Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Detective Comics #1046 Review


Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Artist:  Dan Mora
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
Letters: Aditya Bidikar
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: December 28th, 2021

Detective Comics is wrapping up its role in the Fear State saga... finally. We've got great art throughout that event in this book, and a few cool moments, but I am soooo happy it's over here. I'm kinda pumped about Shadow of the Bat, which will have Detective Comics go 12 straight weeks, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to be the one to review all of them for the site because of life, and that bums me out. I enjoy writing these, and I miss doing the retro-reviews, but sometimes things need to be put on pause. But enough about that, because I know you really don't care, I mean who the eff am I, so let's get into Detective #1046.

Just real quick about the cover: It's pretty awesome. The bandaged back of Bruce on a bed with a bloodied bowl and his cowl, in front of him a television showing news about the new Arkham Tower. It's a great cover. Only there are also the faces of Scarecrow, Simon Saint, and Mayor Nakano. I'm so sick of them at this point. Ugh.




The issue starts off with a woman named Ana Vulsion in an apartment building known for being occupied by mobsters, and she's taking them out. I've never heard of Ana Vulsion. The internet hasn't. The DC Encyclopedia hasn't. But the Batfamily seems to know her pretty well. After she kills the last guy, the apartment explodes and debris falls to the streets below, heading right for a woman with a baby in a stroller. But guess who shows up to save the day? THE BATMAN!

Meanwhile, Vulsion is in the garage of the building making her escape in her fancy sports car... but guess who is there to save the day? THE SPOILER! Now, I recently just read the entirety of War Crimes and I gotta say, it gave me whole new respect for Stephanie Brown. She's a total badass, and she's a total badass here for a second. Vulsion tries to hit Stephanie but she does a roll over the top of the car, spins around, and lands a Batarang into the rear window. But a bomb was planted in the car right next to where Stephanie landed, and it goes off.

Dan Mora was the artist for this, and he is always amazing. He's also the artist for Once & Future from BOOM! Studios. If you haven't read that book then you need to. Anyways, during this whole thing, it's clear that one of the bystanders is monster hunter Bridgette McGuire. Pretty cool to see that. Batman is outside on the street and uses his grappling gun to yank the car away from hitting Bridgette. We all know she had it handled, anyways.




Vulsion is hurt inside the wrecked car but she doesn't care, because she managed to kill a lot of people before she was taken down. It's here that we get a bit of her backstory. She was a serial killer that managed to get released after her case was revisited by a new lawyer.

The rest of the issue is clips about what's going on with everybody. Stephanie has this feeling that Bruce is going to leave Gotham because of the way he's acting. Huntress still has leftover weird crap from Hue Vile. Nakano sets up an insider in Arkham Tower, while Batwoman meets with Deb Donovan about Arkham Tower.

And Stephanie was right about Batman.

Bits and Pieces

The art is top-notch, and I loved the action. I actually liked everything about this issue from the story to the character interaction. The Batfamily involved are great here, and true to their individual character. I just don't like the idea of Arkham Tower and don't really care about whatever is going on with Deb Donovan. Good stuff, though. It ended this thing with a good one.

8/10

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