In this review of Detective Comics #1084, Bruce’s journey back to Gotham begins his long awaited confrontation with the Orgham family for control of Gotham.
This review contains spoilers
Detective Comics #1084
Gotham Nocturne: Act III – Crescendo, Part 1
Writer: Ram V
Artist: Javier Fernandez
Colors: Dave McCaig
Main Cover: Evan Cagle
Variant Covers: Javier Fernandez, Guillem March, Jim Lee, Maria Wolf, Sebastian Fiumara
Release Date: April 23, 2024
Jim Gordon and Renee Montoaya (The Question) watch in awe as Batman returns, fighting off their attackers, and using miniature speakers to transform an azmer demon possessed man back into himself. Batman gives Renee a flash drive with evidence linking the Orghams to the murder of Detective Fielding, which won’t convict in a court, but might turn opinion against them. Jim and Batman watch the sun rise on Gotham.
We see flashes of Batman’s journey from the desert back to Gotham, training blindfolded, sleeping with Talia, finding Arzen Orgham’s poisoned body shipped to the desert by Talia’s agents (including Lady Shiva) in Gotham. Talia plans to bring Arzen back in a Lazrus pit, and Bruce decides to return to challenge the Orghams.
On the rooftop with Jim, Batman wonders if he has a place in the bright and shiny Orgham Gotham. Jim says the forgotten need him to stand against their erasure.
In her skyscraper, the Orgham Queen plots, and Bruce blows a massive exploding Bat in her building. He thanks Catwoman, and tells her he’s changed. She makes a visit to a strange smiling man…
Analysis:
And so the final act of Gotham Nocturne begins! With just 6 issues to #1089, the last issue of the run, we have our setup of the confrontation between the Orgham Queen and Batman. Contrary to past scheduling, artist Javier Fernandez is solicited as the main artist for the next four issues, so hopefully we’ll have a consistent artistic visual for the finale of this operatic story. But what are the details of the story?
We see flashes of how Bruce returned to Gotham, thankfully answering some of the questions posed by Batman showing up just in time to save Jim and Renee in the last issue. No real answers to “what is the nature of Barbatos and the azmer demon and Dr. Hurt” are given, but Bruce’s healing, retraining with Talia’s men and Talia herself, and his resolve to face the Orghams again after being defeated so thoroughly have a reasonably pleasing shape to them. Though Bruce sleeping with Talia again after Selina risked so much to save him in her heist (“Batman: Outlaw”) feels very frustrating, it at least has some semblance of a story and relationship shape. Additionally, Talia spending enormous effort to resurrect Arzen Orgham to perhaps pay the debt her father Ra’s owes to Arzen’s father also has a somewhat pleasing story shape, even if the dots on the way from A to B are quite obscured.
Batman tells both Jim and Selina that he’s a new man, has new answers, but since the questions he has supposedly answered were incredibly vague, it’s hard to see the difference between this Batman and the past. Batman is a force of resistance, the champion of the oppressed and forgotten man. Yes, we can affirm that easily – but that’s not really something new. Unless you buy Cecil Castellucci’s absolutely risible assertion in Batgirl #50, that Bruce only donates to “establishment” charities, Bruce has always funded charities for those most left behind by society. If you take the last arc’s rejection of “Batman always wins” as something new, it’d be quite surprising to Denny O’Neil, Chuck Dixon, Steve Englehart, Greg Rucka, and so many other classic Batman writers. Especially in an arc where we KNOW Batman has to win against the Orghams because the status quo of an evil supernatural family controlling Gotham with a “reality engine” technology and demons that mutate people into hulking abominations walking the streets just cannot last. An assertion that Batman can lose as long as he keeps resisting is quite hollow when, in fact, he is going to win. (I will say that if Batman loses and the Orghams are still in charge at the end of this run, I will eat my hat.)
