TBU Collected Review: Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham

Overview: In Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, Bruce Wayne battles Lovecraft-inspired monsters in a 1920s setting.

Editor’s Note: In anticipation of the release of the animated film of the same name, this review covers the inspiration for the film. This collected edition includes all three issues of the miniseries Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham, which had its first issue released in November 2000 and the final issue released in January 2001. This review focuses on the story as a whole rather than the individual issues that made up the limited series. 

Synopsis (spoilers ahead): Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham is an Elseworlds story that takes us to a Lovecraftian 1920s-style universe. Our story begins in 1928 Antarctica, with Bruce Wayne twenty years into his expedition. He and his crew have just located the lost ship of Oswald Cobblepot, leader of another expedition crew doing research in the artic. The ship, including everyone on board, is completely frozen. Bruce heads out on his own. He sees someone in the distance, and thinking it’s Cobblepot, Bruce races to catch the man. Following him inside a cave, he discovers something gigantic behind a wall of ice. The man, not Cobblepot, looking as though he is frozen to the core, is attempting to break the ice around this mysterious thing. After a struggle, Bruce knocks out and pulls Mr. Grendon out of the cave. Bruce calls to his ship for some explosives; assuming Cobblepot was lost to the monster in the cave, they blow it up.

Cobblepot, naked with the penguins, watches as the cave blows.

Mr. Grendon truly is frozen. Dick and Jason attempt to thaw him out but quickly realize he has become rotten. He remains in the ship’s freezer while the boys build him a refrigerator suit, but he is not making the voyage alone.

Once they reach the harbor, Alfred immediately reminds Bruce of the reason he really left Gotham: the death of his parents. We jump to the past, where we see the death of the Waynes by knife. Young Bruce follows a phantom voice, one mirroring the same voice Mr. Grendon is hearing. The voice takes Bruce to an abandoned clock tower filled with bats. As Bruce releases them, the voice tells him to prepare for what is coming.

Jason mans the ship in the harbor, continuing his work on Mr. Grendon. Tim and Dick accompany Bruce back to Wayne Manor, where they are greeted by a chemical-filled body tied to a chair. Bruce also notices something reptilian about it as he whispers his name, Langstrom. Adding to the weirdness, a man calling himself Blood shows himself to explain to Bruce the only four things he is allowed to know. 1. Your homecoming has set something in motion. 2. To prevail in this, Bruce Wayne must die. 3. Beware, dust comes alive again. 4. To save Gotham City, you must tear out its heart. Blood then turns into Etrigan and jumps out of the window.

Tim and Bruce visit an old friend and big game hunter Oliver Queen to get the lay of the city. It’s revealed that Langstrom is the leading scientist in bat studies, and their other old friend, Harvey Dent, is running for mayor. This turns out to just be the beginning of the detective process. Bruce receives the location of Langstrom’s lab, and Batman is away.

Langstrom’s last written statement reveals that bats speak to him and tell him of horror coming for Gotham, and a book called the Testament of al Ghul is what opens the door for the horror to walk through to our world. The book is hidden in the library of Professor Crosby Manfurd. There is also a woman searching for the book as well. Batman knows he must get there first.

Batman calls Dick to check on Jason in the harbor as Manfurd is attacked. Talia al Guhl has won the race to the book and releases her own demon, Daitya, to cover her escape. Jason Blood only has one opportunity to intervene and help Batman and chooses this one. He turns into Etrigran, allowing Batman to pursue Talia and the book. Batman corners her and a lizard person henchman at gunpoint. He fires, but the monster is unphased and too fast. The first issue ends with Talia sparing Batman’s life despite the lizard man’s wishes. We cut to the ship in the harbor. Grendon whispers, “The thing is coming.”

Part two of Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham begins back in the harbor. Whatever was causing Grendon to freeze has spread to the entire ship. Dick and Tim have arrived to check on Jason. Dick enters the ship alone and finds Jason frozen to death, but it’s also a trap. Grendon, now in full Mr. Freeze mode, and the lizard man are waiting for Dick.

