Review: ‘Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham’ #1 is authorized fanfic come to life
PUBLISHER PITCH
EISNER AWARD-WINNING STORYTELLER RAFAEL GRAMPÁ'S TWISTED VISION OF THE DARK KNIGHT! When you chase your own shadow...it leads you into the abyss. In a Gotham City where every day feels darker and more irredeemable than the last, Batman makes a definitive choice--to kill off the Bruce Wayne identity for good and embrace the cowl full-time. But though he knows the streets of Gotham, Batman will soon come to find that he hardly knows himself. A serial killer is on the loose, and while the murder victims seem random at first, every clue draws Batman closer to the terrifying truth--that they are all connected, not just to each other...but to him... When an all-new rogues gallery of utterly depraved villains begins to emerge from the depths of the city, Batman will have to contend with the very nature of evil--including that which lurks inside in the darkest corners of his own heart--to face what's coming for his city. Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham brings Rafael Grampá's twisted vision of both the Dark Knight and the city of Gotham to life in a DC writing debut that will reach its icy black tendrils into the deepest and darkest corners of human nature and leave you gasping for breath--and for more!
REVIEW
The first thing that stands out in Gargoyle of Gotham #1 is Rafael Grampá’s unique style of dark and twisted illustrations. From the opening panel to the closing “to be continued” box, the visual tone of this book is unabashedly Grampá. As a Dark Knight story about a serial killer, the art is gratuitous and Grampá doesn’t hold back with plenty of blood spilled. On one page, Batman pokes the eyes out of a henchman in gory fashion.
The killer Batman is hunting has an unhealthy obsession with an older cartoon with a dark past and one of the more interesting visual representations in this first issue is a scene involving said killer watching old reels of the cartoon as he waits for Batman to find him. Grampá employs a black and white palette for these panels to great effect. The killer himself is always shown entirely in black with pops of white to highlight his eyes and his penchant for crying on cue. It’s a captivating look that isn’t matched by equally compelling character. The cartoon obsession allows for an interesting visual yet it doesn’t do anything to create much in terms of complexity for the character. The final page reveals that he has a connection to Bruce from long ago, which was both highly predictable and entirely uninspiring. This type of motivation or explanation for villains’ fixation on Bruce Wayne/Batman is overdone and lazy.
This new villain is a microcosm for my main problem with this issue (and my worry for the rest of this miniseries) — it all looked great yet nothing in the story felt like it was breaking new ground, exploring new depths of Batman’s psyche, or providing a new wrinkle to the Dark Knight lore. Batman wants to become a darker version of the Dark Knight and eliminate the public life of Bruce Wayne so he can achieve it? That’s a tough story to tell when it’s already been done in the iconic work of Frank Miller. It’s all been done before so any writer looking to attempt a story about it needs something to establish their story as a worthy addition to the Dark Knight pantheon.
There’s a random monologue from Batman about the ills of Gotham being perpetrated by the city’s wealthy elite. In theory, it’s not a concept I disagree with. However, it’s quite the u-turn from Batman’s recent defense of Gotham’s aristocracy from Catwoman’s plans in Battle Lines. These two stories aren’t happening in the same universe but it was still a weird argument for Batman to make when that opinion didn’t come back to mean anything in the context of this issue.
Another random scene that fell flat involved Alfred posing as “the biggest collector” of the artist who created the villain’s cartoon obsession. Batman puts him up to the task of paying a visit to the artist’s widow hoping to learn more about the cartoon and it’s blatantly obvious that Alfred is in over his head. The widow calls out several inconsistencies with Alfred’s story and yet doesn’t feel any cause for concern as to a strange man in her house? Not of it made any sense.
FINAL VERDICT
There are three issues left for Grampá to establish his own perspective, but, as the review’s title implies, this story came off as Dark Knight Rises fanfic. And mediocre fanfic at that. When the pitch said the limited series was Grampá’s “twisted vision of the Dark Knight,” I didn’t realize how much this would echo Miller’s Dark Knight stories, including Batman planning to fake the death of Bruce Wayne. Such strong connections to those iconic tales make it hard not to compare the two and, unfortunately, Gargoyle of Gotham can’t stand up to Miller’s work. I worry that we are treading into the territory of DC wanting a really cool visual and being ok with whatever story was paired with it.
