DC Comics Presents Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City

This is a comic-format collection of four twenty year old Detective issues by Milligan, a three-parter and a one-off. Both stories are very good ones, and at eight dollars it’s good value too.

I can’t say I’m hugely keen on tying Batman and Gotham together with mystical history (especially coming out in the same week as the new Gates of Gotham mini-series, which seems to be doing some of the same rewriting of the city’s history). I see Batman as a human hero, one involved in crime and craziness but not, in fundamental core ways, anything supernatural. Still, this limits his direct connection, and the mystical link with Gotham is left vague, and I guess it’s been reprinted partly because it does link in with some stuff in Morrison’s recent Return of Bruce Wayne series, so I am forgiving enough here. It actually centres on the Riddler, who is very well handled here, with an astute and rich understanding of the character. His series of ploys is bewildering as it goes on, but there is always a sense of purpose, of manipulating Batman for strange ends. It’s also a pleasure along the way because of the strength of the writing, a noirish narration giving us Batman’s emotional and physical reactions to some genuinely extreme moments and decisions, in some style and with real force. The ending is perhaps a little weak, a touch indecisive and inconclusive, but I enjoyed the journey greatly.

This is despite third-rate art from Dwyer and Janke, which often looks rushed and clumsy and offers terrible faces on the unmasked scenes. It also looks as dated as it is, but to be fair it does carry the story efficiently in almost every respect. I’m particularly exasperated by having to work out what is happening in so many modern comics, who is doing what to whom in what sequence, and those kinds of errors would be fatal in what is a complex and dense story, so credit for at least not screwing that up, even if they never make the most of the dramatic scenes either.

The short extra story is strong too, Bruce coming round and finding that Alfred and Tim deny he is Batman, and the Batcave is gone – and Batman is at work on TV. This is cleverly staged and finished, despite Mandrake’s art: he wanted to be Neal Adams, but couldn’t draw as well or render as cleanly, and never had the flair for layouts and compositions. Again, some praise for tidy storytelling and clear action is worth adding. When the writing is strong, that’s often enough, even if we would like more.

I wish the art had been a bit better here, but this is a strong little collection at a very reasonable $8, and very much worth grabbing if it’s new material to you.