Batman is chained deep below the city as he wakes to Talia in the starting stages of a ritual with the book. She is to bring her father, Ra’s al Ghul, back from the dead. He has whispered to her from beyond the grave to set everything that is coming to Gotham in motion. She starts by calling Daitya. He has defeated Etrigan and trapped him in a bottle. She then moves on to bring her father back. As he rises, Batman uses this opportunity to escape his chains, but he is too late. The Demon’s Head has risen and immediately sets a plague of reptiles on the city.

His next move involves Grendon. Ra’s gives a backstory on the Doom that is coming, known as the Lurker, and then uses Grendon as the key to release it. He sets the monster’s first target as the new mayor, Harvey Dent.

Batman, finally free of the attacking reptiles, is back top side as we cut to him as a child in the tower again. He follows a voice up the steps until he reaches its origin. He stands underneath a body hanging by its neck from the rafters. “Bruce, the thing is coming.” He is then picked up by a swarm of bats and flown through the air. They show the boy what is coming and make sure he knows that he is the only one who can stop it. It then cuts back to Batman standing in front of the same abandoned tower, “The end is near,” graffitied in huge letters.

The morning comes, and Tim finds Oliver Queen praying in a special room in the penthouse apartment. Dressed as a knight templar, Oliver tells Tim he is meant to kill this monster that is coming. He reveals ancient arrows with holy blood meant to kill the supernatural. As he speaks, vines start to creep in the window. Before Oliver can do anything, “you are not the one,” says a mysterious voice, and Oliver is gone. Batman bursts through the door just as Tim is about to be swallowed. Using a log from the fire, Batman jabs it into the monster, burning it and saving Tim just in time.

Batman confides in Tim. He tells him that he has known about this since childhood. Putting out his hand, he shows Tim that he is slowly turning into something better suited for battle. Tim recounts what Oliver had told him before the attack, giving the arrows to Batman.

This second chapter ends with the new mayor, Harvey Dent, at the doctor’s office dealing with a rash that has consumed one side of his body, a gift from Talia. Ra’s is in the depths of the sewers preparing for the final assault on Gotham.

The final part of Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham opens in Mayor Dent’s apartment. The rash has fully spread and completely covers one-half of his body. Talia is there as well, assuring him that all his suffering will be worth it in the end. “Inside of you is the future history of man,” she tells him.

Bruce, Tim, and Alfred are attending the funerals of Jason and Dick. Bruce is deep in disguise as he is still turning into some sort of monster himself. They are flagged down by police chief Gordon who takes them to his daughter, Barbara. After an “injury,” she now sits in a wheelchair with the ability to speak to the dead. They have a message for Bruce. She tells him he has two beings standing with him; the man wrapped in bats thanks him for taking on this burden, and the fire man sets another meeting for later this evening.

Bruce meets Barbara at the Gotham courthouse later that night. In a rage of fire, Crosby Manfurd flies out of Barbara and starts reciting the origin story of the monster to Bruce. We learn that to make sure their settlement in the new world was a sure success, a Wayne, a Queen, and a Langstrom, along with Manfurd, enlisted the devil to help them. That devil was Ludwig Prinn. Prinn led the men to the city below Gotham, created by the Reptile men that once “dominated” the earth. The five used the book of Guhl to perform ceremonies, and in the end, out of shame, the four men beat Prinn to death and buried the city, leaving Gotham to prosper on lies. Prinn, over time slowly turned into a Reptile man himself. He is the one who killed Jason on the boat and left Langstrom in Wayne manor. Slowly over time, the rest of the men started to hear the whispers of the Lurker, the monster from Antarctica, and it drove them mad.

Manfurd leaves Batman with clues to where Ra’s is planning his final ceremony to release the Lurker. Armed with the arrows from Oliver Queen, he heads to the city of the Reptile men below Gotham.

His first encounter is with Prinn, who he takes care of easily. Further into the depths, he finds Harvey Dent. The left side of his body is no longer his. It has grown into its own realm, a place where Ra’s can finally pull the Lurker, who we now find out is the god IOG-SOTHA, through to Gotham. Bruce unleashes his final arrow in the direction of Ra’s. He uses the book to block it, and it erupts in fire. The damage has already been done.

The next page cuts to Batman, who is no longer a man. He has fully transformed into the Man-Bat. The creature that will save Gotham. He battles a Ra’s now with the power of IOG-SOTHA running through him, causing him to transform into a monster as well. As they battle, the Lurker himself starts through the portal. It takes Talia as she watches the Man-Bat drive the arrow through the book into her father.

Etrigan emerges from his own capture. He congratulates Bruce. This is the moment that Etrigan had hoped would come. Bruce’s ability to take down Ra’s has put the IOG-SOTHA in a vulnerable state. One that Etrigan is prepared for. He uses his power, and an explosion erupts inside Harvey Dent. Like kindling, the Lurker sparks the city above, and Gotham begins to burn to the ground.

We cut to six months later. Tim Drake is leading a press conference as head of the Wayne Foundation. The city and the foundation have reached an agreement for the foundation to fund the new program to rebuild Gotham after the fire. The last panel of our story is of the Man-Bat Bruce Wayne looking over the event, “God help you if you ever again have need of me.”

Analysis: Let us just get this out of the way: we are told from the cover of Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham that this is a Batman that uses a gun. The story takes place in the late 1920s with a very Lovecraftian look. Do I think the gun is totally out of place? No, I do not. Do I think the story needed the gun? Not at all. As amazing as the cover art is by Mignola with Mr. Freeze and Gotham in the background, the gun being the foremost image makes it seem like they got the go-ahead from DC to use a gun and wanted to let everyone know. It is a little forced, and the story never calls for a Batman with a gun.

Completely moving on from the gun, the story itself is very good. Mike Mignola and Richard Pace did a fantastic job of giving us a very Lovecraftian-inspired story with monsters, wizards, magic, coming back from the dead, and old family secrets screwing over their ancestors. Each respective chapter was put together almost perfectly.  They all started and ended with a great mystery surrounding them. I was lucky to be able to read all three at once; it would have been agonizing to have to wait three months for the full story to be released. The way the authors chose to use the flashbacks worked amazingly here. Sometimes stories like this can get off track because being in so many different time periods and then going in many different directions can create unnecessary confusion. This was not that at all. It is very easy to tell a lot of care was taken when it came to the composition of the story to avoid this pitfall. It has a smooth and constant flow through all three chapters. This is one of the better origin stories of a young Bruce meeting a bat god of some type. The panels where he is being carried away by a group of bats are gorgeous. The fact that it all ends with him turning into the Man-Bat tops it all off. One of my favorite choices that Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham makes.

I thought the characters they used and how they chose to use them were incredibly smart as well. Having Dick, Jason, and Tim all be crew members Bruce trusts as family was great, and I absolutely loved the use of Oswald Cobblepot in the first chapter. If I had to make any character complaints, I would have liked to see more development from Harvey Dent. Same with Oliver Queen. They both pop up quickly and die quickly. I will also take Jason Blood/Etrigan in all my stories. He popped up when he was needed, but it was never forced. The story always called for him. Batman never wins without him. I think they could have held back on the Lurker more. With it being a Lovecraft-type story, they never needed to give it a name. Just the monster these greedy men brought upon their city. I also need to give a shoutout to the choice of Lizard people and the Lizard city underneath Gotham. It all worked.

I believe the art alone in Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham makes this a must-read. The three covers done by Mike Mignola may be some of my favorite original comic book art out there. The aesthetic with the black and brown is exactly what I see when I read Lovecraft. I think they nailed exactly what they were trying to do. Gotham is grandiose and elegant, and that continues into Wayne Manor and the apartment of Oliver Queen. The character choices were very smart as well as they fit perfectly into the style. Talia, when she is in her mask, and Etrigan really stand out when they are on the page. As they adapt this into an animated movie, I really hope they stay true to what Mignola did here.

For anyone that enjoys Batman stories, I think Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham is a must-read. It may be an Elseworlds, but it is done exactly how it should. The main idea of what and who Batman is remains, but the aesthetic and story choices change. The art and story are both done at a very high level – if this was released in a more recent time, I very much think it would have gotten the White Knight treatment. I would love to see more of this world.

Editor’s Note: You can find this collected edition and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this edition digitally either for Comixology through Amazon or as a physical copy in a paperback form at Amazon or from Things from Another World.