Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War – Battle Lines #1: Always the Mission

The constant train of events that modern Big 2 line-ups find themselves in is exhausting. It’s like the companies are afraid to just publish strong, cohesive stories that can stand alone. Which is ironic, as the Dawn of DC’s critical acclaim came in part thanks to that story first, continuity later approach that seemingly being taken. Now, DC ends their stopgap event, Knight Terrors, which put every mainline book on hold at the company with the immediate set-up for the crossover event, The Gotham War. 

Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War – Battle Lines #1 – written by Tini Howard and Chip Zdarsky with pencils from Mike Hawthorne and inks by Adriano Di Benedetto, colors by Romulo Fajardo Jr., and letters by TK – works as a denouement to Knight Terrors while setting up The Gotham War event, connecting the two events with the ongoing plot threads of the respective Batman and Catwoman titles. The issue highlights just how much fear and paranoia have seeped into Batman after repeated hard knocks. From a trip through the multiverse to being possessed throughout an event, and the return of Zur-En-Arrh, Batman’s had it rough in the last year. 

On the other side of Gotham, Catwoman’s not faring much better. She’s been on the lam since escaping prison, where she was serving a sentence for murdering a man. She’s also had to deal with Punchline, dismantling Black Mask’s illicit empire, and mentoring a litter of criminals. Selina also had to contend with helping her sister and working with the Batfamily during Batman’s said multiverse travels. 

These status quos are where Battle Lines picks up, with Batman dreaming of Zur-En-Arrh’s warnings before waking up. It’s been eight weeks since Knight Terrors ended, and Bruce has been asleep that whole time. The mini-coma occurred due to compounded strain from the first two arcs of Zdarsky’s run and then Deadman’s extended stay in the Dark Knight’s body. While he’s been asleep there’s been a shift in Gotham, and crime has plummeted thanks to Catwoman. She’s recruited her way through the career criminals, showing them the path of cat burglar over gooning for the likes of Joker or Mr. Freeze. 

Selina’s established rules for her students, and realizes that she’s going to have to deal with Batman now. The two agree to a meeting, flocked by the entire vigilante element in Gotham, where Selina charts a path forward. The criminals will only target the wealthy, and will not use violence or value the score over their life. Bruce is appalled at the notion, reaffirming his mission is to stop all crime, not just the violent ones. This paves the first cracks in the iconic couple’s firmament, and the Batfamily is left on either side. 

Zdarsky and Howard do excellent work in catching readers up on the emotional elements of their runs through this one-shot, weaving in continuity from DC’s previous event to fuel this reaction. Batman and Catwoman both feel off in the issue, but that feels like an intentional choice to showcase how off-balance the leads are. They seem unable to talk with one another, instead speaking through the other, and the writers infuse a sense of tragic tension into this. It’s a sharp twist of the knife, especially after Batman #136’s Batfamily dinner night scene. 

That scene contrasts with the one in Battle Lines as they’re the narrative inverses, showing a family once united is starting to split apart. The writing duo makes clear why the obvious sides are established (Batman’s growing fanatical view on crime vs. Selina’s overcompensation for a broken system) and the obvious choices certain characters make. Red Hood sides with Selina, impressed by her pivot away from the Bat school of thought, while Daimen is a staunch supporter of Bruce, happy he is leaning into the more extreme view of thinking. 

Once the scripting moves from the family, the human element that will be caught in the middle comes up again, in the form of a former goon enrolled in Selina’s program. He finds himself dead after a robbery gone wrong, and once Bruce is faced with the conclusion of Selina’s plan, something snaps in him. The moment is chilling, and the writing for it ensures that a bit of his righteous fury is imprinted onto the reader. It might not be the right feeling, but in that moment, it seems impossible to empathize with the vigilante, especially after his traumas from previous storylines. 

Much of that connection comes thanks to Hawthorne and Di Benedetto’s artwork, which revels in the emotional angles of the issue. In that moment mentioned above, the duo uses a series of panels without showing Batman directly. As he observes the body and his face distorts into a mask of pure rage, Batman’s expression is only seen in the reflection of the dead goon’s face, zooming further and further in until it’s only a background of the blood’s blackish-red hue. There’s a subtle shift as Batman switches to what seems like Zur-En-Arrh in the progression. It’s a genuine, haunting moment that shows just how in control the art is of the emotion, maximizing the final feeling through panel composition and layouts. 

Elsewhere in the issue, the art is a little less thrilling, as the duo’s style sometimes makes the quieter moments bleed into the background. A great artist takes the low energy, dialogue-driven scenes and infuses them with a passion but that’s not the case in this issue. When the entire Batfamily meets with Selina, the sequence is fun but feels a bit lacking overall. All the pieces are there, and the writing and coloring do a lot of the heavy lifting, but something in Hawthorne’s pencils and Di Benedetto’s inks just feels bland. There’s a harshness to their depiction of Catwoman that worked in the alternate universe of the previous Batman arc, but here makes her seem too different from the one in Howard’s run. 

The great unifier of this book, and what propels it into a great issue is the coloring on display from Fajardo Jr.. The book’s palette oscillates in tone, striking both the harsh reality of an urban environment like Gotham, while still striving for and achieving an almost mythic quality that propels Batman from pulp to superhero. The rich oranges and purples of Gotham’s setting sun, and the flashes of Zur-En-Arrh are enough to distinguish the book from its grittier elements, like the harsh grays of old city stone. 

In the blue-collar and working-class spaces, Flunky’s bar especially, there’s a more natural, softer use of light that feels at home in the villainous version of a Norman Rockwell painting. It makes the tragedy of the book all the more real and heightens the emotional weight of Batman slipping back into his alternate persona as he studies the dead man in anger.