Written by: Tom Taylor
Art by: Mikel Janín
Colors by: Mikel Janín
Letters by: Wes Abbott
Cover art by: Mikel Janín (cover A)
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: November 27, 2024
Detective Comics #1091, by DC Comics on 11/27/24, finds Batman keeping tabs on the serial killer's likely next victim while he contemplates undergoing Scarlett's youth-giving procedure.
Is Detective Comics #1091 Good?
It shouldn't be any surprise that Tim Taylor's take on the Dark Knight would put the brakes on the plot in favor of the heavy-handed social commentary that spoiled his run on Nightwing and Jon Kent. Still, when the brakes are stepped on for most of the issue, you get a comic that's long on bland talking and short on everything else. Detective Comics #1091 is a step down from the previous issue because Tom Taylor just can't help himself.
When last we left the Caped Crusader in Detective Comics #1090, Batman found himself hot on the trail of another vigilante without qualms about killing criminals. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne met with an old friend whose medical research may be just the elixir Batman needs to overcome the unrelenting ravages of battle damage and age. In the past, we learned Dr. Thomas Wayne saved the life of an abusive man. That man's name was Joe Chill.
In Detective Comics #1091, we begin with Bruce Wayne waking up from a nasty dream. He makes the most of his waking hours by connecting the dots between the recent murder victims as late teens and low-level criminals who were recently released from juvenile detention. Batman meets Bullock at the morgue to check on the results from the latest victim, and there, Batman expresses regret over hitting the armed boy. Batman believes he should have done more to disarm the armed robber without resorting to violence(???), but Bullock reassures him that his actions were humane and justified.
Oh, boy. Tom Taylor just can't help himself. Batman's entire mythology revolves around socking a criminal in the mouth to stop a crime. Late teen or not, the kid was armed and dangerous, so for Batman to suddenly become rueful about using force is out of character and silly.
Suddenly, Oracle alerts Batman that one of the teens under monitoring was kidnapped by a group of thugs and whisked away in a truck. Robin is already en route, so Batman races to the Batmobile to catch up. The Batmobile catches up to the truck with Robin latched on the roof. Batman shoots grappling hooks at the rear of the truck to rip the doors open, giving Robin the opening he needs to swing in and fight the kidnappers. Batman puts the Batmobile on auto-plot and joins the fight.
During the battle, Batman takes a crowbar to his knee from one of the kidnappers, but the fight ends in victory soon after. We learn the thugs kidnapped the teenager for stealing something from their boss - The Penguin. Batmobile orders Robin to take the teenager to a hotel room for safekeeping.
Later, Batman asks for a meeting with Superman for a quick diagnosis of his knee and to talk over the guilt he feels for considering Scarlett's youth-giving elixir. How can a man born into wealth and privilege overcome the guilt of taking a life-giving drug that so few can afford or access? Superman assures Batman that the world is better off the longer he stays in it.
The "chat" between Superman and Batman drones on for three pages, but you get the idea. No reasonable person would deny that Batman has saved the world countless times and that Batman's continued presence serves the greater good magnitudes more than the average person. Why does Batman all of a sudden feel guilt over using his money and privilege to extend his life and, by extension, his mission? The very same money and privilege that made Batman possible in the first place with his resources and gadgets? There's that nonsensical, heavy-handed messaging again.
Later, Bruce meets with Scarlett at her experimental clinic for his first treatment. Despite a side-effect of excess sleepiness, the treatment works as expected. Batman's knee doesn't hurt as much. He moves better, and he reacts quicker. Batman heads to the Iceberg Lunge to give his body a test drive, and the results are promising. After taking down the Penguin's security goons, Batman lets Penguin know he has the money the teenager stole, so his beef with the boy is over.
The issue ends with the boy receiving an unexpected visitor in his hotel room.
What's great about Detective Comics #1091?
What's not great about Detective Comics #1091?
How's the Art?
Mikel Janín is one of the better artists in DC, so there was never any doubt that the visual presentation would be top-notch. Thankfully, Janín's style shines brightest during the two brief action sequences, so Janín makes the most of what little superhero material he's given.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
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Final Thoughts
Detective Comics #1091 slows down the pace and the plot while Batman grapples with his inadequacies and privilege in a sedate step down from the previous issue. Tom Taylor slathers on the heavy-handed pontification while progress on finding the serial killer and the twist involving Thomas Wayne go completely on the back burner. The first issue showed promise. The second does not.
