Detective Comics #996 Review

Writer: Peter J. Tomasi / Artist: Dough Mahnke / DC Comics See Paris and Die! Batman certainly had a bad 2018, and it looks like none of the authors are going to be going easy on him as Tomasi’s arc on Detective Comics continues to push the Dark Knight into truly dark territory. After “interrogating” the inmates at Arkham Asylum, the Bat entrusts Alfred to Damian as Bruce Wayne follows a solitary lead to Paris and Henri Ducard, a.k.a. the man who taught Batman to hunt. Now, I am not as familiar with Batman & Robin: Bad Blood where a lot of the history of the Ducard family originates, but Tomasi gives a quick and dirty summation with a signature Batman scowl. But Batman’s trip down memory lane is only the first stop of an international journey to discover the machinations responsible for the death of Leslie Thompkins and the injury of Alfred Pennyworth. As the march to the milestone continues, Tomasi is taking the opportunity to delve deeper into the Batman mythos and into some of the characters that help make Batman…well Batman. It’s a slow unmaking character of the character, and it errs a little on the esoteric side. However, even if the action moves at several hundred miles of minutes (there’s a lot of metaphorical and literal ground to cover) there is something distinctively Batman about the entire exodus. Tomasi’s Batman is attempting to piece together a puzzle where he is completely out of his depth. He lacks the usual framework of the typical Gotham rogue and th…