When DC Comics announced the “Rebirth” event, I was skeptical. It had only been a few years since the New 52 reboot which, despite a few highlights, was a disappointment. After dutifully reading many of the New 52 titles for several months, I eventually scaled down to just a handful of titles and eventually stopped reading anything but Snyder’s Batman.
So, while I was reluctant to dive back in to regular comic book reading, I was willing to give the new Rebirth titles a shot and began, as I always do, with a Batman title. Detective Comics #934 is the first chapter of the Rise of the Batmen story arc and has Batman and Batwoman teaming up to train Spoiler, Red Robin, Cassandra Cain, and Clayface (yes, that Clayface) to fight against a very powerful mystery enemy.
Detective Comics, along with Superman’s Action Comics, is not restarting at issue one like the rest of the DC library, instead continuing with their legacy numbers which are both inching towards 1,000. James T. Tynion IV takes over writing duties for this comic relaunch and does a fine job at introducing previously established characters in a way brings new readers up to speed without boring long time readers. The dialog and story development were both engaging and I would have happily read another few pages.
The art work, handled by Eber Ferreira and Eddie Barrows, is spectacular and hearkens back to the comics of my youth (the early 90’s) when Batman’s cape and ears were used to symbolize anger and rage and were not bound to the laws of the natural world. The colors are vibrant and moody and the imagery is clear with the right amount of detail.
Although this isn’t a traditional reboot of a comic, it’s also not a continuation either. Readers are able to jump in with Detective Comics #934 without having read the previous 933 issues but those of us who have read our fair share of the preceding issues will be rewarded with a few nods to the past and the hope that we’ll stick with this iteration of Detective Comics longer than we stuck with the New 52 version.
I recommend this issue for Batman fans regardless of their history with reading comic books and at a $2.99 price point it should be pretty easy to keep up with this twice monthly series.