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| When you can't afford a bouquet, say it with severed heads. |
Collects: Batman- Detective Comics #1-7
Background
Information:
Batman, if anything, is Detective
Comics. The man we know as the Dark Knight made his debut 75 years ago in
the series in Detective Comics #27.
Since then, Batman’s gone through multiple transformations.
He stopped using guns, he started employing 12-year-olds as sidekicks, and went
from a black cape to a blue one and back to a black one. But throughout
Batman’s entire lifespan, Detective
Comics has been there, focussing on mystery over action and intrigue over
fisticuffs. To say it’s a big deal would be an understatement.
Review:
For the one title that should really be central to
understanding who Batman is, Faces of
Death gives the impression of having no idea who Batman is at all. A strong
plot is let down by essentially awful scripting that the rather average artwork
does nothing to conceal.
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| The guy has multiple cars, motorcycles, jets, helicopters and even a hang-glider, yet we're treated to page-spreads of this guy RUNNING! |
So Faces of Death focuses
on a villain known as the Dollmaker; a man who has a sick penchant for takingBatman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls, except
here, it’s got a lot more significance to future Batman (specifically, Death of the Family), and the mystery
surrounding the Dollmaker is interesting.His hobbies include capturing people, cutting them up and putting their pieces back together in
Frankenstein’s monster-styled freakshows. The plotline itself is rather good,
it teases the Joker in much the same way that Scott Snyder did in
The problem, though, is that while Tony S Daniel is a
fantastic plotter, he’s a less-than-average scripter.
Faces of Death is
peppered by some of the most awful dialogue I have read in a comic. Right off
the bat (pun intended, but it’s not hyperbole, it’s literally on the first
page), we’re treated with such gems as “his MO changes with the wind... and
it’s been windy in Gotham.” If that line doesn’t make you cringe, you have a
problem. Unfortunately, it’s not something that gets better, we’re later
treated to lines like Bruce’s “I can see them [his love interest’s eyes] and
they’re shooting daggers,” to which the love interest replies with “Then kiss
me before you bleed to death.” They’re the most obvious examples of poor
scripting, but Tony S. Daniel continues with that standard throughout the book,
creating more melodrama than mysterious intrigue and lowering any interest
that’s likely to come out of the mystery.
In short, Tony S Daniel writes the plot like it’s designed
for Christian Bale’s Batman, yet scripts for Adam West, and that disharmony
shows.
I never thought I’d see the day when a Batman story would
entertain me less than Battle for the
Cowl (also written by Tony S Daniel) did. Yet, here I am today, writing
about a story that was, quite honestly, poorly scripted. The art,
unfortunately, doesn’t alleviate any of those problems. It’s decent; Tony S
Daniel draws a good Batman, but it’s neither anywhere near the standard set by
Greg Capullo in the titular Batman
book nor does it really get a chance to shine due to Daniel’s poor scripting.
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| Foreshadowing? What's Foreshadowing? I don't know this word Foreshadowing? |
I think the big problem for Tony S Daniel is that he tries
to be both writer and artist on too many story arcs. He, in particular, needs to
choose a side. He strikes me as someone who is overworked on this title, and cannot
admit that he needs to cut down. Like I said, the plot for Faces of Death is solid, but scripting suffers because Daniel seems
to want to control every aspect of this book. Comics are team efforts and
they’re best when two very different people and that’s something that the big
guns at DC haven’t understood here.
Faces of Death has
potential, and I can’t see it going anywhere, but this volume isn’t the
strongest testimony to the legacy of Detective
Comics it gets a two out of five windy moments in Gotham.
Urgh... what a line!
**
+ Plotted well
- Scripted poorly
- Art doesn’t distract from script
Alternate Option: Batman: The Court of Owls
When this story is going around, it’s weird that you would
consider anything else.
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