It’s an intense issue, as Batman confronts his inner demons, as well as the sheer hopelessness that accompanies being trapped within the labyrinth, before finally figuring a way out.
One of the best issues in this volume is issue #5, as Batman finds himself trapped and lost within the Court of Owls’ labyrinth, unable to find his way out, and dealing with sleep deprivation, exhaustion, hunger, and poisoned water. It’s this journey that Snyder takes the reader and Batman on, as we see Batman come to understand that he’s been wrong all along, that there’s more to Gotham than even he realized, and it exacts a terrible price upon him.
His focus in these first seven issues is to show that Batman, for all his strengths, has formed some false confidence as he thinks he knows all there is to know about his city, but his city has in fact some truly dark and horrible secrets that Batman isn’t yet privy to. The recent Batman films didn’t always make the best use of Batman’s strengths as a master detective, but here we see Scott Snyder finding a way to both play up Batman’s strengths, as well as deconstruct them. Often that is a character trait that is under-utilized or forgotten in the comics, and belies the additional strengths that lie in the character.
#BATMAN THE BLACK MIRROR REVIEW HOW TO#
In some ways, Snyder would have been well-suited to write Batman in Detective Comics, because he clearly understands how to actually write Batman as a detective. Right from the very beginning, Snyder shows that he understands how to write Bruce Wayne as Batman, how to get inside his mind and portray him both in a realistic manner, but also as a force of nature, as a superhero and so much more. This long-awaited softcover collection collects Batman #1-7, the first half of Snyder’s epic year-long storyline, as Batman discovers the Court of Owls, and finds himself betrayed by a city he thought he knew like the back of his hand.
Snyder didn’t disappoint, as his first year on Batman told an epic story involving new Batman villains The Court of Owls. Snyder was coming off of the well-received Batman: Black Mirror and Batman: Gates of Gotham storylines, and looked to shake things up with his appointment as regular writer of the re-launched Batman title. Combined together, Jock and Francavilla are exactly the type of artists for this kind of story and complement Snyder's script perfectly.When DC relaunched its entire comic book line in September 2011, one of the clear standouts at that point in time was Batman, written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Greg Capullo. Many of the pages reminded me of Mazzucchelli's haunting work on Batman: Year One and of course that is a very good thing indeed. Francavilla must hear this all the time but the subtlety in his work is very reminiscent of David Mazzucchelli, one of the greatest Batman artists ever. Francavilla's art is distinctively different to Jock's but equally effective in it's execution. The Black Mirror soon turned me into a big fan of Jock's work and he captured Batman and Gotham City perfectly. His work isn't the traditional realistic look I'm accustomed to but I put any misgivings I had to the back of my head and immersed myself in the work, which quickly won me over. I wasn't familiar with either artist's work before this and on that day I picked up the last issue in my local shop, I was put off a bit by Jock's unconventional style.
Jock handles the majority of the Batman orientated storyline and Francavilla covers the Jim Gordon areas. The pages have been shared between British-born artist Jock and the Italian Francesco Francavilla, both of whom help to bring Snyder's epic words to life. And this is where the artists have done such a great job. There were moments when I was genuinely shocked, where I had to stop and say out loud "God, that's pretty wrong right there." My girlfriend was not impressed when I showed her one particular page (I won't spoil which one, but it's downright nasty). I mentioned earlier about The Black Mirror being part crime, part horror I wasn't kidding about the horror part.
0 kommentar(er)
