This month we arrive at the conclusion to “Eye of the Beholder,” the story that mark’s writer/artist Tony Daniel’s return to the monthly pages of the eponymous
BATMAN title. Daniel closes out his tale here pretty neatly, and leaves a reasonable motivation for a main beef I had with his take on the Riddler, as well as an interesting promise of things to come.
Daniel’s artwork in this last issue has been the best of this story. While retaining his new “scratchiness,” his body scale and background composition are all well-rendered and his layouts make the sequence of events very easy to follow. The larger-than-life mystic moments are given an appropriate gravitas, and the action is dynamic and eye-catching. His writing in this go-around from a characterization standpoint is also pretty spot-on. There are times when Daniel’s Grayson-Bat can be a little too jokey, but too much is infinitely better than the “not enough” we had when Daniel took the book over from Grant Morrison about a year-and-a-half ago.
One of the main gripes I had from a character perspective was his decision to drag The Riddler down into the role of a lowly criminal again, doing away with the very fertile detective-for-hire take that Paul Dini had on him during Dini’s awesome run on DETECTIVE COMICS. Daniel has brought me around a little bit (but not completely) with a simple but effective motivation that Nigma has in returning to his previous ways, and I’ll be cautiously interested to see how this is further developed in future issues.
Because this is a story so rooted in the more mystic elements of Gotham City, it’s easy to see that the story won’t be for everyone. I have to admit that personally, I give very few writers leeway when judging mystical Batman stories, a shortlist for which Grant Morrison has the top spot. When other writers try to utilize these more fantastical elements it tends to fall flat, and while Tony Daniel does this in a few places with his use of Sensei, I rather enjoy his take on I-Ching and his character The Peacock.
Going forward I’m curious if Daniel will remain in the more mystical world that this story dabbled in or if he’ll go to a street-level, but he really doesn’t have to since Scott Snyder is doing a wonderful job on the grim-and-gritty with Dick over in DETECTIVE. In order to keep the BATMAN book unique, it would probably serve him well to do what he’s been doing, with one foot in the realm of mysticism and one foot in the streets of Gotham.
Overall, “Eye of the Beholder” was an interesting solo-Grayson tale and sets up a wealth of possibilities for Dick going forward in this title. It’s easy for this book to get lost in the mix when we have so much going on in Batman’s world right now. Between INCORPORATED, THE DARK KNIGHT, DETECTIVE, and the soon-ending STREETS OF GOTHAM, it may be a difficult case to convince people to try out the ol’ solo title.
I say if you need to save, you can probably do without it, since as of now it’s doing little to address the wider Batman narrative. But if you have a few extra bucks every month and are looking for interesting stories with a cape and a cowl, then you may find what you’re looking for in BATMAN.
