A review by viera
Batman: Detective Comics, Volume 5: Gothtopia by John Layman

4.0

This was fun, though the narration was a bit much. The art was beautiful and classic. The stories were fun. Story 1 focused on Jim Gordon and worked as a prologue to the book. Story two was about the man bat and his wife and had some nice little misdirection. Story 3 creeped me out. I never want to see Catbird again. Same with Bluebelle and her band of bellends. The first half read like weird fan fiction and I had to put it down several times before getting to the “twist”. But part 2 of the scarecrow teamup was interesting (Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, Professor Freeze, Killer Croc and Merry Maker). Batman and Poison Ivy have to come up with an antidote to save the world from Scarecrow of all people. His team did nothing that regular henchmen couldn’t do, but maybe they were there to look intimidating. The bookend is a bunch of small boring vignettes. But when it worked, it worked. Once each of the stories got going I was fully invested.