Gotham City Monsters #5: Century Old Truths

With Melmoth’s plan coming slowly to its conclusion and the Seven Soldiers hot on his heels, Gotham City Monsters nears its conclusion. This issue relies once again heavily on the current events across the wider DCU but takes a bit of a step back in order to explore these oft-neglected characters a bit more. We see various characters bonding in interesting ways that open a pathway in the future for more stories about the monstrous underbelly of the DCU. Red Phantom and Lady Clay spend time developing an intriguing relationship based on personal truths that seem to hinge on personal truths for the author as well giving the sequence both depth and personality. Similarly, we see Orlando’s take on Batwoman not as a member of the Bat-Family but once again an autonomous agent for justice (an element lost over time) with her own personal ideologies.

The art continues to be excellent, shifting seemlessly from gore to grace at will. There were some layout problems in this issue. While it is true that no comic has a truly set way to read it “right”, there were moments in the middle of this issue in which the panel flow made for a difficult path to follow smoothly– a minor but noteworthy critique.

With only one issue to go in the mini-series, Gotham City Monsters continues to be a surprise hit in the hands of Orlando and company but also brings with it the fear that once it concludes, these characters will be placed carefully back in the toybox for the forseeable future. With Orlando clearly busy in 2020 with his work on Wonder Woman, enjoy this story while you can.