Say what you will about Tom King, but he does know how to have a good time on a comics page.
Even when the reader is not necessarily having a great time.
One of King’s signature stylistic choices is the interplay of dialogue and text boxes. He can match their rhythms and themes in order to have one play off the other, or have them delicately clash in order to highlight a disconnect between a character’s thoughts and actions.
So far in this Penguin series, King has relied on this interplay fairly heavily, mostly to success. It’s been able to accentuate the true-crime, almost journalistic tone that King has been going for in this gritty street-crime story. But I believe that issue #9 is when he pushes things a little too far.
Between his dialogue and his narration text boxes, each individual element in this issue is, well, without issue. But when played off each other and the reader is forced to almost whip her head back and forth and be constantly adjusting for both story and syntax, the result can be jumbled. I found myself multiple times in this issue having to reread a page, with the second attempt focusing on just reading the dialogue in order and then going back and only reading the text boxes so as to keep things straight in my head. This leads to a halting, unharmonious reading experience.
The story itself here is spinning its wheels a bit. We see Penguin’s cronies planting bombs throughout Gotham as the Penguin waits behind closed doors for his criminal empire to be brought dutifully back to him. Batman is growing impatient (was he a terribly patient guy to begin with?) with Penguin’s reluctance to provide the information he’s agreed to spill, motivating Batman to hit the gas a little harder and move against him with some good old-fashioned crime lab detective work.
Speaking of hitting the gas, Rafael De La Torre, continuing his capable artistic contributions, draws my favorite Batmobile we’ve had from any title in a while. It’s a low to the ground, not-too-tricked-out muscle car, one that seems perfect for getting Bats broodingly from point A to point B in the high speed straightforward manner that his detective work would call for in this issue. It rules. Let’s keep this car around.
We close things out on this issue with the Penguin arranging a meeting with his imprisoned (ex-?)fiancée Rita, this meeting having been set up by two hilarious King-created characters, the Help and Agent @#$%&. The Penguin, upon seeing Rita, falls to his knees and is rendered powerless to speak.
This is a bland issue overall. There are a couple of front-loaded explosions to keep the thing from totally flatlining, but focusing in on the Penguin’s personal drama and private moments in their stead is starting to give some credence to the idea that Tom King strength does not lie in issue-to-issue story engagement in the mind of this reviewer.
Recommended if…
- The World’s Greatest Detective Batman is your preferred Batman
- You love when people walk away from explosions while monologuing
- You love seeing “unshakeable” characters brought to their knees.
Overall
This feels like a filler issue without much being filled in. There is a gripping moment or two when the spotlight shines on Batman, but the purported protagonist of this Penguin project is noticeably lacking charisma. I’m not out on this title, but hype is waning.
Score: 5.5/10
DISCLAIMER: DC Comics provided Batman News with a copy of this comic for the purpose of this review.
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