheroes shall we.  Lets check in on this universes Batgirl in issue five.

This issue throws the setting back the where it all begin in the domed Gotham, this time deep within ‘the Lexes’ (the Garden’s Law Enforcement Stronghold). Batgirl is at work in an Oracle type job role at this place when she's handed a disk by Batman.  The disk contains altered footage of Kara Gordon (Supergirl) supposedly killing what was both their father, Jim Gordon. Batgirl immediately wants revenge and sets out with Batman to see what they can find.

The story then moves to catch us up with this world's Harley Quinn as she makes a pit stop to check in on a ‘friend’ of her’s Lloyd. Lloyd seems to have identity issues and is dressed a little like Anarchy with a bit of Joker, while also now wanting to be called, get this …. J⊘ker.  

After that goof of an introduction we move onto a Harley origin story about how she became the way she is in this world. This origin also sheds some light into what type of nonsense is exactly going on in the Garden at the same time and how Harley was all once a part of it.  

The story comes full circle in the end when we find out what Harley came to this J⊘ker character for. It appears since she escaped she comes back every year to play a prank of the Garden in a Happy Escape Day kind of way since she has some knowledge of its inner workings.  

Overall, this issue is simultaneously a world builder that also spotlights a few characters letting us know where they stand currently in this world and in one case how they got here. Kelly & Lanzing are unraveling this mystery slowly really getting a nice pace down to this book more often than not.  This was a perfect kind of one shot to check your temperature on the series if it's something you're still unsure about but overall even though art can be a little inconsistent with constantly changing teams (although this was a great effort in this issue) I'm still having a ton of fun.

Bits and Pieces

Gotham City Garage takes us back to the Garden for awhile before providing us a Harley origin story that initially felt tacked on but came full circle Tarantino style in the end.  The art, although it's changed throughout the series, gets its best showing yet in this issue.

8.0/10