Tearing Down Those Walls: Reviewing ‘Detective Comics: Gotham Nocturne Act I’

Beaten. Broken. Bested. Batman has been through a lot over 80 years with physical, mental, and emotional scars as proof.

Hell, each of those things has happened a couple of times just within the first eight issues of the current “Gotham Nocturne” run of Detective Comics, where they actually have a ton of weight and meaning. Volume two of this run, featuring Detective Comics #1066-1070 and the 2022 Annual, doesn’t dial things down.

This collected volume features the work of Ram V, Ivan Reis, Danny Miki, Dave Stewart, Rafael Albuquerque, Chritopher Mitten, Dexter Soy, Stefano Raffaele, Miguel Mendonca, Lee Loughridge, Adriano Lucas, Ariana Maher, Deron Bennett, Simon Spurrier, Hayden Sherman, Dani, Casper Wijngaard, Nick Filardi, and Steve Wands.

Batman has been around a long time with a lot of miles on his body, determined to keep fighting till he can’t fight anymore, and so rarely do we get some very deep exploration of that topic. This series is not shying away from how utterly worn out and broken Batman is as he is aging, and the same for Gordon and many of the characters around them. I mean, they have a frank conversation through the wall about aging and what it’s doing and how there will come a point where even Batman will crumble from the consistent punishment, he’s putting his body through.

We’ve seen him beaten unconscious, rescued at least three times now, and nursed back to a decently stable level of health (twice by Gordon alone). At the same time, we’re getting one of the most significant explorations of Harvey Dent/Two-Face that we’ve ever gotten as it actually moves the characters forward leaps and bounds. Even Mister Freeze is in a space where we’re getting something really new and different with him that also speaks to the traumas and mental/emotional wear and tear that running this wheel called Gotham over and over is having on hero, villain, and civilian alike.

Taking that to the level of giving us a whole issue that is essentially split between the two sides of the proverbial coin, delving into both their minds and their desires, which is reflected within the duality found in the artwork is just genius. This is why this run is so stellar and has been resonating since it began because it takes what we would expect to get from a Batman story at this point and gives us that stripped to its very core and repackaged into something that is also new with so much to say.

Reis & Miki easily pick up a lot of the energy and tone that Albuquerque was putting down in the first volume, with their somewhat smoother style seen in previous issues making way for a style that is similar but has a bit of roughness and heavier weight to it. Gotham’s inherent always simmering darkness is easy to spot with their work, no matter if it’s night or daylight.

Reis just has such a great skill for paneling choices, letting them shift and slip around the page as necessary. Capturing emotion or moments in closeups that are peppered right over bigger focus scenes, all in a way that is natural and compelling for the eye to follow.

Much of that inherent darkness comes from the continued wonderful colors of Stewart that just fit this type of story so well. They are dense and heavy with shadows but have the right amount of colorful pop to highlight the fantastical and natural elements of this world. The night feels oppressive and always present, the way Stewart portrays darkness feeling realistic, while the bright daytime feels just as confining not just because we know how Batman feels about being Bruce and out in the day at times, but because there is still a somewhat sinister tone beneath it as the darkness keeps rising.

For the dual issue, Reis and Albuquerque work together so smoothly. the two styles very much intermingle and flow together and present this story in a harmonious way that doesn’t push against one another in any way. Miki inks both works, which helps enhance the work already done by the artists and in this case gives them something in common to bridge them even easier. One can feel the shifts in the art, and you are likely very much meant to with the subject matter, but the work that Miki does across the work makes it feel smooth and earned rather than a jarring change.

In the annual issue, there is a fun artiest jam situation with Albuquerque handling the framing of present-day pages while Mitten handles most of the past pages with Sherman jumping in near the end. It all flows together so easily since they are depicting different eras which would naturally be visually different. Since things tend to change in appearance through time.