In addition to these meta explorations, Ram V also pulls a bunch of tools and plot threads out of nowhere to start his confrontation between Batman and the Orghams. The tiny speakers that can knock out azmer demons feel like an abandoned plot thread from Simon Spurrier’s backup about Mr. Freeze and the frozen psychiatrist, but since that was, indeed, completely ignored for the past year, having Batman suddenly know how to use these speakers to defeat an azmer has no weight. Batman also magically having the evidence Renee was seeking for the past several months proves incredibly convenient. Given his statement that they can’t prove Shavod’s guilt in court, I fully expect some kind of Dark Knight Rises uprising (especially given the flaming bat on the side of a skyscraper, also exactly like the Dark Knight Rises). In general, there’s a lot of the narration and characters telling us “something has changed about Batman” when instead it’s literally all things we’ve seen before. However, at least the pieces are being put in place, instead of just slammed on the page as with the last, intensely frustrating issue.
Detective Comics #1084 page drawn by Javier Fernandez (Image Credit: DC Comics)
Backup Story:
Writer: Alex Paknadel
Artist: Robbi Rodriguez
Colors: Patricio Delpeche
Cassandra Cain Batgirl patrols the waterfront in Gotham, still a haven for crime the Orghams haven’t eradicated yet. She sees Lady Shiva, her mother, managing the transportation of a coffin (which we see in the main story belongs to Arzen Orgham). Cass attacks, but Shiva knocks her down and mocks her. Azmer demons attack, and Shiva persuades Cass to help her fight them off. Though she takes many injuries, she manages to knock out the azmer demons without killing them. She tells Shiva a safe route from Gotham’s waterways, and Shiva tells her not to be Batman, but to be what he wanted her to be.
Backup Analysis
Alex Paknadel takes over for fellow Brits Simon Spurrier and Dan Watters for the backups in Detective, and like those two, he ties his story tightly to the main story. Showing how Shiva got Prince Arzen’s body to Talia with Cassandra Cain’s help makes a lot of sense, and the appearance of David Cain’s training for Cass in flashback probably makes many die hard Cass fans quite happy. Though the writing for Cass as struggling feels odd, since nothing like that was hinted at in the main story for the past three issues, her voice and dedication in the face of intense pain is very Cass. It’s also very nice to see Shiva back to her vicious, brilliantly terrifying self as opposed to the Bryan Edward Hill “sad mom”. Artist Robbi Rodriguez returns to drawing Cass, with darker, more somber colors by Patricio Delpeche instead of the neon washed hues of his art in Batgirls. The fight scenes are quite nicely depicted, an essential for a Cass and Shiva story, and despite some frustratingly out of nowhere elements and the non-sequitur of Shiva’s advice to Cass (because of the severe neglect of the Bruce/Cassandra relationship in the past 18 years), this backup still seems like a pretty solid addition to the overall story of Gotham Nocturne.
Evan Cagle’s main cover shows a bloody Bruce Wayne peeking out from a pile of grey bats – a nicely dramatic image that has some thematic resonance with Batman reclaiming his identity and city after an interminable arc of azmer demon control. Interior artist Javier Fernandez’s variant shows Batman gliding on his cape into the heart of the city, rendered solely in black and gold – a striking and dramatic image, though a trifle generic. Classic Batman artist Guillem March paints a Batman landing in almost Frank Miller-esque crouched fashion, with huge arms and legs and snarl included as shattered glass sparkles around him – again, striking, though also again rather generic, nothing specific about this story that demands this image. Jim Lee’s covid auction sketch of Azrael graces the “artist spotlight” series this month, and is beautiful and dramatic as all Jim Lee covers tend to be – though sadly, no Azrael in this issue despite his appearance during the Outlaw arc. Maria Wolf provides the monkey themed “Ape-ril” cover of Detective Chimp – quite humorous. Lastly, Sebastian Fiumara’s 1 in 25 incentive variant shows Batman looming over a bloody Gotham with a bloody, bat-obscured moon at his heart – an ominous image indeed.
Final Thoughts:
The beginning of the final arc of Gotham Nocturne is off to a much better start than the end of the last one, as new artist Javier Fernandez renders Ram V’s setting the stage for his final Batman vs. Orgham conflict.
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced copy of Detective Comics #1084 for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
