Reading – Batman: The Black Mirror (Detective Comics 871-873)

Writer Scott Snyder and artist Jock are generating some serious buzz in the comic world right now with their work on Detective Comics, and that work was brought to my attention a few days ago on Twitter when I complained about so many comics these days being parts of a larger work and not self-contained stories. Well, after reading the first three issues of Snyder and Jock’s work on Detective Comics I can say that I’ll happily buy the Batman: The Black Mirror collection* later this year when it’s released . . . but I don’t feel the need to buy any more single issues of Detective Comics.

The Good

On Friday I bought the first two issues of the series, Detective Comics #871 and #872, and after reading those and realizing that there was one more part to the storyline I returned to Tribe Comics and Games to buy the final part in the story. Obviously, I enjoyed what I read, but let’s take a look at just what I liked about Batman: The Black Mirror.

• Art – Absolutely stunning. This review at Comic Vine by The Mighty Monarch opens with:

  Jock’s art baffles me. It looks really rough and could be considered terrible, but every time I read a comic with his art I LOVE it. A lot of little things look quick and lazy, and yet there’s no way that can be the case. The layouts are fantastic, and the action scenes are crazy.

  Now I don’t see how anyone could ever consider this art “terrible,” but in a world of slick, over-produced comic pages and over-rendered coloring and shading I can see where Jock’s stark black and white linework and near-sketchy people could throw some off. But I personally love it. There are occasional panels where I think things could have been a bit tighter, but the overall quality of the art ranges from freaking excellent to insanely awesome. The art is definitely a strong part of why I enjoyed Batman: The Black Mirror.

• Detecting in Detective – Since this story was published back in November through January I’m certainly not the first to notice this, but it’s cool to come back to a Detective Comics issue after so many years and find Batman engaged in some detective work. Reviewer JonesDeini highlights this part of the story in the summary to his review at Comic Vine:

  Batman returns to his detective roots when Dick investigates a crime which leads him into a web of intrigue and deadly secrets

  The feel of the story took me back to the eighties/nineties work of Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle when they were deep in Detective Comics. Of course there’s a payoff to the detective work, but rather than dive immediately into a fight we see Batman working toward solving the puzzle. Going from point to point as he tracks leads was an enjoyable part of the story, and if this is what I’ve been missing over the last few years then it’s time I try some other recent Batman stories.

• A Connection to the Past – I’m not sure if the DC relaunch (mentioned here) is going to be real or a gimmick, but one serious complaint I have with comics these days is there’s just too much damned baggage. How can new readers understand what’s going on when decades of stories get woven in and out of current tales? That said, though, I like the way Snyder writes in the crowbar . . . a crowbar rumored to once belong to the Joker and a crowbar that every Batman fan will instantly recognize.

  This is a nice example of a way to build on the past without requiring deep knowledge of everything that has happened before. Those of us who get the reference can smile and move on, while anyone new to Batman can still enjoy the story and not feel lost or confused. It would be nice if more authors played with past stories in this way.

The Bad

But it is not the greatest comic ever and I feel the buzz, at times, has been a bit too overzealous in praising Snyder’s work on Detective Comics. I’m not sure if later issues improve, but there are a couple of issues with Batman: The Black Mirror that keep this from being truly A+ comic material.

• Missing Scenes – More than once in Batman: The Black Mirror the action jumps, almost as if a page or two of the story is missing. The first time this happened in the story, in issue #871, I spent a moment flipping back and forth trying to figure out if some pages of the comic had stuck together or if I had a misprint. At the end of one page Batman spots someone in a mirror and then you flip the page and (after the ad) that same person is hanging by his feet. WHAM! Somehow Batman spins around, disarms the suspect, and yanks the suspect up so that he’s swinging from the ceiling.

  Uh, I think we should have probably be shown that action sequence. Seriously, I thought at least one page was completely missing from the comic.

And that’s not the only case of “missing time” that plagues Batman: The Black Mirror. In the second issue our hero, undercover, infiltrates a secret auction. That issues closes with the auctioneer (who I won’t discuss to save the fun for you guys) pointing out that Batman is in the audience and driving the other attendees — all slightly insane — to turn on the hero.

And that’s where I was left until I returned to the comic store for part three. “How’s Batman gonna get out of this mess,” I thought to myself as I started reading the third part of the story.

Well, I’m still not totally sure how the hell he escaped from the situation. There’s six pages of fighting and escape sequence, but the action goes from jumping to a dream (nightmare, really) sequence to laying in a bed with Barbara Gordon at his side. The dream sequence may hold the key to what happened, but a significant part of the action just isn’t there. It may be a stylistic choice in the storytelling, but just not showing key bits of the story strikes me as a bad decision. But maybe these skips in the action are all because of my other complaint with Batman: The Black Mirror.

• Feels Rushed – Technically, I likely could have lumped this under the previous bullet point but since this is my site I can do whatever I want to. And right now I want to point out that Batman: The Black Mirror should have been one more issue so that the rushed parts of the story could have been expanded. I don’t know if the author was forced to make this a three-part story or if it was his choice, but either way we really needed one more issue to even out the pacing.

Closing Thoughts

I may have spent quite a bit of time complaining about “missing time,” but I seriously did enjoy reading Batman: The Black Mirror and am really looking forward to the Batman: The Black Mirror collection*. Considering this is Snyder and Jock’s first work in Detective Comics I have to think that they only get better — especially since so many people jumped up to tell me this is a good series to follow right now — so hopefully the pacing issue vanishes in their next story.

But as much as I would enjoy reading Detective Comics each month it’s just not worth the price when I can simply wait for collections. These three comics totaled $11 ($4/each for the first two parts and $3 for the last part) which is insane when compared to the cost of collections. (Not to mention how much easier it is to read and shelve trades over single issues.) No, for now I’ll be happy sticking with trades and the occasional single issue.

I’m not likely to jump on a series like Detective Comics for the single issues; there’s just too much history and no real benefit to buying single issues. I may not be all that patient most of the time, but when it comes to comics I’m usually patient enough to wait for the collection.

And that’s a problem with the comic industry that we’ll have to discuss on another day.