Children are vulnerable.
Anything can change a child’s growth cycle. Whether it’s a strained relationship with a friend or the loss of a family member, children are fragile. So when you put a child in a city of pain and corruption, logically, that kid isn’t going to develop correctly. Time and time again, DC throws readers into the world of Gotham City, a politically corrupt cesspit of violence and sorrow, to represent this idea with one singular character: Batman. Everyone knows him – he happens to be one of the most recognizable superheroes of all time. Thankfully, that status allows writers and artists to create original stories with the character that plays with his comedic Silver-Age roots, or the dark and gritty nature that films like The Dark Knight or The Batman pushed out into the world of comic book adaptions. With Batman’s prestigious title of “The World’s Favorite Detective”, I highly anticipated Rafael Grampa’s Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham as it painted itself as a new and expressive take on Batman and his dark, twisted world. Sadly, I came out of the first chapter with mixed feelings about finks dressed up as mammals.
This isn’t Grampa’s first foyer into the world of Batman – he comes off Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child with industry titan Frank Miller and always knows how to show his love for the character and the world he inhabits. Grampa’s interpretation of Gotham is haunting as it highlights the gothic architecture the rich inhabit while you see a rustic and poverty-stricken underside filled with sick and dying citizens who are often ignored by those who kicked them out of their homes in the first place. It’s not pretty and he makes a point to show that which leads into the focus point of his new Black Label series Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham. His art, paired with the talented coloring of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow Matheus Lopes, makes for a beautiful and haunting interpretation of Gotham as a living and breathing city full of the worst things you can imagine. However, the writing Grampa pairs with the art is not as strong as it should be.
DC Comics
We enter the world of Gargoyle of Gotham‘s Bruce Wayne revealing how he views himself. He killed the identity of Bruce Wayne, he is obsessed with only being Batman, and he harbors a sense of mental torment due to the well-known death of Martha and Thomas. But what makes him different? Aside from the amazing design he has, there is so far not much that tells us about this Batman. That is both a good and bad thing when it comes to the all-around structuring of the script and story, as Bruce becomes more and more obsessed with taking down a new criminal and effectively purging the evil from the city. The good aspects of Grampa’s interpretation of Batman are grounded in two crucial aspects: Bruce being closer to his mother, and how the mythology of Batman affects the story and script with Batman killing his humanity to remain as a boogeyman to the city.
With the focus on Martha Wayne, we see a subversion of the famous Frank Miller archetype of Bruce being inspired by his father to become Batman. Everyone knows the haunting scene of Year One where Bruce sits in his manor as a bat crashes through the window and tells himself “Yes father, I will become a bat”, fully cementing just who he is as he turns to the memory of Thomas Wayne for hope and survival. What we are implied to see throughout the first installment of Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham is the opposite as we see Bruce have a deeper connection to the memory of his mother which allows for a reconstruction of character within the script and future installments of the story. Bruce is sensitive and emotional; he is a scared little boy who misses his mother, which makes this addition exciting – in all of these decades, we’ve never had a Bruce Wayne that was a simple mama’s boy.
DC Comics
As for his mythology, the main goal Grampa has for Batman is in the mere title of the book as we see a monstrous but emotional vigilante who is hellbent on being the statue that haunts you in the dead of night, and that aspect of Bruce is done amazingly. Whether it’s the way criminals look at Batman or how civilians see him, Bruce as a metaphorical gargoyle shows readers how he can never walk away from the city due to his shamanic connection to everything he’s been through. His childhood trauma didn’t manifest as a maniac, but as a ghost story as he walks the city as a cryptid. It makes the script worth it; thanks to runs such as Ram V’s Detective Comics, readers want to veer into the world of modern mythology for Bruce Wayne and the people who follow in his steps. However, I do think that scenes of this could’ve been explored better with a deeper expansion of the idea of Bruce Wayne being killed by Batman. Unfortunately, that was brushed aside due to the book’s shaky pacing, but, that could be an exploration for another installment.
All around, Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham #1 is a beautiful but shaky first installment that has highs and lows but is brought together thanks to the strong artistic minds of Rafael Grampa and Matheus Lopes. Besides slight problems with the pacing and a lack of understanding between the story and the reader, this is a series to be on the lookout for. The beauty of DC Black label is that we can have stories like this and discuss how they thrive within a character’s mythos and I can’t wait for the next installments because of it.
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