DETECTIVE COMICS #1054

The Tower

Part 8 of 12

    What a horrible cover. I actually really liked the last cover, the one with Penguin. This one is Batman's mask. Ugh. Whoever is editing this book needs to be fired. And, honestly, DC books have been pretty awful for awhile. There's so many Batman and Superman books that you'd think at least one of them would be awesome but you would be wrong. At least the storyline is heating up in this issue. Finally Arkham Tower gets locked down and the inmates take over. I had noted that Psycho Pirate was a bad villain because it's impossible for a hero to beat him. Nightwing literally beats up instantly when Psycho Pirate just can't mentally control Nightwing any longer. Literally he can only do it for like two pages. What the fuck? In the backup story, we get a scene with Azrael during the infamous "Knightfall" storyline. Honestly? That storyline might suck if I read it now...but when I was a kid I loved that storyline and remember it being a huge deal. I still have that issue of Batman where Bane breaks Batman's back. I wonder if it's worth anything? Probably not, as comics in the early 90's were the most popular they've ever been in history and thus there's so many copies of all of those books. I think one reason comic books started to become popular was because of Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film. Was that the catalyst? I'm still kind of surprised comic book stores still exist. No one ever talks about comic books. You never hear about comic books. They're like in the shadows. Weird. *

DETECTIVE COMICS #1053

The Tower

Part 7 of 12

    The climax of this issue has Nightwing sneaking into an off limits room at Arkham Tower only to find Psycho Pirate there. So of course Psycho Pirate freezes Nightwing with his words. Here's the thing about these mind-control villains (Marvel has one, The Purple Man); how the fuck are you supposed to beat them? You can't. I forget how Jessica Jones beat The Purple Man. Will power? Psycho Pirate was in Tom King's Batman run and I don't remember how he defeated him. I guess we'll find in next issue how Nightwing defeats him. Or we'll have to wait awhile, as this storyline is moving molasses slow and we still have 5 parts left. In other storyline bits, Dr. Wear gets a loan from The Penguin. And Dr. Wear also owes money to a group of super villains that end up attacking Oracle's Bat person hideout. It's kind of weird that Batman isn't a part of this storyline, right? I read Batman books all the time and have for years but barely know who half of these Bat people are. Who's Huntress? Why is there a Batwoman and a Batgirl? In the backup tale, the boy escapes Arkham thanks to Bane. The backup has just turned into a monotonous villain of the week serial. **

DETECTIVE COMICS #1052

The Tower

Part 6 of 12

    I'm starting to think that 12 parts to tell this story is too long. This issue, as the last couple have been, feels like a morsel of story stretched out. In the last issue, Psycho Pirate, the villain that is using mind control to sedate the patients in Arkham Tower, fainted and the patients all broke free and went wild. Well Psycho Pirate wakes up and hypnotizes the patients again and the higher ups blame a "gas leak" on everything. Yeah, not much story to fill and issue. There is a weird tangent where the Bat gang go and bust up a drug bust that's going on with The Party Crashers. No, I don't know who the Party Crashers are. Here's a line of dialogue that Batwoman says: "One of them is Siphon, Cass. Siphon worked for the Party Crashers. Post-sorcery." What does that even mean? Cass is Cassandra Cain, aka Batgirl. I had to look that up. Why are there so many Bat people? I'm guessing the argument is that Batman is so popular, why not make heroes from his world? I kind of doubt any of the non-Batman books sell very well, though, especially the Batowmen books. As for the backup story: the boy is working for The Penguin but betrays him and gets sent back to Arkham. I'm truly baffled by this backup story and can't even fathom where it's going or what the point of it is. *

DETECTIVE COMICS #1051

The Tower

Part 5 of 12

    I haven't mentioned the covers for this event book yet. They've all been painted covers usually dealing with Arkham's inmates. This issue's cover, by Irvin Rodriguez, is just baffling. Who is it even supposed to be? I'm not sure who the editor for this book is, but these covers are epically disappointing. Besides the weird, obtuse cover artwork, the covers all have "Shadows of the Bat" written on them even though the title of the story is "The Tower." I mentioned that before and still have no idea what that's all about. This issue is by far the worst so far. Excellent artist Ivan Reiss has finally left the book, and now we have Max Raynor on art. His stuff isn't terrible, it just pales in comparison to Reiss. Mariko Tamaki wrote this issue as well as the previous four. Unfortunately, her story is just getting even sillier. We learned last issue that the magical cure at Arkham Tower was actually just Psycho Pirate controlling the crazy patients through mind control to make them happy and docile. We get more of that backstory in this issue and learn that Dr. Wear is basically a conman and drug dealer who just happened to be friends with Psycho Pirate from childhood. I wonder if his name was Psycho Pirate in childhood? Even the backstory, "House of Gotham," is falling apart in this issue. There was an orphan at an orphanage that Scarecrow worked at...and now the kid is adopted by Penguin and has to work as his iceburg casino. I thought that perhaps this backstory was going somewhere but it's obviously not. *