Batman #101: What’s Next?!?

With “The Joker War” behind us, Tynion and company are free to move forward into a whole new paradigm for the Bat Family. The Wayne fortune and company are in the hands of the Fox family and this issue sees Bruce taking the hint that maybe it really is time to find a new way to be Batman. The issue is largely just fallout and setup for what is to come, which was not unexpected but Tynion manages to sneak in a fun little metacommentary on the early days of Batman being far more procedural than it is now. The nod to older, single-issue self-contained storytelling was very well constructed and will have astute fans ready to burst into the debates of that type of narrative versus the current, more decompressed methods we see more often than not.

Fans excited to see Cole Cash, AKA Grifter (from the Wildstorm Universe) will be teased but are likely to walk away simply wanting more. There’s the customary fight between the two characters resulting in a return of Cash’s charming swagger and a reference to HALO (are the WildC.A.T.s. in play for the book in the future? Is Jacob Marlowe moving to Gotham!?! I need MORE!).

Althought March is just not a style artistically that I enjoy, I understand that I’m very clearly the outlier here and this team continues to work together with great synergy. Clayton Cowles is incredible in how much volume of work he puts in and still manages to make the letters distinct in every book. Tomeu Morey is among the coloring elite in today’s industry. There is no expense being spared on this book and it shows.