In The Bat-Man: First Knight #2, Bat-Man and Commissioner Gordon face more zombies as the mysterious plot to take over 1939 Gotham darkens.
The Bat-Man: First Knight #2 cover by Mike Spicer (Image courtesy of DC Comics)
Title: The Bat-Man: First Knight #2
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Artist: Mike Perkins
Colors: Mike Spicer
Main Cover: Mike Perkins
Variant Covers: Sebastian Fiumara, Marc Aspinall
Release Date: April 9, 2024
This comic book review contains spoilers.
Commissioner Gordon turns off the electric chair and saves Bat-Man’s life, and he painfully fights his way out of Blackgate. Warden Shelby is gunning for Gordon’s job and is eager to murder people for convenience when they get in his way, like Bat-Man. Gordon leaves after a heated argument, but Bat-Man has stolen his car, taking it home to Wayne Manor to recuperate.
A mysterious voice calls Johnny the Whip and orders him to kill Bat-Man and Gordon.
Julia Madison, the actress, drops by Wayne Manor to thank Bruce for getting her movie back in production and finds him burned. She ministers to him with skills learned from her nurse mother, and Bruce asks her out.
Once recovered, Bruce goes out again as the Bat-Man, first returning Gordon’s car, then finds Mayor Vincent being attacked by plane and armored vehicle on a massive truss bridge by Johnny the Whip and several zombies. Once he gets the Mayor away, Bat-Man dives off the bridge and swims to shore. He meets some people in a shanty town on the banks, as well as Rabbi Cohen (from Bat-Man: First Knight #1) ministering to them. Saving the Rabbi from two thugs trying to rob him, the Rabbi saves the thugs from Bat-Man’s rage once he’s beaten them. Bruce reveals his identity to the Rabbi, and they ruminate about the hell on earth around the world.
Bat-Man then visits the prostitute Tillie. She tells him Gordon is the next target, from hearing Johnny the Whip as he visited the brothel. He also orders the brothel manager to protect Rabbi Cohen’s synagogue.
Johnny the Whip sics zombies on Gordon, and when Bat-Man intervenes, sics even more on them both. He also slaughters a patrol officer who helps the pair of heroes, but Gordon shoots Johnny before he can headshot Bat-Man. Gordon tells Batman he must carry a firearm if he’s going to fight such dangers, and though he resists, Bat-Man goes back to Wayne Manor and picks out one of his family pistols.
The Bat-Man: First Knight #2 by Dan Jurgens & Mike Perkins (Image courtesy of DC Comics)
Dan Jurgens and Mike Perkins’ gritty, hardboiled rendering of Batman’s origin continues with intensely brutal fight scenes and a wealth of historical details in dialogue and art. That violence and texture definitely make up the strength of the presentation, as we see Bat-Man and Gordon outmatched by zombies controlled by gangsters – perhaps a bit reminiscent of the Court of Owls. The mysterious “Voice” who is directing Johnny the Whip seems like a bit of an odd choice to continue to hide two-thirds of the way through the story. One hopes that it doesn’t turn out to be the saintly Rabbi Cohen, or Gordon, or even the hapless Mayor, but there aren’t that many characters involved in the plot currently who could turn out to be the Big Bad. And the turning of one of those knights of light into a demon of darkness would definitely fit the hardboiled genre.
The character work remains a bit surface level. The light romance element added by Julie and Bruce’s scene together doesn’t really go very far towards adding much levity to the pitch black tone, especially as it doesn’t seem that connected to any ongoing plot elements. Rabbi Cohen’s connection to Bruce is perhaps the most interesting and emotionally fraught of the relationships depicted, which perhaps will mean even more heartbreak if the Rabbi is the evil Voice. The rest of the characters, even the hapless Gordon who loses his car to an escaping Bat-Man early on, don’t really have much flavor outside of Jurgens’ pungent 1930s dialect and Perkins’ beautifully detailed linework, washed by Mike Spicer’s grimy and classic colors.
The length of each issue still feels a bit too long on this middle issue. One wonders if Jurgens could have gone a bit more structurally wild, perhaps told miniature tales with beginning, middle, and end, similar to the original Detective Comics format, with linking elements like the Voice and the zombies, instead of the somewhat plodding and meandering single thread we follow in the two issues so far.
Main artist Mike Perkins’ cover shows a collage of images – a zombie, Julie, a gangster with tommy gun, powerful car, and Gordon smoking, all silhouetted in Bat-Man’s shape. Sebastian Fiumara’s variant shows Bat-Man gliding over Gotham against a red night sky, and Marc Aspinall’s pulp novel variant shows Bruce in a dress shirt opening a vault to reveal his Bat-suit.
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced copy of this comic 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.
