I Am Batman #1 Review

Bat Of The People

Written By: John Ridley

Art By: Oliver Coipel, Alex Sinclair, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: September 14, 2021

Now that we've gotten the rest of the Next Batman: Second Son digital series out of the way by packaging what was left as I Am Batman #0, it's time to get to our Jace Fox being the Next Batman story proper and with that show more of Gotham City under the imminent threat of being completely taken over by the Magistrate with the idea being spread around that Batman is dead.  Let's see how Jace deals with this and how he plans on fighting back....... I'm pretty sure I have an idea how.  Let's check it out.

For this issue of I Am Batman we've ramped things up to the degree that we have Jace out and about in the Batman costume while thinking about what kind of Batman he wants to be.  Mostly though, with the idea being spread throughout the city that Batman is dead, Jace wants to be seen by the people of Alleytown, citizens, criminals, and police so that they know that Batman is not only out there still but more street-level than before and willing to talk to people rather than just being a figment of the shadows that's mostly just thought of as an urban legend.  Yeah, it's a cool concept to want to explore but it feels more exaggerated than we've seen in other Bat-titles over the years, especially since people and police have seen Batman work pretty regularly up until recently but it is what it is and Jace is trying to get her bearings as he makes his presence known.

Beyond Jace doing the Batman thing, it feels like we're trying to tie him in officially with what's been going on with Gotham in the rest of the books but it feels like there's a weird disconnect with not only the rest of the DC books but where we left off with I Am Batman #0.  I don't know if this book has more information than we do but Jace talks about a character called "Seer" whose broadcasting lies throughout the city and I don't know if this is supposed to be the next iteration of the faux-Oracle that we've seen in the regular Batman books but it feels weird and out of nowhere here but thankfully beyond these complaints, we have the first step of Jace becoming the Next Batman and also a messed up cliffhanger I can't wait to see explored more.

All in all, I enjoyed the art in this issue a lot but wish it was more exciting overall because while we do have Jace doing his Batman thing and going on the streets and saving people, while also busting up baddies' heads, there was something about his first outing as his own Batman that came off a little lackluster and I don't know if it's because it needs to be a part of what's going on in the rest of the Batman books and can only ease his way in here or what but while I enjoyed what we got I just kind of wished for more by the time it was over this felt like a weird continuation of the last issue, while also weird with how it fits with the rest of the Bat-books, even though the major pieces of each were here.

Bits and Pieces:

While I would have liked Jace's first outing as his Batman to be a little more interesting, this is a decent first step in getting people on the Jace train and while I don't think that our Next Batman was really all that interesting with how he wanted to handle things here, the cliffhanger was definitely something that will bring me back, not to mention that I really enjoyed the art throughout.

6.8/10