What’s New Is Old Again: Reviewing ‘Detective Comics’ #1090

Death has come to the streets of Gotham City once more as a mysterious figure begins dispensing a murderous ‘justice.’ Batman must deal with this figure as a key piece of his past begins to emerge, leading to a potential key to remaining Batman forever.

It’s a whole new day for Detective Comics as Tom Taylor, Mikel Janin, and Wes Abbott take over the title with the 1,090th issue.

Ongoing comic books, chiefly those of the superhero variety, go through creative changes quite often. Most of the time it’s a blink and move on thing, deciding whether the new flavor is to your liking or not.

Sometimes though it’s like going from enjoying the finest of cuisine every night for months on end to suddenly only being served a hamburger combo from a local joint. There is nothing bad about the burger (the fries are crispy and seasoned well). It does what it’s meant to accomplish, but one can’t help but feel at least a pang of disappointment with each bite.

Right now, the burger that is Detective Comics is fine. Familiar tasting, with maybe a change to the secret sauce, but very much fitting a classic type of mold.

At this rate, anyone that has read any of my reviews with his name on it knows how I feel about Taylor’s work. There are highs and there are lows, very rarely is there a middle ground. His work with Batman here might constitute something closer to a middle ground at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, he writes a good Batman and Bruce. We saw that in Nightwing and some of his other previous works that featured the caped crusader. It was nice to see some stuff with Thomas getting to be the doctor, and holding up of his Hippocratic Oath, showing off some of that fortitude that Bruce picked up, despite who crosses his table.

There are some solid ideas presented here, even if they are somewhat cliché feeling. DC All-In is all about new jumping on points and “iconic” feeling stories, so some semblance of classic story remixing is to be expected. It’s a feature, not a bug, and that is fine.

Time to talk about that origin story retcon that comes with this story. The short version is that they saved a young woman and her newborn baby escape an abusive situation, and the father/boyfriend turned out to be one Joseph “Joe” Chill. Yes, the Wayne’s murderer has a connection to them and now a “reason” for murdering them (one presumes that is where this is clearly going).

There isn’t anything egregious or canon breaking about the retcon for the most part. What makes it weak is that it’s the type of retcon that makes the world smaller. By drawing these connective tissues to try and give a reason for the murder, it just keeps shrinking this world that should be a massive sprawling thing. Chill’s reasons for their deaths in the original version (whichever one you want to read) were fine. Sometimes in life bad things happen to good people and there is no deep reason or connection or explanation.

Oh also, Chill’s daughter grew up and became an old friend to Bruce Wayne. She worked for them and happens to be a brilliant geneticist and created a new serum that supposedly keeps people young. Ten bucks says not only is she the mysterious villain that is killing criminals, but the drug of course is bogus and does something nefarious, and the mystery dying man at the beginning is definitely Joe Chill. I have no clue what his status is since all the multiversal reboots and reshuffles began a decade ago, but it’s surely him.

I’d like to be wrong, but the writing is pretty clear on the wall currently, as we’re ticking off a lot of cliché boxes already. Already bad enough we got a beat to have her named after Martha. Cue the Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice style screams.

Speaking of memes, we sure did get a Batman slaps a child moment in this issue.

Oh, and I guess the whole point of Ram V’s run having an aging Batman be “reborn” in a rejuvenating and overall “I am the fear that is Gotham” way was just for nothing as far as this story is concerned. Since we’re back to “Oh Batman is old and here is a way to keep doing it!” for the umpteenth time.

Anyway, it’s really nice to look at.

Janín is just a really good artist who draws some of the most expressive and powerful faces and figures. So much of this issue is about the people, with only some brief action, giving us plenty of time to really swim through the emotional waves that are hitting the page. It creates a space where the people we’re reading about truly do feel genuine and tangible in some ways.

There is a rich density to what Janín brings to life.

Layouts are smart and well crafted, really delivering a feeling of movement and scale. Each page has a sort of sketchy yet heavy feeling to things, while also still feeling smooth like a lot of his earlier work. Comparing this to many of the other stories that he did in the past it’s really evident how and where the work has taken even more steps up from the high spot it already existed within.

Coloring wise, there is a lighter touch to the palette that he’s using here.

All of the flashback pages have a very sort of faded look added to things, making sure that we feel the pastness of it all (beyond the characters involved). For the present day pages things are just as more toned-down feeling, but are slicker in a way. Plenty of pops of brighter light come into play, since there are still some heroic moments involved. With the majority of it being set in ‘real’ places with ‘normal’ people the colors stay within the more natural realm. Outside of the first pages with the really heavy darkness surrounding the mystery (we all know who it is) villain moment.

Taylor and Abbott have quite the working relationship, having worked on Nightwing and Titans together recently. There is a particular styling to how Taylor writes things, and Abbott is able to take that and run with it. Giving the words even more life and making the slightly stilted dialogue style flow better than it might have. Really speaking to the work that letterers do beyond just putting words on the page. It’s a talky issue so there is a lot of words to get down, and they don’t pile up in any way.

Detective Comics #1090 is now available from DC Comics.