OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: The inmates of Arkham Asylum have taken over
DETECTIVE COMICS in "Beneath the Mask" Part 1 of 2! It's Black Mask verses Jeremiah Arkham for control of the asylum. But what of the enigmatic Three Beauties, and how does Batman fit into the mad plan? Everything that was set up and teased in
BATTLE FOR THE COWL: ARKHAM ASYLUM and
ARKHAM REBORN is at last revealed, but the answers to the mysteries just might drive everyone -- including Batman –- mad!
Then, in the co-feature, the spotlight is shone on Renee's personal life. But just who knows about her secret identity, and what will they do with that information? That is the question.
When I first moved to my current neighborhood almost exactly two years ago, I discovered an amazing hot dog stand down the street from my new apartment. I shouldn't really call it a hot dog "stand," per se, because it was kind of recessed into a shallow incline like a hobbit house.
They had a dog called “The Uncle Buck,: which had fresh cole slaw on top and homemade chili below, all wrapped in a poppy-seed bun. Or you could do what I always did and upgrade the already huge all-beef hot dog to a full quarter-pound dog, which of course meant a little more slaw and a little more chili. This was called “The Big Buck,” and I had many of them that first summer. The owner began adding new items to the menu, like delicious mini-burgers and an Italian beef sandwich that could only be described as sexual dinner-course.
As the months rolled by, I wondered if the hot dog guy would close up for winter. I asked him one day, and he said he was going to remain open during the colder months with a slew of new menu items, like hot soups and new sandwiches. This was very exciting. So, convinced that he'd always be there, I went about two weeks without stopping by for a dog.
And when I finally got a chance to get back there, he was closed. Forever. No signs on the window. No explanation. I wondered if perhaps he decided to close for winter after all, but as spring began to unfold across Bardstown Road, it became increasingly obvious that KC and the Hot Dog Stand -- yes, that's what it was called -- was never coming back.
So not only did I not get to try any of the promised new winter menu items, but I also never even got to have one last Big Buck to say goodbye. Being robbed of that chance for closure left me crestfallen.
And so it is that DETECTIVE COMICS has become my hot dog stand of 2010. We knew that David Hine was going to write a two-parter followed by a single issue by Dennis O'Neil. We were told that Greg Rucka's award-winning Batwoman tale would then resume (and that we'd finally get the origin of Alice, who's easily one of my all-time favorite comic book villains after only a few issues of Rucka's run). I reported this news in my review of last month's issue, because, at the time, it was the news.
But on April 1, it was reported that Greg Rucka was done with DC Comics. And it wasn't an April Fools' Day joke, either. Just like that, one of the best and most original and most entertaining (and, once again, award-winning) runs in DETECTIVE's decades-long history was just over. Not only would we not get to see what Rucka had in store for Kate Kane, but we never even really got a chance to say goodbye.
DC scrambled to fill the hole of their previous promise, replacing the continuing adventures of Batwoman in the July solicits with the beginning of a new four-parter written by David Hine (who wrote the issue I'll eventually get around to viewing in a paragraph or two) and drawn by Scott McDaniel (whose kinetic pencils are no strangers to Batman fans). Hine's four-parter is a Batman story, so what about Kate Kane?
As good as Rucka's writing on the title was, the art by JH Williams III took the story to a whole new level. This wasn't just art you looked at. It was art that you read like words and savored like wine, and it was just as important to the stories as Rucka's scripts.
With Rucka gone, Williams will take over writing duties (with new co-writer W. Haden Blackman) while also providing art for the first arc; he'll then write the second arc with art by Amy Reeder (whose fairy tale style should be a wonderful fit).
So at least someone who shared Rucka's vision for the character will be continuing Batwoman's adventures and, as I said before, there's a lot of storytelling going on in JH's art anyway. But will it pack the same punch as the continuing Rucka/Williams collaboration would have? I guess we'll find out "this summer," as DC says.
In the meantime, it seems we're left with David Hine. DETECTIVE #864 picks up where the events of the recent Tony Daniels arc left off, with Dr. Jeremiah Arkham exposed as the new Black Mask. He's been committed to own asylum now, walking around in an orange jumpsuit with the same animals and monsters and nuts he's been treating for years.
Hine really nails an early scene where an inmate warns Arkham about the hell he can expect, but then Arkham turns it back around because he knows how to press all of his antagonist's psychological buttons. Soon he's got half the asylum's inmates cowering away from him in fear. He knows their secrets and their histories, and he's not afraid to use their frailties against them without even having to lift a finger.
Dick Grayson's Batman, meanwhile, is dealing with a life-or-death mess left over from Arkham's time as Black Mask and has to visit the asylum to try to work with Arkham on a solution.
Dick's plan to mollify Arkham by giving him access to three "special patients" turns out to be just as bad an idea as it sounds, leading to a bizarre and bloody ending that takes something away from the solid if not necessarily spectacular pages preceding it.
Jeremy Haun, whose work I've been massively praising on the Manhunter backup over in STREETS OF GOTHAM, provides some very creepy and moody artwork here that fits the tone of Hine's story perfectly.
While there's nothing particularly wrong with the issue, it honestly didn't do anything for me at all. DETECTIVE is a title built on tradition, and I hold it to a high standard that's going to be difficult to maintain after recent runs by Paul Dini and Greg Rucka raised the bar incredibly high. I wish David Hine the best, and I hope he can do it. But this month, I just didn't feel like I got much value for my $3.99.
Rucka's Question backup (which also has an uncertain fate now that he's leaving DC) is easily the most bizarre installment of his story yet, with The Question and Huntress getting into a bloody battle of wits and morality with the immortal Vandal Savage. Mixing a supernatural character with such a hard-boiled premise works better than I'd expected it to, and the cliffhanger provides one hell of a challenge to our gorgeous heroes. Literally.
I'd give this issue a C. Nothing terrible, but it didn't do anything for me, either. On the other hand, readers who felt that Batwoman's adventures were too far away from the current goings-on in the other Batman books might want to grab this, since it seems as though DETECTIVE is lining back up with what's going on in the other titles.
I'd rather stick with the leather-clad redhead. - John Bierly
