“When it hurts so much… When you’re alone , Helping Gotham… It makes it hurt less.”
The I Am Gotham arc closes with a very quiet, heart to heart epilogue. The comic starts off with Gotham Girl as she is still dealing with the death of her brother Gotham. She shaves her head , makes a terrible joke that in a sense is low key witty and goes off stopping crime without really thinking about who she is really stopping. It’s one of those things where one is in a stage of denial, talking to thin air as a substitute for their lost loved one because there is no better way to deal with the loss and pain. So you just tune your self out and let the words flow hoping that by some miracle , things could go back what it once was. Maybe by doing that, it keeps one from going off the deep end. That’s what I got from this issue. It’s a somber issue that deals with empathy and loss which is one that Batman knows very well.
Duke shows concern for Gotham Girl, which brings batman to approach Gotham Girl after dealing with Z-list villains such as Colonel Blimp, Captain Stingaree, and Kite Man, they have a heart to heart conversation. Batman asks Gotham Girl about her motives for helping Gotham city and everything else associated with that. Why does she do what she does? Especially after everything that had happened to her brother, she could have turned into a super villain, but thankfully that doesn’t happen in this issue. In this issue Tom King takes a reasonable approach, there is no big boss behind the scenes , there is no Joker popping things off, there is no crazy battle. It’s a small sentimental issue that focuses on the current state of Batman and Gotham Girl. There are moments prior to Batman interacting with Gotham Girl where Batman asks Alfred advice on how did he approach helping Bruce when he lost his parents. It’s a thoughtful issue. While it’s not as crazy as Scott Snyder’s run in Batman, which is a tough act to follow, Tom King managed to keep the voices of the characters intact, while continuing to forge his own thing.
The art by Ivan Reis is good. Surprisingly, it’s not as eye-popping as one would expect when it comes to Reis. But that’s what happens when you follow his work from his time on Green Lantern with Geoff Johns and books such as Blackest Night and Throne of Atlantis. It’s very subdued which matches the somber tone of the story. The colors by Marcelo Maiolo really help cement the liveliness and scale of Gotham city which go hand and hand with Joe Prado, Oclair Albert, and Scott Hanna (Ultimate Spider-Man). Personally I hope to see more of Marcelo Maiolo’s colors continue to be utilized in this current run of batman. Not that I want to always bring up Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman run, but it’s very rare these days to see a Writer, artist, inker, colorist team on a ongoing series. So hopefully we get a constant team. But if not, it’s okay, as long as the writing is strong and the assigned team of rotating artists, inkers and colorist a manage to do their job complimenting Tom King’s plots, it should be fine. Despite the fact that I like this story, unfortunately there an upcoming issue that ties into the Upcoming Batman crossover title event Night of the Monster Men, which I feel should be self-contained in a different title or a limited series. But who knows, maybe it’ll be good. After that arc, it will continue where the comics cliffhanger left off with Batman taking up a task from Amanda Waller. A nice one-shot issue, I hope to see that every now and then in this series.
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