Gotham City: Year One (2022-) #1

Product Information

Twenty percent of the story is people beating each other to a bloody pulp, yet a naked butt in the shower is censored by a word balloon. Whilst much of the narrative and the art works, some parts do become a little bore and chore before it manages to pick itself back up. Richard was with Sam, and Queenie gave evidence that she was headed out of town with the cash during Helen's murder. Witness a pre-Batman Gotham, where everyone has secrets and the seediness that has been festering in the shadows of the city are brought to the surface, in pure Tom King-style.

I love when a book goes sorta old school and washes the whole page in a few similar colors, like good lighting in a film. Jordie Bellaire’s colors are something that I was initially not too keen on, but like King’s narration I think I like where it’s going. Slam makes a point of explaining how idyllic Gotham is to many people, but even then there are hints of something amiss that don’t become clear until later.For everyone else, it's a wait-and-see to find out if King injects more originality into the premise. I love the visual style of this series and how it captures the dark, shadowy world of these characters and the city itself. As the world falls apart around him, Slam must decide between justice and revenge–a choice that will echo down the generations and redefine both Gotham and Batman! You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

As Slam unravels the mystery of the missing baby, he's also unraveling the seedy underbelly of police corruption and racism in Gotham. While Gotham City of the early 1960s presents itself as an exemplar city with a low crime rate, Bradley's investigation quickly reveals the have-nots and the racial tensions that are suppressed and the police brutality that makes it so. It was always a story without Batman, and his inclusion is more there to remind us an entire city can crumble and fall because of a few poor choices and ill intentions. It was the kind of assignment that would send plenty of reviewers scrambling to give their two cents before they could even muster up a penny.

And here's where the story takes a lot of interesting twists and turns that go outside the usual Batman tale. Despite her calm demeanor, there is a righteous fury that exudes from her has she talks about the ways Richard treated her. I'm not sure if it was the colorist or just how suited he is for this kind of narrative, but his work here looks night and day compared to other stuff I've seen him do. As the black people of Gotham are violently attacked during the riots, Slam talks about what it was like for him growing up. Slam Bradley knows the truth, and he’s knocking at the door of Wayne manor looking for answers – or maybe it’s repercussions.

The Batcave was his hideout where he would collect trophies of his sexual conquests in a disgusting twist on Batman’s collection of mementos. Sam Bradly is an old man in a hospital room, presumably on his deathbed, who retells the part he played in an ugly time in Gotham's history to the Dark Knight. Superstar creators Tom King and Phil Hester team up for the first time to tell the definitive origin of Gotham City: how it became the cesspool of violence and corruption it is today, how it harbored and then unleashed the sin that led to the rise of the Dark Knight. Talking about how they killed his brother for being a black man who stepped out of line while he shows he’s no longer accepting the façade they’ve built is an act of triumph. All I know is I'm definitely excited to check out another comic by him and that you should definitely check out this one.Constance Wayne is perhaps the biggest example, being a cold, calculating femme fatale through and through. Race relations, money, politics and a city so corrupt that it probably belongs in one of the nine circles of Hell. If you’re reading this series for the juicy connections to Batman and Gotham, you’re in the right place.

Two generations before Batman, private investigator Slam Bradley gets tangled in the "kidnapping of the century" as the infant Wayne heir disappears in the night. I had zero knowledge of this until I started reading some of my friends' reviews after I'd finished the comic. Please note that Gabe's opinions are his own and don't always reflect the opinions of Weird Science as a whole. I was appreciative of the new idea, but still somewhat felt a bit like it retconned the whole Batman history.

This series doubles down on that corniness by having the kidnapper use a bat symbol on the ransom letters and being referred to as the Bat-Man. With the timeline of Richard Wayne’s death and Thomas’ birth, it seemed like Slam being Thomas’ father is if not implied then at least left intentionally vague. It’s a problem with modern comic publishing where everything is a 6+ issue arc that can’t be fairly judged until the story is over. Tom King is stricken with the white guilt disease and has decided to bring Gotham City and Batman down with him.