Posted September 8, 2011 by Flipgeeks Team in Comics

COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Detective Comics #1

Norby’s Take:

“This is the beginning of a new era.”

This is the second week of DC Comics’ The New 52 campaign. And a lot of people has been using the said quote above. Would I agree about? Positively indeed.

Tony (Salvador) Daniel has a lot of weight on his shoulders. Especially that he needs to deliver a successful first issue of the second volume of Detective Comics. Daniel introduces Detective Comics #1 with a good story, great art and a good cliffhanger for the second issue.

Daniel gives us the opening issue of his arc with the Joker. As it seems with this timeline, it reminds me about Nolan’s Batman films, when Batman is still starting out and the city of Gotham identifies him as a dark vigilante. I also noticed that he delivered his dialogue and thought boxes in a Frank Miller-esque kind of way. He played Batman and Joker in this issue well. And like I said, at first, the cliffhanger was astounding.

Usually recognized as an artist, Tony Daniel, did a good job. This is the kind of style that I usually want to see in a Batman book: Dark and gritty. But, there are some panels that I didn’t like.

In both roles, Tony Daniel Daniel did a great job. As a new reader, this book has met my wants and needs to wait for the second issue. This book made me excite to read more DC-The New 52 books. I really thought at first when the news released about Scott Snyder and Tony Daniel exchange Batman, I would then ignore Daniel and focus on Snyder instead. When I finished reading with this book, I was totally wrong. Now, it seems like that I’m going to follow two Batman titles, instead of one. Will the other titles of the Batman franchise convince me to follow more? Will soon find out in the next review.

Earl’s Take:

This book proved that you simply cannot judge a (comic) book by its cover. I checked the previews, it was rather bland but then again, it was mellowed out to avoid getting spoilers before it hit stores. So when I finally popped open my copy (which again we have to thank Sandy and Comic Odyssey for) it was hard hitting and I can even dare say that it can totally hold it’s own.

The plot might be date already (Batman going against Joker has been done a million times over already) but Daniels manages to make something off of this eternal conflict. The payoff seems huge for the Joker though as there are some hints that we won’t be seeing much of the old Joker after this issue (SPOILERS).

The art was good on some pages but I found other pages a bit lacking. While its still contestable as to whether Daniels is a capable writer, I’ve got to tip my hat to the guys over at DC for sticking with their decision of not putting any sort of origin into the first issue but rather go for the action right away.

One of the sad parts here for Detective Comics # 1 though is the fact that the issue starts out gory and ends with even more gore. I know that in today’s society violence and gore has already been accepted but it still perplexes me why they had to proceed with all that brutality when it could have been implied or done in other ways that wouldn’t make a 6 year old hurl. The book would have been better if it was written more with the old-school detective stories rather than write it with the movie “Saw” or “Face Off” in mind.

Other than that, this is an OK book for me. Nothing to cheer for but nothing to go and rant to much about.

Comic books used for this review was provided by: