Batman The Dark Knight (The New 52!) # 1

By Mark Rodriguez

So the New 52 gave Batman a soft reboot and 4 titles at the same time. People liked Batman, Detective and Batman and Robin to varying degrees... but maybe they should have stopped with three. This one turned out to be the most redundant Batman comic since we already have 2 comics based on his solo adventures (and they get a pass since those two are the classic Batman titles since forever) and Batman and Robin focuses on his teamwork with Damian. We didn't need a THIRD Batman solo comic. Will David Finch's sweet art be enough to justify this?

Dark Knight # 1 opens with ‘Knight Terrors’ with Batman leaping off his Batplane and changing into Bruce Wayne just in time to deliver his big speech. He delivers a speech on fear and his new Gotham Revitalization Plan… which would have been sweet if he didn’t do that already in Batman # 1.

We also meet Lt. Forbes, someone from Internal Affairs Gotham P.D that is against Bruce funding Batman Inc, and by extension, helping out the dark vigilante Batman (yes, Bruce publicly announced he was funding Batman Inc, I guess  sometimes the best way to hide is out in the open). We also meet Jaina Hudson, the daughter of a diplomat and funds a charity for flood survivors. After some flirty dialogue between Bruce and Jaina, she walks off and challenges him to ‘catch her’. 

Meanwhile we have a break-out at Arkham Asylum… which also would have been awesome if it didn’t already happen in Batman # 1. Batman shows up and for some reason already assume Two-Face is behind this. No reason or logic is given, and despite there were ‘300 inmates on permanent lockdown’ that escaped… Batman just singles out Two-Face out of all them as the one responsible  and runs in looking for him. Rather than Two-Face, he finds this random Playboy bunny running around… and almost gets her cute lil ass shot off….

Finally Batman finds Two-Face, powered-up Joker-Titan style, and calling himself One-Face… which makes no sense because his face is still scarred on one side.

My Opinions

As you can see, once we got past Bruce meeting up with Jaina, the rest of the story revolves around the Arkham break out and large panels and whatnot to really make this a short read. The art is awesome, as is to be expected from David Finch, but the story.... Why another Arkham break out? Why Bruce giving the same speech again? I understand there's an Arkham breakout every other week, but keep in mind that these four Batman titles came out at roughly the same time. That's two issues 1s that start with an Arkham breakout.

And unless I missed a page, why does Batman think Two-Face orchestrated this? I mean, one of the panels could have had him picking up a radio signal saying 'Arkham breakout! The prisoner Two Face is letting all the inmates free' or something. Of course, us the readers know that the Playboy Bunny broke the inmates out. She's the real mystery here. However, don't expect too much as we continue the story and find out more about her. 

Overall the art was awesome, but what a short read.