Detective Comics #30 - Icarus, Part One

Being a HUGE Flash fan, I too was upset to see Buccelatto and Manapul leave after their tremendous run on the series. But I thought they handled The Dark Knight wonderfully, and it was great picking up where The Flash #25 left off. Overall, this was an excellent issue, and was compelling enough for me to start following Detective Comics. I also liked this particular review of the book and agreed with most of its points, including the sometimes odd pacing of the story; but as for its note about Bruce Wayne not getting into costume before answering the door, I think this was justified. As many commenters already pointed out, the break in occurred in Wayne Manor itself, and not the Batcave. After seeing who the intruder was, I'd say it's a good thing Bruce didn't suite up before checking on the break in. And after reading The Flash #25, I think I have a pretty good idea of what's going on with the victim at the end of the comic.

Loved it! Enough said.

I dugg this a lot more than I thought it would. My only problem is that it felt a bit disjointed but I enjoyed the character moments and the story as a whole. There are no words for the art. Batman felt more human in this story but not in a douchey/incompetent John's way. I'd give it a four almost five.

Well, I really wanted to post a user review of this but after spending quite a bit of time on it the site won't let me post (when I click "create user review" it just resets ever thing and tells me I haven't done anything).

So I'm going to post my 3/4 star review here:

Like many I am excited to see what the creative team of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato would do with my favorite character, Batman. I enjoyed what did with the flash (especially the tile pages) and I'm hoping they bring back Detective Comics to it's, well detective roots and so far it looks like it may go in that direction. However there are couple of things in this issue that left me a little disappointed.

THE GOOD

The art in this book is terrific, Manapul's art and Buccellato's colors are exactly what we've come to expect from these two. They use a color palette that is so different then what you'll see in other Batman titles but somehow it still feels like the dark alleys and streets of Gotham City. Even when they switch gears to the Motocross competition they are able to make the artwork pop while still keeping it very Batman-like.

The plotting of this issue is well done. The seeds are planted for a nice detective story. Just enough of the plot is revealed to tingle the brain and wonder what's going on without revealing to much. It have has a great last page reveal (albeit it felt a little soon).

THE BAD

This book starts off like so many other Batman stories that I've read/watched. A bunch of thugs up to no good that get taken down by the Batman. I understand this is helping set up the plot of the arc but it's been done… a lot. Also in this issue we see to two continuities collide. In an early scene Bruce Wayne is hashing out a deal with someone, he ask her why she came to Gotham in the first place, she replies by saying that six years ago she saw a young man on T.V. touting how Gotham could be a good place. She is referring to a scene in Zero Year where a young Bruce Wayne gave a rousing speech on the news. Later there is some talk and mourning for Damian Wayne. This is where the problem arises for me, I understand that the continuity problems are not the creative team's fault but they do have to handle it in their books. Bruce has only been Batman for 6 years, but somehow 10 or so years ago he had a son while Batman with a Women he hasn't met yet. I feel like when dealing with this break in the continuity you should really only go with on or the other, trying to mash both in the same issue just really pulls me out of book. It's like a larger pothole in a movie, you try to push past it but it just takes you out of the whole experience. I'm not a continuity Nazi and I get that we just have to deal with but all the team had to do was just come up with another reason for her to come to Gotham city and this would have been a 4 star book for me.

THE VERDICT

This new direction and team show a lot of promise and I can't wait for the next issue, Brain and Francis are just the two to make Detective Comics feel like Detective Comics again. Even though this issue has trouble getting out of the gate, it stumbles into a cliché and almost trips over weird continuity but it's able to get it's balance and finish the race.

Can anyone tell me how long this "Icarus" story arc is or if they have heard from somewhere how long this story arc is suppose to be? I'm contemplating getting this since I have no Batman titles in my pull-list (yeah sue me) and this looks quite good, especially the art but I really don't want a lengthy story arc, like Zero Year, I just want a short and new story.

I'm going to repurchase every single detective comics hardcover from number one, just so i can FEEL like i know what's going on....

Why so different?

Enh, this was just okay for me, I give it a 6/10, don't hate!

This is an excellent start for the new creative team. I'm certainly looking forward to the next issue and will be adding this to my pull list.

@ptigrusmagus Thats just what I heard is all, I wouldn't know, not really a flash fan so I never read any of it.

@Samuel_Simmons: this team made Flash one of the best N52 titles, not sure anything they did story or art was less than great, nevermind terrible

@detectivecommenter It's a G-man review so you can't expect much.

