Review: Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

Pastors also need a break from heavy theological reading!  So here’s a Batman comic book review!

 

Brian Augustyn.  Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. New York, NY: DC Comics, March 12, 2013. 112 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Can you imagine Batman being a crime fighting superhero during the Victorian era of the late 1800s?  I think that would be a cool setting for Batman!  And this trade paperback edition definitely did not disappoint!  This is part of DC Comic’s alternative world series they called Elseworlds where they have various characters in different era. Previously I have read a story from the Elseworlds series titled Batman: The Blue, the Grey, and the Bat in which Batman is a hero during the era of the American Civil War.  I enjoyed that story enough that when I heard of this story (Batman: Gotham by Gaslight), I knew I had to read it!  As I researched more about this book I learned that this is the first volume in this series.  Although this Trade Paperback edition was published in 2013 originally the issues that’s collected in this volume was published in 1989.  I started being a fan of Batman comics relatively late compared to most fans (in my late 20s) and have found stories like this one from the 1980s were really enjoyable.

This book collects two stories.  The first story was called Gotham By Gaslight and the second was called Master of The Future.  In the first story Batman has to track down and stop Jack the Ripper who have somehow made his way to Gotham from England.  I thought the story was good and I really appreciate how the writer made this as a mystery story, something I wished more writers would do with Batman as a detective.  I love the story and how at one point Bruce Wayne was suspected as Jack the Ripper himself given his strange night schedules!  The second story is about a mad man who is an inventor that threaten the city of Gotham to let him rule lest he destroys Gotham from the skies.  This had a steampunk kind of feel (for those who don’t know this is a genre of stories in which there’s steam powered advance technologies taking place in Victorian era period; its part science fiction and part historical fiction!).  The mystery element was also there in the second story in which readers are left wondering who is this mysterious man, how is he able to disappear into the skies and how is he going to destroy Gotham.  Also the chief villain isn’t who one think it is!  I love that!

There were many other things I enjoyed about this book.  The art reflects the 80s yet I also enjoyed it for its details of Victorian setting.  The dialogues were longer; which I immensely appreciate.  It also seems the creative team did some research of the Victorian era.  I also love historical era comics that reference to real person and things in history of that time period; one see in this book Bruce Wayne’s travel to Europe to learn about human psychology from Frued for instance, or the reality of Jack the Ripper.  Also I appreciate how the first story also has the origin story of why Bruce Wayne decided to be Batman but there’s a reversal as to what the Bats mean for young Bruce Wayne.  Its like there’s two mysteries solve in one with the first  Batman story for we also see Batman solves the murder of his parents.  The artwork does give a Gothic feel to the plot without it being dark in an appropriate way for a comic book.  These days it seems some comics focus on making it “adult” in cheap ways rather than giving good story telling.

I went back and forth about whether to give it a rating of a 4 or a 5.  When I think about how I wish DC Comics would publish more of these period piece stories of some of their classic heroes such as Batman that factor pushed it for me to give this a 5.  I do wish DC would continue their Elseworlds series.  For the time being I’m going to be reading some of the old issues in this series.