Batman encounters re-animated museum corpses in New Orleans.
The Good
This issue revolves around a slightly-fictionalized take-off of the traveling Body Worlds exhibit. Anybody who's been to one of the galleries will know how simultaneously ghoulish and beautiful it can be, so VanHook's concept of those plastinated corpses coming to life is a brilliant one. I'm normally bored by vampires, but Dimiter's inclusion here actually works well. I was genuinely surprised to see that he was an ally of Batman and I'm intrigued to see how his vampiric bloodlust will play against all these walking pieces of meat.The real star of this issue, in my eyes, is Tom Mandrake. He inks his own work and there's an impressive versatility to his lines. While he can do tight lines like the best of them, he really shines when he makes the linework get wavy (like when it melts into the rain), creating a truly gothic, sinister vibe. Indeed, his art here, coupled with David Baron's colors, reminded me Steve Bissette and Tanja Wood's seminal work on SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING. Though, the fact that this is set in New Orleans might have a lot to do with that.
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