The Bat-God reigns over Gotham.
It may be just another chapter in an ongoing series, but “The Darkseid War” has always read like a story worthy of being DC’s huge, epic event comic for 2015. And now maybe the fact that The Darkseid War has tie-in issue officially qualifies it as an event. Justice League: The Darkseid War – Batman #1 is the first of six spinoff issues aimed at exploring how the various League members are dealing with their respective transformations. As you might expect, Gotham City is a different place now that the Caped Crusader is gifted with total omniscience. The good news is that this issue reads like a logical offshoot of the main series, to the point where DC could have easily labeled it “Justice League #47.”
Writer Pete Tomasi certainly knows his way around the Bat-verse by now, and he’s a natural fit to explore Bruce’s new status quo. This issue plays on a lot of familiar Batman tropes while subverting them at the same time. It’s fun to read the interaction between Batman and Commissioner Gordon. At the same, that encounter makes it clear that Batman isn’t necessarily better off for his new transformation. This issue really becomes an exploration of how absolute power corrupts absolutely as Batman punishes criminals before they can actually commit crimes and takes his wrath out on the person most responsible for creating Batman in the first place. As many times as the Batman comics have revisited and re-imagined the showdown between Batman and Joe Chill, Tomasi is able to put his own clever spin on the story.
The only place where this portrayal falls a little flat comes during Batman’s interaction with Alfred. The whole “I’m not an addict; I can quit whenever I want to!” approach is a little on-the-nose.
Interestingly, this issue really highlights the question of just when the Darkseid War conflict is taking place. There are enough references to past Batman adventures here to confirm that this story is still in-continuity. At the same time, the fact that Bruce is Batman, Gordon is Commissioner and Alfred still has two hands flies very much in the face of the rest of the Batman franchise. Either The Darkseid War is taking place before the events of Batman: Endgame and Superman: Truth, or we’re catching a glimpse of the DCU circa 2016. Hopefully it’s the latter.
This issue doesn’t quite live up to the standard of the main Darkseid War storyline in terms of visuals, but Fernando Pasarin is still adept at channeling Jason Fabok’s dark, cinematic, hyper-detailed art style. Pasarin really brings Gotham’s massive skyscrapers and seedy alleys to life in this story. The art impresses the most during the encounter between Batman and Joe Chill, giving the book a harsher and more claustrophobic vibe.
This Darkseid War tie-in sets a good standard for the rest of the mini-series to follow. It serves as a logical extension of the main storyline, filling in gaps and delving deeper into Batman’s new status quo. It does such a good job of replicating the tone and look of the main series that it could just as easily be a chapter of The Darkseid War proper. Don’t skip this issue just because it’s a tie-in.
