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4.16 AVERAGE
4.16 AVERAGE
For someone who likes cop-shows in the vein of Homicide: Life On The Streets (they even have The Board), and Batman, this hits the spot pretty well. If anything a bit too much Batman.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Contains two stories, "In the Line of Duty" and "Motive." In the first, two officers investigate a tip on a kidnapping case and instead encounter Mr. Freeze, who fills one of them. His fellow officers try to bring down Freeze before the Bat Signal brings Batman into the picture.
In the second story, the surviving partner of the team from the earlier story is still on the kidnapping case when the victim's body is found. The case slowly merges with that of a costumed arsonist called Firebug, who turns out to have employed the victim as a babysitter and killed her when she discovered his secret: he bought the Firebug apparatus on G-Bay.
In "Motive," the identity of the Firebug is easy to figure out. What's more enjoyable about Brubaker and Rucka's approach is bringing the police procedural to Gotham City, in the margins of superheroes and supervillains, and keeping the spotlight on the officers and their stories.
The art gives the pov, which sticks with the officers, and there are no descriptive panel tags other than to give the date and time of day.
Re-read 5 Oct 2015.
In the second story, the surviving partner of the team from the earlier story is still on the kidnapping case when the victim's body is found. The case slowly merges with that of a costumed arsonist called Firebug, who turns out to have employed the victim as a babysitter and killed her when she discovered his secret: he bought the Firebug apparatus on G-Bay.
In "Motive," the identity of the Firebug is easy to figure out. What's more enjoyable about Brubaker and Rucka's approach is bringing the police procedural to Gotham City, in the margins of superheroes and supervillains, and keeping the spotlight on the officers and their stories.
The art gives the pov, which sticks with the officers, and there are no descriptive panel tags other than to give the date and time of day.
Re-read 5 Oct 2015.
This series is often called "The Wire" of comics, and it lives up to the name pretty well. It follows the cops of Gotham City - dealing with everything from regular crime to super villains to Batman drama. One of the coolest things to me about this book is that you can see Batman from the perspective of a normal person; brooding, creepy, aloof, almost a myth. If you like crime books, this is worth your time. If you like Batman, this is worth your time. Highly accessible and well written.
Gotham Central is a great look at Gotham without Batman. Sure he puts in a few panels worth of appearances, but the real stars here are the members of the Gotham Police. Which is nice, because I'll admit, I'm not really a fan of Batman in most of the things I've read. The majority of the time he just comes across as a giant asshole. And not even a likable one at that. Which actually seems pretty similar to how some of the Gotham police view him. He takes all the glory while the police still have to deal with all the crazy shit that he seems to attract to the city along with their everyday police work.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The fourth star was for Rucka's work on the last story about Renee Montoya. He just has such a great feel for her -as evidenced by his work with her on 52. The other ones are good too, but they were more like Law and Order episodes where Rucka had more character development in the last tale - it was also the longest one, so I'm sure that helped.