Batman: The Black Mirror

I've been sitting on The Black Mirror for a while, and its due date is up, so now is a good time to talk about it!

Batman: The Black Mirror
by Scott Snyder, Jock and Francesco Francavilla
collects Detective Comics #871-877

Enter the cockpit into your wayback machine, and you'll remember that, for a while, Bruce Wayne was dead. For a year or three, his ward Dick Grayson took over the cape and cowl as the Batman. In that time, Detective Comics traded hands, and Scott Snyder took over with writing duties, teaming up with Jock and Francesco Francavilla before the DC Universe whacked the television and did a hard reboot.

This collection of eight issues is particularly powerful. I'm really satisfied with it, and it's hard for me to convey all of it to you. Snyder brings up a character from the past, James, son of Commissioner Jim Gordon that covers the major storyarc, over a smearing of smaller storyarcs. It's comics storytelling at its finest. Some of them take three issues, some of them are just one, but all of them create this great atmosphere. It's this intangible thing that comes together with the right colors, the right art and the right words.

Issue 874 really stands out to me. It's broken up into three parts, and tells the story of James meeting his father the Commissioner, while flashing back to this chilling memory of an incident during James' childhood. I've never read a more chilling conversation between father and son. Good job, Francavilla!

BONUS SCANS (mostly cool panels from Jock):

Cool cape in the water. This is from the issue where Batman fought an Orca.

And another one, with shadows. Super neat!

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