Detective Comics #1113: Art-Driven Excitement

Detective Comics #1113 picks up immediately following Batman #13. Whereas Batman #13 was less a story and more an action packed raging against Vandal Savage and his paramilitary forces, Detective Comics #1113 has a straightforward plot: Savage is going to release a deadly herbicide that will kill tens of thousands of people even as it kills Poison Ivy and the new plant life, and Batman has to stop him.

The Savage versus Ivy setup in Detective Comics #1113 does a good job blending Bad Seeds’ primary focus of Poison Ivy’s primordial plant assault on Gotham City with Savage’s ongoing authoritarian police antics. So far Bad Seeds, despite being about Poison Ivy, has mostly played out as a Vandal Savage centric story. That’s not the case here, and the fact that the story does directly relate to Ivy (via Savage’s attempt to kill her) makes the issue more compelling.

A key part of the story in Detective Comics #1113 is whether all of Savage’s forces piloting the airships will stay blindly loyal or listen to Batman when he warns them that the herbicide will kill tens of thousands of people. This adds a compelling wrinkle to the conflict with Vandal Savage–will his power base of corrupt police start to erode?

Art leans minimalist for most elements in Detective Comics #1113, especially characters. Spokes uses thick lines to outline characters, but rarely for anything else. Facial features, muscle definition, and clothing contours are almost entirely the result of very small patches of thin, short lines. In the case of characters’ faces the style results in nuanced expressions. This adds significant dimension to Savage in his confrontation with Batman. Savage isn’t a particularly nuanced character narratively–nor is his plan here complex or subtle–but for the brief time he is on the page he is depicted with subtlety.

Batman is the chief beneficiary of Spokes’ style. Certainly his overall musculature is well-defined which serves to make action poses more dynamic and action sequences more energetic. But much more than that, this style of shading adds considerable dimension to Batman’s expressions. With only half of a face to work with, artists aren’t always successful visually communicating any kind of subtext or emotion. Spokes doesn’t have that problem, and it makes Batman engaging beyond all the action he’s involved in.

Spokes’ color choices add to the dynamic energy of the issue, most of which is action. Batman’s gray and blue stands very effectively in contrast with the colors Spokes chooses for backgrounds. The character constantly jumps out, especially in fight sequences with Savage’s forces who are entirely black-clad. Savage’s clothing is likewise attention getting. The villain wears a yellow shirt that both pops off the page and sets him visually in complete opposition to Batman’s darker color scheme. 

Abbott makes two distinct choices for sound effects. Sound effects for relatively innocuous actions–a knock or a click–are very close to block text and colored in heavy contrast to their surroundings. Sound effects during action sequences are another matter entirely. The font choices are less even, not as contrasting in color to the action surrounding them, and add considerable energy to whatever is going on–an explosion, something falling on to a car, and so forth.