The Good
The easiest shorthand comparison to GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT for someone wondering whether or not they should get into it is, clearly, GOTHAM CENTRAL. Both take place in Gotham City, both feature the GCPD as main characters and neither feature Batman, or any of the Bat-family, in terribly prominent roles. But there’s another book, a little six-issue series called FELL that also fits the bill quite well, and not just because the visuals of both books are by Ben Templesmith, but because the tone of the book is similar with there being something just WRONG with the city they take place in. Ray Fawkes brings a sense of Lovecraftian menace to the streets of Gotham, but also to the outskirts and places we rarely see in other titles. Last issue gave us a look at the darkness in what could be considered the “upstate” region, now we get some that strikes at the city’s heart. Fawkes gives us a taste of the supernatural and a taste of the mundane, but he uses both to equal effect in generating horror. We also get to see some of Detectives Drake and Corrigan’s backstory and how they came to work together. The threads of these various plots are twisting and winding around one another already, and the mystery is only deepening as the Midnight Shift learns more and more.
Ben Templesmith, as previously indicated, provides the top-to-bottom visuals on this and it’s easy to see why: his style has a singular vision that it feels like it would be difficult to get someone else onboard with. Templesmith’s imagery has always had a knack for using the negative space of panels and it’s a skill that’s only gotten better as the years have gone by. There used to be a problem where his art would look indistinct, and sometimes that would heighten the terror of what was happening, but sometimes it would merely make it indistinct and impossible to make out. The former happens a great deal this issue while the latter is almost never. The colors are emblematic of decay and rot, two things this issue features seemingly in abundance, and also gives a sense of impending doom and dread along with the sickening feeling that, if you blink, you might miss it.
The Bad
The solution to the monster problem of this issue is the most obvious one and it’s a little odd that it took this team of seasoned, supernatural veterans so long to try it out. It’s not a major thing, but it took me out of the moment as it is, quite literally, the most obvious thought.
The Verdict
What a strange and wonderful book this is for DC to take a chance on. It’s a horror book that uses dread and implication more than violence and gore, it’s got a grounded, street-level center and a modern feel that makes it feel relevant and in the moment. There’s a major threat at the center of it, but it’s a slow, calculating threat and only moments and fragments of it are seen, leaving up to the reader to fill in gaps with their imagination AND think of the implications of what this means not just for the characters, but for Gotham itself.
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