DC Comics reviews 9/5/23 – Batman #137, Birds of Prey #1, Shazam #3

Batman #137

The Batman/Catwoman Gotham War remains an incredibly fascinating event…just not in a good way. It’s wild that writers Chip Zdarsky and Tini Howard figured Catwoman would just lay out her plan to rob Gotham’s elite would go over well with Batman.

It’s just a basic premise of Batman that he’s not signing on for justifiable crime especially when it leads to the inevitable death like last week’s special. In Zdarksy’s Batman title, Batman is “running amok” taking down Catwoman’s cronies while Tim Drake tries to explain how the crime rates are somehow down with more criminals operating instead of just being henchmen for Gotham’s main criminals.

This basic math doesn’t check out and leaning into that faulty idea keeps tripping this event up. Nor does the insistence that Batman just took a really, really long nap for eight weeks instead of just calling it a coma. If it’s good enough for Duke after getting a snake through the chest it’s good enough for Batman.

Now the Bat Family is trying to convince themselves that Batman is the bad guy with Oracle saying she’d be inclined to help Selina if she asked for help. Spoiler/Batgirl said she watched one of Catwoman’s goons break into someone’s house and didn’t do anything. How does this make her a hero?

So, in the grand tradition of Civil War and Kingdom Come, we get Batman vs. his family. The whole war is goofy if all the Bat Family is against Batman…save one obvious choice. Batman beating up on the kids is at least somewhat satisfying in the hopes that he’d knock some sense in them, but this story is a mess.

At least the art from Jorge Jimenez is great. That’s called pulling the great artist cord in case of emergency to distract from a lackluster story. Jimenez brings such fluidity to the characters’ movements and adds a real sense of drama to every page. Colorist Tomey Morey and letterer Clayton Cowles deliver on their respective roles as always.

The Gotham War didn’t sound like an idea and if the Batman story in this event was disappointing, the odds are good that the Catwoman installment for this month won’t be any better.

Rating: 5 out of 10