Detective Comics #1 Thoughts

Writer/Artist: Tony Daniel


Tony Daniel's an incredible artist--loved the work he did with Grant Morrison, so I never questioned that this book would look excellent. And it does, even though the style seems somewhat different from what I remember, this is still a very pretty book. Well, pretty as the grungy Gotham City can be, at least. It's very much appreciated that tonally, everything about Gotham "feels" right.

Now as far as the writing goes--initially I had my concerns. He did alright on the one or two Batman arcs I read post-Battle for the Cowl, but after that I stopped reading--life kind of forced me away from comics. But apparently the relaunch has done a world of good, creatively--this is a pretty fun Batman comic. Apparently DC's "we're no longer writing for the trade" wasn't just them blowing smoke--Daniel's Detective Comics is a very compressed comic, giving us a complete story with very little widescreen storytelling and lots of narrative dialogue. After about ten minutes or so I was surprised to realize I'd only gotten through about twelve or so pages, when usually I would be through with the whole comic. It works very well, and Daniel's art is so detailed that having anywhere from five to eight panels on each page (with very few double page spreads) means the artwork doesn't suffer at all.

The only complaint I truly have is the dialogue needs a bit of work, here and there. Hopefully Daniel's improving over time, because lines like, "Forget about it, Joker. You can't run. I OWN the night.", don't need to happen too often.

Speaking of the Joker...he's the central villain this issue and...wow. Just...wow. What a ballsy ending. I encourage everyone to go out and buy this, because that last page is sick. I look forward to seeing what Tony Daniel is going to do with both this comic, and the Joker, next.