Detective Comics #992: What Makes a Zealot?

The ‘Deface the Face’ arc explodes into battle with Detective Comics #992 from the talented creative team including James Robinson, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ivan Plascencia and Rob Leigh. Together, they have woven an intricate yet classic mystery tale surrounding the World’s Greatest Detective, and part five titled ‘A Fighting Man’ lives up to the name completely.

The issue quickly thrusts readers into a Kobra attack on the Gotham City Museum of Natural History that is foiled by the unusual team of Batman and Two-Face. Their cooperation comes after an emotional few issues setting up Two-Face’s origin and is crucial to Batman’s plan to finally understand Kobra’s larger schemes. However, during their clash, we also get an in-depth explanation at Kobra’s history and Their fight together is fast paced and causes plenty of devastation to the surrounding museum, but more importantly, it provides some much-needed action at just the right time.

The twist for this issue comes in the form of a twofold diversion, where Kobra’s true attack on the city are hidden by the assault on the museum. This offers the perfect chance for the creative team to utilize one of Batman’s most crucial abilities, the contingency plan, but it also shows that things don’t always go according to plan. We learn at the same time as Two-Face that Batman had already enacted teams all throughout Gotham to stop the attacks. This included the help of heroes such as the newest rendition of the Outsiders, Batwoman and even Batgirl! Their involvement was a great moment for fans to see the Batfamily coming in at just the right time to help save the city once more.

While the attack on the museum was a diversion for Batman, their attacks throughout the city turned out to also be a diversion from their attempt to infiltrate Gotham’s sewer system with a mind-controlling agent. This one-two punch of diversionary tactics worked really well for the story and helped to provide a sense of unpredictability even after the mystery had seemingly been solved. Opening up Kobra’s plans to potentially poison the water in an attempt to make everyone followers of the “cult” was both unexpected and exciting.

The issue presents a more action-packed narrative when compared to the others in the ‘Deface the Face’ arc. This gave the creative team an opportunity to shine with some great fighting sequences that are beautifully illustrated and colored. The artwork contributes to the brisk pacing exceptionally well, but the final panel showing Kobra entering the sewers is both thrilling and haunting.

With its use of successive twists in combination with nearly nonstop action, Detective Comics #992 delivers a truly enjoyable story that sees Batman functioning as a full-fledged superhero once again, free from the distracting thoughts of past events. With Gotham’s sewers now in danger, it will be interesting to see how they manage to stop the whole city from becoming followers of Kobra!