[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: James Tynion IV
Artists: Eddy Barrows, Eder Ferreira & Adriano Lucas
Summary
What drives a man to become who they are? What becomes of our hopes and our intent when they meet real life?
Tim Drake has learned and will learn the hard way exactly what happens. While on the run from Doomsday, Tim learns a lot about himself, or his future self. A Batman who has been banned from Gotham, who works alone, and most of all, one that kills.
We see this Batman’s history, a fractured future where the Belfry failed and was destroyed. All of their allies have been slain or have abandoned the fight. Even Stephanie has abandoned him and taken up with Anarky.
How is this Batman connected to Tim? Is he from a fractured time line? What will happen if and when they both finally arrive in Tim’s timeline?
Positives
The art and writing in this issue are up to the quality that we have come to expect from Detective Comics. Eddy Barrows always has a great and detailed take on Batman and Gotham. We are shown a deep dive into Tim’s considerable genius and psyche. As of late we have not had any serious look into Drake’s life, thoughts, or motives, other than a look at his love life of course, so this is definitely welcome.
Negatives
This issue brings up some out-there story ideas for a Detective Comics issue, but as comics stories in general go, it’s reiterating quite a bit. We have a character’s future-self corrupted, or rather changed beyond what makes sense for the character. Their world is destroyed. And of course, how is it that the current time’s character, our Tim, can fix things. It feels much like a rehashed idea here and doesn’t add a lot to the story other than to give us a hint about how Batwoman will later interact with the Belfry.
The art in this issue at times looks flat. This is especially noticeable in the shots of Doomsday. The coloring and shading in him doesn’t do a good job at creating depth, even though other depth cues are used like occlusion and relative size.
Verdict
Detective Comics #966 continues the second that #965 ended, it is packed with action, suspense, and signs of doom for the future. Unfortunately, it feels bland in it’s delivery and unoriginal.