Honestly I'm extremely doubtful about this issue, not a fan of this creative team heard they did a terrible job on flash and newsarama gave this a 4 of 10 with a much more thorough review explaining why it wasn't that great. The art is just stunning though which makes this even more tragic. Since this book debuted though it just hasn't caught my interest and I'll prolly never pick it up.

I really like it. I decided to give Batman a try again because of Manapul and Buccelatto. I just got bored with the rest of the Batman titles and they were great in flash so I gave this a shot. My main complaint is that if I'm going to pay $4, I want my backup story. I know Marvel is greedy but DC would give you 40 pages for $4 but they switched to this new stupid paper for the cover and charge an extra buck for it! I want my 40 pages! Okay, I liked Detective Comics though, I'll be adding it to my pull list

@detectivecommenter, it's a G-man review so you really can't expect much.

I'm not sure about this issue, while everyone here is saying good things newsarama gave it a 4 of 10, plus I don't hear good things about Flash while it had this team so really just not sure. Amazing cover though.

The paneling was nothing special with only one really impressive spread. I do hope they stay on this title for awhile tho

Hope I could still get a copy of this... I left it out of my list T_T Curses!

I'm sorry and I really don't want to be 'that guy' but the poor quality of this review irked me so much that I just had to create an account and post a comment.

"There are a lot of Batman comics these days. The great thing about this issue is we get a sense that this could be a different type of Batman comic. That isn't to say the others are not everything I could ask for. We're all riding high on the fun and excitement in Snyder and Capullo's BATMAN, but thankfully, Manapul, Buccellato, and DC didn't try to simply give us more of the same. I like variety in my comics, even if they contain the same character."

"a different look at Gotham City"

"contributes to the different feel."

"a different sort of Batman comic."

Literally all you say in this review is that this is a different sort of Batman comic over and over but you never actually say what the comic itself actually is. Is it light and fun? Is it dark and gritty? Is a bombastic adventure? Just saying that is different isn't very helpful especially with a Batman book when the tone can range from Snyders Batman to Batman 66. You don't even really say what it is about other than that it follows up on a thread from The Flash which in of itself isn't even helpful as not everyone reads The Flash. I honestly learned more about what the book is about from reading the reviews handful of comments which is a bit sad.

Please don't just treat this as just hate as I do like this site but this review is terrible and fails to inform me on any aspect of the book other than that you think the art is nice.

@timelord: BECUASE HE'S BATMAN

loved it cant wait to see more mostly becuase the art and they used the Gotham gangsters which dont get nearly enough panel time plus the ending surpirised me i figured that wouldnt happen until later in the arc.

the only thing that consurns me is the Icarus drug it didnt make sense in the Falsh tie in and so hopefully they can flush that out and make it interesting other than that it was a great issue that was like a breath of fresh air and iam hopful that batman etrenal that comes out next week blows me away just as much

This was amazing such a great Batman book. Why must Batman hog all the great teams?

I stopped reading Detective several months ago but seeing the cover today at my LCS piqued my interest so I picked it up. So glad I did. I am not familiar with Manapul & Buccellato's previous work with Flash, so reading this was a welcome surprise both visually and from a story-telling standpoint. Looks like I'm back to reading Detective Comics again for the foreseeable future.

So lets see a Flash crossover with Detective Comics after this arc

The cover is just wow. I haven't been reading this title in a while since the first issue, The main Batman title was far more interesting to me, no offense to the previous teams but Detective Comics wasn't that high on my to pick up list. Since the team that worked on Flash is on this title, & I really liked their run on Flash, I will be picking this up.

This book is absolutely gorgeous

I disagree with the criticism here. If Batman would have responded to someone appearing on Batman's property, wouldn't that have been questioned?

I was hoping some kind of Brave and the Bold series when they announced they were leaving The Flash, but for me this is even better than that, so this book was added to my pull list since then and I can't wait to read it! And what's better is that Buccelatto and Manapul are going in a way I was eager to see this character: Doing Detective stuff!

Man! As I said, can't wait to read it!!

The art in this issue was truly amazing and I'm really excited to see where the new creative team takes this. This book definitely stands apart from the other bat titles, in a good way. And I think it would've been better to change his pants, someone might think its odd to see batman inside Wayne manor haha

I have only been reading the main Bat title, but I think im going to push it to two bat titles for this book. .... O my god ... Becky .. look at that cover !