Batman: Streets of Gotham # 1 - Ignition! ; Strange Bedfellows

Just bought Batman streets of Gotham and just from the cover i knew it would be a good series. The cover is done in water colours and gives a really good effect. i think Paul Dini done a really good job on this. Reading through it shows us Dick Grayson and Damien coping with there new roles as Batman and Robin. However we do see Harley Quinn the character Paul Dini created getting up to mischief in a jewlery store which turns out to be just a miss understanding with the store manager. Of course for some reason which i dnt quite get is that commissioner gordon is travelling around in a car right at the beginning and the thing i dnt get is the commissioner of GCPD is always out chasing crime himself when really he should be looking after the whole of GCPD. Anyway when we read on we see Garfield Lynns AKA Firefly going around garzing peoples arms for a purpose which does not reveal its self till later. there is a really nice scene where we see firefly in his abondond club sitting in a chair looking lyk a first rate criminal rather than  a second rate one that always seems to suck. We see Damien talking to who i believe to be hush in bruce waynes form playing a game of chess. The reason for this will be explained when u read it. Overall i think that this will be a really good series to run along with the Batman and Robin seires and i think that if you are a true Batman fan that you will already have this comic but if you dont i think that it is a must buy.

Wolfman who? Starlin what? With well over a decade of penning some of the Dark Knight's greatest yarns, including everything from the animated series to the printed page, Paul Dini has become the Batman scribe of our generation and his talent in storytelling, and the artistic chemistry he shared with Dustin Nguyen during their Detective run, carries over to the new ongoing Streets of Gotham. Readers will hit the ground running with this first issue that attacks the new Batman from a completely different angle than what Bat-fans will be accustomed to from the other "Reborn" books. A mysterious new foe (or ally?), and some fantastic face-time for some of Batman's nearly-forgotten rogues, like Fire Fly, Dini takes his readers on yet another high-octane, yet mindfully intellectual romp through... the Streets of Gotham.

Ill just come out and say it first, yes surprisingly this is best Bat book so far of the ‘Batman: Reborn’ line. I can hear the Paul Dini fans laughing and yelling ‘I told you so’ and they would be right. Like most people I think I was most excited about Morrison’s Batman & Robin #1, which was good, and I’m looking forward to where that is going but Streets of Gotham for me has topped that for an issue no. 1 and setting up my excitement for the series.

Firstly this issue had a big cast, between Gordon, Harley Quinn, Firefly & Batman & Robin, each of these characters were touched on and written perfectly. The art and coloring is fantastically dark & gritty, which is what I want in a Bat book, and while being… I hate the word but cartoony, it still retains an edge.

The story picks up pieces from Battle for the Cowl, with the mention of Black Mask, the Arkham break out, city in ruins etc etc and takes lead from there. Firefly is the bad guy to watch in this issue. What he does is totally evil and shocking and is how a Bat villain should act. The way this book is written by Dini reminds me of Alan Grants great work on Shadow for the Bat and some of the early 90’s Detective Comics and Batman issues, i.e. street level grit, new villain of the week, while still dealing with Gotham cities residence personal struggles, and I love that.

It was totally unexpected that I liked this issue as much as I did as I didn’t really care for Dini’s recent work on Detective Comics. It was okay but I never liked the cast of characters he used and the types of stories that were told. This book in a way is a continuation of Detective but with a new cast that will hopefully be continuing the style of the old school story lines. If it does continue in this manner I’m on board.

With regards to the Manhunter back up, I can’t comment on it that much yet. It was only about 10 pages and pretty much just setting up the main character moving to Gotham. We will see where this goes but I’m not going to complain at some extra pages in my comic.