5.5/10
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Part 1: I can't believe I am saying this, but I completely disagree with you on this score for a Tom Taylor issue lol. As someone who hated the entire Nightwing run from start to finish and extremely dislikes the Injustice comics(especially for the badly written dialogue and heavy handed and childish messaging that you accused this issue of), this issue was very interesting and well written for me.
ReplyDeleteFirst on the criticism of heavy messaging: the talk with Bullock wasn't there to show that Batman was right in what he said, it was there to show a)Bullock was right aka Batman did all he could in that situation that still led to a unfortunate tragedy and b) this being unable to basically be superhuman is what leads Bruce to take a chance on this exprimental drug. The fact that Batman feels responsible for a young man not having a history of heavy violence and doing something wrong to then immediately regret and try to rectify it (the kid called an ambulance) for then all of it to amount to his untimely violent death IS very in character for him and has nothing to do with Taylor's inclination to have a special kind of message (this might change in future issues but people gave Zdarsky wayyyyyy more leeway when he wrote absolute out of character content in his run so this feels a bit unfair here). This is the whole reason Batman still wants to save criminals (he resuscitated Joker once even and has blamed himself several times before for not saving deranged psychopaths! And let's not talk about Jason and Damian. Who else would see Damian and Jason in a kid like that more than Bruce??). I have read some of Taylor's writing on Jon Kent. Believe me if he wanted to write a message you would see it clearly in bold fonts as supposed to Batman and Bullock having a very human and touching conversation that was actually nice for their relationship too in the absence of Gordon. If anything, if what you said was the intended message, no way Barbara would have reassured Bruce that he did nothing wrong in the previous issue cause unfortunately she is usually the mouthpiece for badly written themes these days.
As for the talk with Superman: why wouldn't having a drug that is rare and might prove vastly beneficial to critically ill people, make Bruce ponder whether he should use it or not instead of them only to be assured by Superman in a nicely written conversation about who batman is to people and that he WOULD share it with others and that he HAS helped others countless times with his resources? all of these was said veryyy clearly by Superman here so I don't understand the reaction here. I mean just take a look at Zdarsky's recent issue on Batman and see the kind of retcon and heavy messaging that actually exists and then read that conversation again. Where is the similarity? Zdarsky writes Batman like he just right now decided to do charity as a philanthropist(which I mentioned in my comment there) where here, Superman explicitly states that Bruce is one of the poeple that can help a lot by trying this because he has done so before. I actually liked the writer for once taking his or her plot seriously enough to have the characters contemplate before making a drastic decision. It has been absent a loooot recently and instead we get cringy meta or marvel humour of well that just happened. This gaves the decision more weight. ( the whole atmosphere for these two issues has been well done so far. I definitely wasn't expecting it)...
Part2: Aside from all of this, alongside these character moments we got plenty of action and fights AND detective work. What else the issue should have done? The previous issue had me worried cause of that last moment reveal but this issue was way better with showing how thought out the plot is. ( Now that definitely can become wayyyy worse but I have to give credit where credit is due not based on what might or is likely to happen. I am always glad to see a writer improve too. Also whatever Taylor did here with Joe Chill does not come anywhere close to the recent Thomas wayne reveal in Batman by Zdarsky or all that King has written for these characters. I hate to keep going back to it but it seriously is wayyy worse. I can take a sudden reveal of child of Joe Chill that knows Bruce being there all this time, that basically is like what hush was at the time of its publication, than whatever retcon they keep forcing on Nightwing and Zucco or Whoever that new wayne heir is in Batman that might just be a waste of time to character assassinate Thomas needlessly) I hope it can keep this momentum and doesn't swerve in all the directions we fear but for this issue alone it was very well done even if I might regret taking this much time from myself and you for reading this ( thank you!) to defend it only for it to become awful in future issues. At least they can't say I didn't give it a chance.
Delete(Seriously a 7.5 for the last issue of Wonder Woman and a 5.5 for this??? I respect your opinion and experience with comics but I can't lie that I was not very surprised by this score lol. I even wrote a essay on why I think Taylor's writing was good for this issue and that I wish we had gotten this from him these years instead of all that was before!!! Coming from me that is hilarious)
Tom Taylor doesn't even live in the US (to my knowledge) so his opinions on police de-escalation, are nauseating.
ReplyDeleteTaylor clearly doesn't care for the character of Batman.
Just another in a myriad of activist writers who only see Batman as white, rich and male.