Detevtive Comics #9
To start things off, i only got this issue because of the night of the owls. I read Batman, and i saw that this was part of the crossover and i gave it a quick read and decided to get it. Ive never bought an issue from this series so i came in with knowledge of what was going on but no idea how they would execute this. Even if it were bad, i wouldnt mind getting it because this will have some continuity with batman. now on to the review
Good: i didnt expect we would be in the point of view of the Talons latest target: Jeremiah Arkham. I find that he was written in an interesting way, he tries to connects with his patients. Especially Roman Sionis, better known as Black Mask. We see a couple Talons break in and Arkham holds his own. I like how this place has made him somewhat insane and in return he sees this place as his home. He doesnt give two craps about the guards, or even when Batman comes in to save his butt. The art in this issue was pretty good, especially the pencilers. the prisoners of Arkham including some of Batman's new and old rogues fight off the Talons, as Batman saves Arkham just in time. of course he isnt greatful and planned to screw over pretty much everybody else to survive but in Batman style, Bruce just knocks him out and takes him.
I will cut it short from there but this is where i have problems.
Bad; One of the reasons why i only buy Batman is because it is too difficult to have so many titles solely on Batman. We have Batman, Detective Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight, Batman and Robin, and hell Batman Odyssey. all but 1 of these titles are apart of the night of the owls. Also issue 9 is where the crossover happens, so we wont have any development there whatsoever. I do know that Dark knight will focus on Tim since he is also apart of the teen titans crossover, which is a very smart idea. Unfortunately this issue had too many flaws to give it a better score. I credited the pencilers issue but the people in charge of the colors, guys its like a damn rainbow. Batman is suppose to be dark but its like a saturday morning cartoon. The story is ok, but it is somewhat pointless. I saw this issue as a way to involve every bat-book so i know it isnt gonna be top notch so ill give it leeway. But here is my biggest complaint. They gave away crucial info and when the reader doesnt know what the hell is going on, the freaking writer put an authors note saying read Birds of Prey #9 and Batman#9. do they know those issues have yet to be released. I know he is going to help the BOP but we dont know what happened in the mansion. We know Batman defeated the Talons without even reading the issue which is incredibly frustrating. The line at the end is what threw me over the edge. At first i thought about it but im pretty sure i know who has a big role in the Court of Owls thanks to the crappy last page. Also im not even going to rate the Two-Face story at the end. Idk what the hell is going on and the story was so dull it made me not care.
In Conclusion: this isnt a necessary story but batman cant just rush into the court of owls headquarters. He needs progress and we see it. it is unfortunate we have huge spoilers on issues that arent even released yet, but since this is a huge crossover and im new to this series ill be generous enough to give it a 3/5.
EDIT (after careful thought, and regret, i couldnt stand the score i gave this issue. a 2.5 seems to fit this better)
2.5 out of 5
Recommendation: As for sequence of the court of owls crossover, i would wait on getting this. this is past Batman issue 9 and i find that annoying. If you want to get it to just see what the crossever is like and dont know anything about it, please dont get this. I would recommend Batman #8.
