I had some minor reservations going into Batman: Gotham By Gaslight – The Kryptonian Age. Not reservation enough to keep me from hungrily pre-ordering the issues as they are solicited, but reservations all the same.
The 1989 original, which may very well be the most famous (if not most effective) Elseworlds story, is a book haunted by dark claustrophobia. Artist Mike Mignola creates a Gotham enshrouded in steam, its buildings close and its chambers dim. It isn’t the sort of world that might feel welcoming to a larger cast of superheroes – certainly not ones that can fly, as the titular Kryptonian is promised to do.
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Luckily, The Kryptonian Age has been expanding the Gaslight world in much less obtrusive ways; while Batman chases Catwoman and Talia al Ghul through that stifling city, the book has aimed its expansion to the larger 19th-century world. Where the original was fixated on the gruesome, gritty realities of urban murder, The Kryptonian Age has touched on Imperial spiritualism, Lovecraftian excursionism, and (with this issue) the steam-driven expansionism of the American West.
It’s a smart, natural way to explore a deeper universe – not by inviting new, bigger-than-life, and brightly colored personalities to Batman’s turf, but by establishing new settings altogether.
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This third issue doubles down on the new characters and settings. Though Diana was introduced last issue, here we learn the history of the Amazons, their ties to the rumored Kryptonians, and their settlement out of Warlord. We’re shown verdant Colorado, its lush pines and jagged peaks neatly opposed to the Victorian smoking parlors of Gotham.
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The slow introduction of a potential Justice League – Bruce, Diana, and a unique choice for Green Lantern – may only be suggestion rather than foreshadowing; one imagines this story won’t end without a conflict between Gotham’s vigilante and whatever variation on Superman the book provides us (solicitations for issue #5’s cover seems to spoil just what that variation will look like).
Gotham By Gaslight – The Kryptonian Age overcomes whatever reservations one might have, not by honoring or replicating the original but by carving an entire new path into the new Elseworlds territory. This book has a wider scope, a deeper interest in history and genre, and a clever application of established DC legends than did the original (or its less-discussed sequel, Master of the Future). Issue #3 only adds further avenues for exploration.
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