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turret 's review for:
Batman: Gotham Noir
by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Dave Stewart
+9 According to many, Gotham Noir makes good use of film noir tropes as a homage - and to others, it’s cliché and stereotypical. Unfortunately I do not know enough about noir or its stereotypes to form a good judgement on their usage in this story. Either way, I still really loved this story for its plot and art.
James Gordon takes on the protagonist role and Batman becomes a tertiary character - seeing a perfectly normal guy navigate the city of Gotham and clear his name will always be interesting. During all this, James is still battling his PTSD and alcoholism issues - which like the other slight character reworkings of well-known Batman mythos characters - gave a refreshing take on a familiar character with additional depth. The perspective this one-shot has on Batman is intriguing too, being an all-black shadow that only appears in Gordon’s presence. Is the Batman real, or is it a hallucination brought on by Gordon’s mental issues and substance abuse? Also was greatly amused by how often Gordon gets beaten up, tortured and captured. He’s really lucky, or got sharp wits, to get out of such great dangers! There was one plot hole that had me scratching my head though - how did?
The noir-ish art by Sean Phillips is amazing, with lots of dramatic shadow covering faces in close-up or mid-range shots, particularly the faces of Gordon and Harvey Dent. Dave Stewart’s colouring, combined with Phillip’s art, really gave each scene vibrancy and action, particularly with the flat colour backgrounds. Phillips was very good with consistency regarding the little details - for example, a character is holding an object in their left hand, and continue to hold it throughout the scene. I did notice a couple of errors though, like Gordon not wearing his necktie for one singular panel. However that's acceptable, since not every panel requires the same amount of detail.
To finally conclude, Gotham Noir is a wonderful Elseworlds story with interesting 1950’s noir takes on well-known characters, wrapped up in a tight mystery told in 60-ish pages.
[Read in February, read and reviewed in May 2023]
James Gordon takes on the protagonist role and Batman becomes a tertiary character - seeing a perfectly normal guy navigate the city of Gotham and clear his name will always be interesting. During all this, James is still battling his PTSD and alcoholism issues - which like the other slight character reworkings of well-known Batman mythos characters - gave a refreshing take on a familiar character with additional depth. The perspective this one-shot has on Batman is intriguing too, being an all-black shadow that only appears in Gordon’s presence. Is the Batman real, or is it a hallucination brought on by Gordon’s mental issues and substance abuse? Also was greatly amused by how often Gordon gets beaten up, tortured and captured. He’s really lucky, or got sharp wits, to get out of such great dangers! There was one plot hole that had me scratching my head though - how did
Spoiler
Boss Zucco know that Mayor Dehaven had killed RachelThe noir-ish art by Sean Phillips is amazing, with lots of dramatic shadow covering faces in close-up or mid-range shots, particularly the faces of Gordon and Harvey Dent. Dave Stewart’s colouring, combined with Phillip’s art, really gave each scene vibrancy and action, particularly with the flat colour backgrounds. Phillips was very good with consistency regarding the little details - for example, a character is holding an object in their left hand, and continue to hold it throughout the scene. I did notice a couple of errors though, like Gordon not wearing his necktie for one singular panel. However that's acceptable, since not every panel requires the same amount of detail.
To finally conclude, Gotham Noir is a wonderful Elseworlds story with interesting 1950’s noir takes on well-known characters, wrapped up in a tight mystery told in 60-ish pages.
[Read in February, read and reviewed in May 2023]