Detective Comics #1
Written by Tony S. Daniel
Art by Tony S. Daniel and Ryan Winn
Cover by Tony S. Daniel
On Sale September 7, 2011
DC Universe; 32 pg.; Color; $2.99 US
I really didn’t know what to expect when opening Detective Comics #1. I felt like I was about to give up all the years of my life I had invested in the Caped Crusader I had come to know and love through the original run of Detective Comics and Batman. How could I just turn my back on 70 years of Bat-history and just start over again from scratch? Well, you just do.
That’s the attitude I am trying to take with this whole DC Universe relaunch. I’m certainly not going to stop reading the Batman titles, so the only thing to do is get on board and enjoy the ride for what it is. From the looks of Detective Comics #1, it’s going to be a whole lot more fun than many of the skeptics out there thought it would be.
Detective Comics #1 basically picks up right after Frank Miller’s “Year One” story arc. This really could be the sequel to that classic. It’s as if Batman has confronted the Joker once or twice before and he’s still trying to figure out what makes him tick. There’s no Robin or any extended Bat-family mentioned at all. There’s Batman, a younger looking Alfred, and a fiery-red haired James Gordon.
Writer Tony S. Daniel has made the move from the Batman monthly to the flagship Detective Comics book and brought with him all the darkness and grit he poured out on that title regularly. It seems like Daniel is trying to streamline his writing a bit. It feels simpler and less complex than his writing for the Batman monthly but not in a bad way.
Daniel is also tackling the penciling for Detective Comics. Just like with the Batman title, his drawings are graphic, realistic, and emanate anger and energy in every panel of action. However, there’s something about the style of his illustrating that is different as well. It’s like he wants us to know it’s his work but he’s tweaking it to set it apart from what he did on the Batman book.
I was definitely not disappointed with Detective Comics #1. I would be very surprised if any fan of the Dark Knight is. Sure, it’s weird to be transported back to the beginning all of a sudden. I could get used to it, though. If I just think about it the same way I think about J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek,” I’m all right. It’s as if everything still happened in the past, but now we’ve went back and are rewriting real history. I can handle anything as long as it doesn’t have to do with being on another Earth or in an alternate universe. I don’t want to sound cliché, but just keep it real… in the comic book world.
For more articles by Eric Shirey, check out:
Justice League #1 Comic Book Review
‘Batman: Arkham City’ Issue #1 Comic Book Review
“Flashpoint” Issue #1 Comic Book Review
Eric Shirey is the founder and editor of Rondo Award nominated movie and comic book news websites MovieGeekFeed.com and TheSpectralRealm.com. He also served as a news reporter for the award winning movie website GordonandtheWhale.com. His work has been featured on Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! TV, Associated Content from Yahoo!, DC Comics, StarWars.com, and other national entertainment websites. Besides his three decades long obsession with everything sci-fi, horror, and fantasy related in TV and movies, Eric has what some would call an unhealthy love for comic books. This has led him to interviewing and covering legendary writers and artists in the medium like Scott Snyder, Steve Niles, Bernie Wrightson, and Howard Chaykin. His personal website is www.ersink.com.