Today’s randomly selected comic is Detective Comics #1051. This is the most recent of the comics I’ve reviewed for this but time is meaningless here, this was the 5th part of the Shadows of the Bat Storyline going on at the time, written by Mariko Tomaki, with art by Max Raynor and with a backup story written by Matthew Rosenberg with Fernando Blanco on art.
We open at Keystone County Airport, months earlier as the
current Mayor of Gotham City, named Nakono is seen with Private Security Mogol
Simon Saint… not especially relevant to today’s proceeds more a context clue as
to when this took place. A plane lands at the airport and inside a suitcase is
the Psycho-Pirate, using his medusa mask to stop people from seeing him.
As soon as he lands he makes a run for it to an old friend,
a guy named Tobias Wear. He can still use his Medusa Mask to command people
whatever he wants, including making Tobias’ wife giddy with happiness. This
gives Tobias an idea, if they could do it on a lot of people for like a month,
the two could walk away very rich and Psycho-Pirate can stay hidden from the
people he say are after him.
We cut to an underground base called the cave, a temporary
place for the bat-family to operate but not for much longer as construction
will intrude upon the place soon. There’s been an uptake in a drug known as Numb
being distributed by a group called the Party Crashers. They believe the source
of drugs is from the new Arkham Tower, and have identified 3 members of the
staff that are also parts of the Party Crashers
Speaking of the Party Crashers, they’re none too happy with
Tobias Wear who has supplied only half their shipment, they know he’s also
supplying for the Penguin and suspect he’s double-dealing. They demand double
their usual shipment in 24 hours. A phone-call from the Penguin reveals he’s
been doing much the same, and the Penguin is not someone you want to piss off.
Inside Arkham Tower, Doctor Chase Meridian is interviewing
one of the patients, who’s talking about a memory of a movie, he can see
himself watching but seemingly from the third person. Doctor Meridian calls
Doctor Wear, with questions about the drugs the patients are on, they’re
supposedly calculated by a Doctor Ocean who Chase wants to meet before
submitting a vital report for them to secure funding from the Mayor. Of course,
that’s not possible and Wear is growing all the more frustrated.
He has a new plan of action, convince Nakano to come on a
tour and get Psycho pirate to manipulate him to providing the funds, not that
Nakano needs the help as his wife suffers from a mental illness and he’s
desperately hoping this place will provide what she needs. Dick Grayson is
inside Arkham Tower and hacking their files
It seems wear didn’t run this all by Psycho-Pirate and he’s
especially worried about filtering everyone’s emotions all at once, and adding
another to that balance. He asks wear to drug the patients but that’s a
non-starter if the mayor wanted to see them. Nakano arrives and Psycho-Pirate
reveals does his work but with all these people he’s overwhelmed and passes
out.
With Psycho-Pirate no longer in control the inmates revert
to type and begin attacking the guards, causing a lockdown. Nightwing rejects a
request for backup from Oracle whilst he assess the situation but he soon takes
a chair to the back of the head. Helena Bertinelli had also been in Arkham
Tower and was being interviewed by Chase at the time of this incident, she goes
out and ends up fighting a guy named Nero Xix. She knocks him out easily and
runs off, chanting to herself that she has to remember.
Wear finds Psycho Pirate barely recovering, forces the
medusa mask onto him to get him to fix the situation, getting them all to sleep
and forget what happened.
The backup story, House of Gotham tells the story of a young
ginger-haired boy who’s name is not mentioned in this issue so I’ll just him
Boy for the sake of following the rules of this format. Boy has been given a
clean bill of health at Arkham Asylum, and has grounds for release contingent
on finding a suitable home environment. Luckily for him they have him one with
a Mr Gentoo, it just happens this guy works for the Penguin, who had interest
in him thanks to a friend of his named Elliot.
He's taken to the Iceberg Lounge, given pretty
crummy-looking accommodations. He’s gonna be a kitchen porter for the club,
largely just doing the dishes. He’ll have to sort out his own food, and to help
with that, Oswald gives him an advance on his first pay-check, giving him freedom
to do what he wants before the club opens. The basic rules are don’t steal from
customers, don’t steal from him and obey every order he gives as if he were god
himself.
Boy enjoys his day out, but as he heads back he’s accosted
by a mugger, the mugger soon finds himself on the sharp end of the Penguin’s
umbrella. Penguin leaves it up to Boy how he should be punished, Boy doesn’t
want to punish him at all but Penguin decides to kill him anyway, teaching an
important lesson that we don’t always get what we want.
So that was Detective Comics #1051, the main story is an
interesting character study of the Psycho Pirate and what he’s like when the
usual multiversal crossover avenues are closed to him. It’s a far better use of
him and his abilities than what they did with him in the Tom King run, which
was ultimately next to nothing.
We’re given a decent amount of context as to where we are in
the story organically so it’s unlikely you’d be lost if you just picked up and
red this issue without the full context of the first 4 parts but the converse
of that is that very little actually happens here. We get a bit of history for
Psycho Pirate, a bit of catchup with the bat-family, time pressures for Doctor
Wear force him to make a rash plan that backfires in a brief action scene and
that’s the whole issue.
The backup is weird, it’s not uncompelling I just wonder
what the point of it all is, it’s not much of a showcase for the Penguin, nor
is the kid especially interesting. The artwork for both the main and backup stories
are pretty good, with the backup a bit more stylised, which really worked for
the Penguin if less so for the kids.
Rating 3/5 Stars
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