Amid all the talk about Superman lately, it’s been easy to neglect DC’s other top-line hero. Despite a certain forthcoming movie, it’s been a bit quiet on the Batman front – perhaps not helped by the fact that it’s now been over a month since the last issue of Grant Morrison’s main title. So in an attempt to deflect attention away from the Big Blue, let’s have a look at the latest offering from Paul Dini’s Detective Comics run.

It’s been a weird run, actually. Dini has traded largely in one- or two-issue stories, which are great for a number of reasons – for starters, telling a complete story in 22 pages is one of the great, but sadly oft-forgotten arts of comics; while such short stories also make it quite easy to dip in and out of the series, and for it to attract new readers (something that’ll surely be crucial when The Dark Knight comes out) who only really need to know the basics of Batman lore in order to get onboard. On the other hand, though, it also leaves the run open to fill-in issues here and there – and so it’s proved, with various writers dropping in to do stories that, despite their repute (they’ve included Peter Milligan and Stuart Moore), haven’t been up to Dini’s standard.

This has meant that some of the momentum of the themes and character arcs that Dini has been building has been broken – and so it’s almost disorientating to see him start a story this month that draws on a number of the main elements of the run so far: gang warfare, a reformed Penguin, the new female Ventriloquist, and Zatanna. Ah, Zatanna. In an industry so often sorely lacking in good female characters, Zee just quietly gets on with being one of the best characters – full-stop – around. The affection that Dini has for her is clear (hardly surprising, really - he is married to her, after all), and her dialogue sparks off the page. Of particular note is the sexual tension that he’s building between her and Bruce – it positively sizzles here, and my only objection to the idea of them getting together is that while it’s great in theory, it surely can’t last for long (hey, if he couldn’t settle down with Selina Kyle, what chance does Zee have?) – well, that and the fact that I’ve been itching for her to show up in Hellblazer again for years.

In truth, the furthering of the Bruce-Zatanna relationship is the strongest aspect of an otherwise by-the-book issue. There’s still a sense that the disparate elements of the Dini run could do with bringing together at some point – not least because the “mystery” element of some of his stronger early stories has lessened somewhat - and so what we’re left with is another tale of rival colourful gangsters trying to bump each other off. There’s a slight deepening of intrigue around the new Ventriloquist, as regards her connection to Bruce, but I still can’t bring myself to get hugely interested in her or Scarface – a scene early on with the Penguin, for example, is far more entertaining than anything featuring those two.

I’m not sure how long Dini’s planning on still sticking around, but it’s certainly been a good run on the whole so far. It just feels like it needs a bit more of a spark, to kick up a gear, after some quite superb early issues. And maybe having Zatanna around a bit more often can provide that - after all, who says the book has to be exclusively about Batman…?

Tags: batman, detective comics, Dustin Nguyen, Paul Dini, Zatanna
Publisher: DC