There’s a murderer on the loose, and they’re killing Batman and Ghost-Maker’s teachers. Now in charge of Batman Inc., we learned in the last issue who the murderer is, but Ghost-Maker has no idea, and time is running out. The question is, is Ghost-Maker actually in the wrong? In Batman Incorporated #3, Ed Brisson and John Timms will make you question everything.
For a series with a very large cast, Brisson is in no hurry to flesh them all out, as seen in this issue. The thing is, that may not be a bad thing – Batman Incorporated #3 is mainly about the mysterious murderer with strong ties to Ghost-Maker. It’s tough to discuss without spoiling it, but let’s say Ghost-Maker knows the murderer very well, and it’s a compelling twist on the Batman and Robin relationship.
So far in this series, we’ve seen Ghost-Maker is a lot tougher than Batman in an almost cruel, if not mean way. That plays into the flashback of the murderer as we see Ghost-Maker hasn’t changed much. We know he’s a sociopath, and that clearly is a part of how he, in some way, created this murderer. At the same time, Brisson makes the murderer’s narration to Clownhunter unreliable in some regard. He blames Ghost-Maker for killing him, but did he really? Those are threads you’ll be coming back to unravel as the series goes on.
A full eleven pages are devoted to the murderer’s backstory, which is well-written and intriguing. Does it throw off the ongoing subplots for the series, though? Kind of, yes. In fact, we do get to check in on each subplot after the flashback, and it’s tricky to remember what’s going on in each after last month. That makes this feel like it’d read better in a collected format, but you must give the creators credit for taking a bold turn in the third issue. It’s fairly obvious now that this first story arc is more about establishing how Ghost-Maker is a different version of Batman and how that plays out in darker ways.
Art by Timms continues to be excellent. The level of detail in costuming alone is a sight to see. There’s a slightly cartoony nature to the characters that are fun, while Rex Lokus’ colors add a lot of pop and comic-book color. This issue also offers a few new character designs as we see Ghost-Maker’s rogues getting beaten up in a montage and in a longer scene.
Ghost-Maker has always been an interesting character as he allows writers to show what Batman would be like if he was a sociopath. Brisson takes that one step further with Batman Incorporated #3, showing how he had a sidekick and how that went terribly wrong because he’s, well, not Batman. Read Batman Incorporated for a strong variety of Batman-adjacent-style stories.
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