Loughridge has such a way with the colors, making things so visually appalling while still having a naturally grounded tone to them. All the spaces feel real with light and darkness prevailing with them respectively but allow for some really big splashes of vibrant greens or reds to heighten the moment/mood. There is also a sort of rough quality to the colors that match the sort of rough style of some of the art. Only for it to change when added to some of the artwork that is slicker and smoother in quality. All of them though have a weight and darker quality to them, fitting the tone and style of this world/story.

Fitting the various artist’s styles here, Lucas brings a lot sharper and darker color choices to these pages adding a lot of weight and extra depth. Some of that sort of rough nature is also found within the colors to really hammer home how hard this story is going on in the city, Batman, and so many others. Tons of shadows and sharp bright reds and purples and other colors are bombarding us as we move forward, with pauses for scenes where there is a bit lighter (but still plenty of darkness), making sure that just like the paneling and the rest we’re right there in the trenches feeling the hardness of this all with Batman and the others.

There is no doubt at all that Maher is one of the best letterers working today, infusing every bit of work on the pages with such powerful and unmistakable energy. There are beats of each character’s voice and personality dripping from every single word, whether it’s in dialogue or captions, or other elements. We can feel how weary and broken Batman is at first as his bubbles show that, words trailing off before they move back to a standard as he’s pushing aside the pain and exhaustion to keep moving forward. Because he’s Batman and that’s what he does.

Bennett is just so good at making lettering stand out in the best ways, adding little bits here or there to not only allow personality or vocal tendencies to shine through but also make sure that tone/volume are clear at first glance. This allows the reader to instantly hear the words in the tone that they are meant to be picked up, taking any guesswork out of the equation for us which makes things smoother. All the great lettering things I love to see from a shout that bursts right out of a speech bubble, bubbles that conform to the words no matter their size, timely varied in the moment SFX, and layouts that just dance around the page in the easiest and most logical format for reading ease.

In one of the backup stories, Spurrier, Sherman, Filardi, and Wands take us even deeper into the Harvey/Two-Face divide and holy crap is it just beyond words. We get more of Two-Face commentating from within Harvey’s mind while Harvey is out playing as Two-Face, and the story ties into the main story more as Gordon is mentioned and Harvey does more bidding for the Orgasms.

Sherman and Filardi pull out all the visual stops as we get some amazing pages, including one where we see Harvey Dent’s head stripped down to the basics with muscle and scar tissue and the little scar-shaped mental projection Two-Face is moving through the head as he speaks to the boy. Oh, and then the flashbacks with all the splashes of vibrant colors from reds to greens and panels that are all kinds of wild shapes are exactly what I love about comic books.

Wands adds to this with all the fantastic work with the letters, from Two-Face’s caption boxes having a different scarred faded type of font to the bubbles of the boy just floating around on pages even somewhat interacting with lines on the page almost letting the lines be seen as bubble tails.

Dani’s artwork is just a sight to behold. It’s so grimy and pulpy with some noir-like roughness that makes the characters and their tough world just pop. I still very much am in love with the use of white space here, and how it’s used to allow narration from the story to be put to use, in this case, the varied thoughts of people in Gotham. It frames the panels and keeps things clean and neat in between the rougher qualities. This is also just what the colors from Loughridge are like, very rough and toned down to match the tone of the artwork. Certain colors have a bit more power to them than others, but they swirl and blend and play within the shadows so well.

Wijngaard has such a unique and almost whimsical but also sharp and kinetic style that matches perfectly with a Mister Freeze story and one that taps into some very almost supernatural-like elements with the personification of the song that’s been moving through Gotham coming into play. I love how the colors that Wijngaard puts into play are always so bright and fitting with those blues and pinks dominating alongside other colors creating a very fantastical and cold/frozen sort of feeling. There are bits and pieces that keep the thing grounded to remind us of the danger and the place in the world, but it’s also fully keeping to just how over the top everything to do with Gotham truly is and can be.

Detective Comics Vol 2: Gotham Nocturne Act I is now available from DC Comics.