Dark, Brooding, and Brilliant
Hurwitz and Kudranski weave their penultimate issue with skill
The Good: Hurwitz has been slowly building a plot to this whole thing. For the past few issues, the action has been separated with much less being constructed and developed into a cohesive story. Rather, it has been loosely connected scenes. There were glimpses into his business operations in the first, his childhood in the second, and his relationships in the third, but there were only vague connections between the three. The Penguin's demolishing of lives being the only consistent thread. However, in the 4th issue, Hurwitz really takes the step forward into connecting everything as one and it is powerful. Oswald is finally facing the Batman and the law. They build evidence against him and take action. However, the Penguin walks away scotch free and lashes back in a fit of rage at his "bullies". We can finally see the point of it all and the end coming. This is where all credit to Hurwitz goes: the slow buildup has allowed for the real advancement of the plot in this issue to seem rational. All of the character development from earlier on has bloomed into a great tale by contextualizing everything. Hurwitz recognizes that the Penguin is not insane; unlike other great Batman villains, one actually needs to explain why the Penguin does something as he's ultimately a rational human being. Hurwitz has taken this basic premise and worked it flawlessly. The entirety of this is encapsulated in one page. Oswald is placed inside a police interrogation room. He's a bird stuck in a cage, an oddity to be looked at from the outside (in this case by Gordon and Co with Batman somewhere along). Knowing he's got an audience, he rationalizes his every action culminating in "Am I any better? Of course not. But I'm not any worse." Its actually quite a long speech, but its captivating throughout. He's doing wrong, and he knows it. The Penguin's got this very harsh, one against the world mindset. Yet, at the end, it all makes sense. Everything about this story feels so well crafted, and that is why it is brilliant.
The Still Good: To simply praise the plot would be to ignore half of what makes this great. Kudranski is a perfect fit for Gotham and its honestly a shame that his backup feature in Streets of Gotham was cancelled. As always, one expects two things with him, a certain amount of photorealism and extreme darkness. While I've always preferred quirky art to the highly detailed styles of Kudranski, this is still a perfect fit for Gotham. It brings that certain something (especially to this issue and miniseries) of character to the comic that guys like Daniels and Finch have been sorely missing in the mainstay titles. I'd say its the literal darkness of the comics but that misses out on something. Referring back to that single page, at the top (before the great length of the monologue) we see the officers smiling to themselves. At the end, they're not. Kudranski takes (what one assumes to be at the direction of Hurwitz) a small detail and conveys so much. Its great skill and a credit to the work.
Last bit of The Good: The Joker (or somebody dressed like him) keeps on showing up in incredibly strange situations and every time I crack up laughing. Its the small things that make this good.
The Bad: Its the penultimate issue and yet this creative pair is still being passed over for an ongoing by the likes of David Finch and Paul Jenkins
Overall, this is one of the finest comics on shelves in both art and writing. If you don't buy the individual issues, get the big one when they release it in hardcover form (which DC should if it has any sense). 5/5.
Feel I missed something, care to differ, or thinking along the same lines? Leave a comment and review this review!
