Comic Review: Batman #111 (DC Comics)

Batman takes a back seat to the proceedings in his own book, in Batman #111, from DC Comics.

Batman rolls up and looks menacing in twenty-four panels of the new issue of Batman, while the Scarecrow, The Magistrate, Mayor Nakano, The Unsanity Collective, Squeak, Molly, and a multitude of others crowd the room. It’s chaotic, it’s dramatic, it’s scary.

James Tynion IV conducts the verbal symphony, and artist Jorge Jimenez illustrates this bombastic episode. The visuals are incredible. Dynamic, explosive, dramatic. The scenes are claustrophobic, the showdowns are magnetic. Staggeringly good colour by Tomeu Morey, letters by Clayton Cowles.

Of the four available covers and variants, Batman appears on two.

The eight-page Ghost-Maker backup feature is written by Tynion IV, illustrated by Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, coloured by Romulo Fajardo Jr, and lettered by Clayton Cowles. This one was not to my taste. Much of this Chapter Five took place in flashback, with the characters narrating the long and winding road of the past, and how it led to the present. I prefer a tighter, “tell us when we need to know” approach, so it didn’t work for me. This arc is to be continued in Batman Annual #1, released in late November 2021. So for best enjoyment and cohesion, perhaps you should bundle all the Ghost-Maker story segments together and read them in one sitting.

DC Comics, Batman #111. $4.99 for 30 pages of content.