Originally published on Patreon
The second issue of Ram V's new run on Detective Comics continues to play out as a strange, almost dream-like mystery where you're hard pressed to know what's going on. Batman is investigating a series of strange events across the city where people are being changed into monsters via magic and music.
In this issue he tries to discover more information, first by visiting the reformed Harvey Dent (who's sporting an odd new look), and then by visiting the criminal Maestro so that he can examine the unusual music box Batman has discovered.
We get hints as to what might be happen by following Batman, with him learning more about the music box and the strange 'black noise' that it emits, which may explain the drastic effects it seems to have on people. But the biggest information reveals comes from following the members of the Orgham family; who we learn are part of the Arkham family.
It looks like the Orghams feel like they have a claim to Gotham, especially the old Arkham properties, and are coming to claim the city with magic and demons.
I'm sure many of us have seen Batman go up against various strange threats over the years, aliens, gods, demons, and villains from other worlds, but it still feels a little odd when the fantastical happens in a book like Detective Comics. Whilst there may be a more grounded explanation to come later in the story, for now it looks like magic and demons are the big thing behind the Orgham family. And whilst this absolutely fits within the DC Universe, it feels slightly jarring to see Batman investigating the case the same way he would any other crime.
I also found Harvey Dent to be a little odd here too. Having seen him in Task Force Z recently I knew that he'd reformed and was trying to do better, but there he at least looked like the Harvey Dent you'd know. Here he's sporting a new look, with a grey streak in his hair, and a fancy golden mask across the scarred part of his face. As far as I'm aware, this is the first appearance of this new look, and it certainly adds to the feeling of unease and weirdness, as Dent's new golden face brings forth images from classic mythology.
The art on the book is decent, and it certainly helps to set the mood and the tone tanks to the way it's coloured. There are times where the book begins to feel like it might be messing with reality and the way you're seeing things, due in large part to the way the colours start to shift, or the way characters are drawn; so the art here is definitely a big art of the storytelling process.
I'm not sure how I feel about the new series yet, and I think I'm going to have to have a bit more of the story before I can make my mind up. There are some interesting things here, and some stuff that feels a bit weirder than I was expecting. Hopefully by the time more issues are out I'll have a more solid opinion.
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