Detective Comics #19 (#900) (DC)

writer: John Layman
artist: various

Well, we now know how far DC's commitment to the new numbering in the New 52, at least at this point, goes.  Detective Comics, which is the title that is the namesake of the entire company, has hit 900 issues, and aside from being reflected in the lead story of this special issue, remains numbered with the new numbering, without any overt reference in the issue of the milestone.

Sure, the New 52 is still less than two years old.  There's been a concerted commitment to keep the integrity of the relaunch intact.  Although long-time fans are still annoyed by the new concept, it's a more or less a proven fact at this point that fans in general are supporting it and having a hard time reconciling material that doesn't reflect it, notably James Robinson's The Shade, a mini-series launched a few months after the start of the relaunch, unrelated to it and in fact concerned with Starman, a milestone of what has become an entirely different era.  Fans pretty much ignored it.

It's true that Batman and Green Lantern mythology has remained linked to prior continuity, although with the coming end of Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated and Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, the last vestiges may finally be gone.

So clinging to new numbering even at the expense of something like Detective Comics #900 will likely be the thing for the foreseeable future (we'll see if this is still true if the numbering is still around when Action Comics will have hit #1000; we'll know in 2019 or so).

Now, what about the issue itself?  This is the first issue of Detective Comics I've read since the first of the relaunch, when it was still under the auspices of Tony Daniel (I'd enjoyed his Batman run, so hoped he'd remain prominent to some extent, a dream that probably ended after he was allowed to introduce the Joker's new relationship with his face but nothing else about that arc).  It was surprisingly good.  I only say "surprisingly" because sometimes it's a big question as to whether or not the third most prominent creator working on a character (after Morrison and Scott Snyder, and arguably fourth after Peter Tomasi) is worth reading.  The creator in question is John Layman, best known for his delightful Image series Chew.

The lead story is all about a different kind of 900, a reference to a Gotham neighborhood.  But it's really about Kirk Langstrom, the introduction of Man-Bat into the New 52.  "Man-Bat" is one of the goofiest names in comics (perhaps second only to "Catman," but that one was redeemed in Secret Six), clearly an inversion of Batman.  The character himself is also a pretty literal interpretation of "Batman" itself (hence the name), as Langstrom becomes a man-shaped bat (like a were-bat, basically).  His has long been described as a tragic story, and Layman does a good job of relaying that for a new generation.  It's good stuff, even as Layman navigates around current continuity issues.  It also introduces a new villain, the Emperor Penguin (mostly unrelated to Oswald Cobblepot), who could very well make future issues worth checking out as well.  (The character is similar to the Penguin Geoff Johns featured in Batman: Earth One.)

The next story does the Man-Bat origin from the perspective of Man-Bat (the lead is from Batman's, naturally).  Then there's a Bane story from James Tynion IV (who apprenticed under Snyder and currently writes Talon, where this story continues).  I'm not a fan of the brute version of Bane, so I wasn't so much interested in this one.  Layman is back in the next one, which features a bunch of interesting villains and continues the Man-Bat/Emperor Penguin intrigue (and incidentally does feature Cobblepot).  Finally the original Man-Bat incident from the lead is explored again by Layman from the perspective of ordinary beat cops.  I know everyone who remembers Gotham Central loved that comic, but I think I'd love to read a John Layman revival, should readers not be as intrigued by his Batman in Detective Comics as I am.

And that's that.  There are also pin-ups.  I'm glad I decided to have a look at this one.