Batman is always a subject of conversation among DC fans. The character is the publisher’s most popular hero and stars in numerous books every month, much to the consternation of some. He has two ongoing series in Batman and Detective Comics, and so many miniseries and one-shots. All of the best creators have Batman stories in them, and they all get to tell them eventually. That’s one of the givens of the comic industry: if you’re a popular creator, you have a Batman story, and DC will eventually let you tell it. All of these Batman stories end up saturating the market, and they all kind of start to blend together after a while.
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There have been some amazing Batman stories over the decades, but some of them fall through the cracks, and there is one story that I feel definitely doesn’t get the credit it deserves. This story just ended last year, running through two years of Detective Comics. Starting with issue #1062 and ending in issue #1089, “Gotham Nocturne” was the brainchild of writer Ram V, and it is a true Batman epic. In fact, I would go so far as to say it’s the greatest Batman epic ever and we really need to talk about it more often.
“Gotham Nocture” Perfectly Understood How to Tell a Batman Story
“Gotham Noctune” is a 27-issue story, split into multiple story arcs, all building an amazing plot. Each issue of ‘Tec had a main story written by V with back-up stories from Si Spurrier and Dan Watters. Many of the greatest artists DC has access to worked on this story: Rafael Albuquerque, Ivan Reis, Dali, Casper Wijngaard, Liam Sharp, Guillem March, Riccardo Federici, Stefano Raffaele, and so many more. The story saw the Orghams, a family of Indian royalty who helped found Gotham in the distant past, return to take the city back, using magic and money to take control, with only Batman and the heroes and villains of Gotham in their way.
This story basically takes everything you could want from a Batman story and puts it on display. One of the problems with a lot of Batman stories is that they forget how many facets there are to the Dark Knight and Gotham. “Gotham Nocturne” never forgets that. It mixes the mundane and the supernatural brilliantly; the Orghams possess criminals, villains, and Batman himself with azmers, demons they can control, giving them a powerful and secret army take care of problems. They use a “reality engine” to change the way the people of the city react, using every lever they can to take power and prestige from those who already have it. Batman is outmaneuvered at every turn and has to turn to enemies like Two-Face, Talia al Ghul, and Mister Freeze for help. It builds and builds and builds, taking readers to some amazing places.
“Gotham Nocturne” is wild in a way that only lesser-known Batman stories can be. During this time, in Batman, readers were getting Chip Zdarky’s more superhero-oriented Dark Knight stories, the kind of cliché stories you expect from the “main” book. Meanwhile, V was giving readers every aspect of Gotham except the kind of superhero spectacle that most Batman fans aren’t a huge fan of. This is a true epic, its multiple parts serving as movements of a symphony, all part of V’s master plan. The writer is known for bringing Indian culture and mythology to his work, and there’s a lot of that here, with the al Ghuls’ history with the Orghams giving readers Asian stories that they don’t often get in Batman books. It all adds to the flavor of the book, a bit of unexpected spice that makes things so much better
Instead of just focusing on the Bat-characters we see all the time, we get some lesser-known characters: Ten-Eyed Man, Cheshire and her daughter Lian, Azrael, Dr. Hurt, Solomon Grundy, the Vigil, the Joker’s Daughter, and many more. Oracle, Jim Gordon, Renee Montoya, Catwoman, Talia, Two-Face, and Mister Freeze all play important parts in the stories without overshadowing the lesser characters. Even with all of those characters, V is able to develop the Orghams beautifully, giving the family facets and an interesting history to explore. Batman has some amazing villains, and the Orghams fit with them perfectly. This is truly peak Batman in every way.
“Gotham Nocturne” Is Everything You Could Want from a Batman Story
Batman comics can honestly get pretty annoying. There are always great ones, but there are so many of them, and a lot of them concentrate on things that we’ve seen before, in the same ways they’ve been presented in the past. Sometimes, it feels like if you’ve read one type of Bat-story, you’ve read every single one of that type. However, “Gotham Nocturne” is unlike any other Bat-story. It’s a crime story, it’s a superhero story, it’s a story about what it means to be Batman, it’s a supernatural horror story. It’s everything great about Batman in one perfect package.
That’s a big reason why the story works. It’s very long, but each act of the story has a different feel; each of them takes things in new directions, with the back-ups adding to the magic. This story is a perfect example of why comic book collaboration is so magical; so many creators worked in its construction, and it feels seamless. It’s an amazing tale; Ram V is one of the greatest writers currently working in the industry, and “Gotham Nocturne” is a perfect example of why. It’s a huge story, and it can be quite daunting, but give it a try. This is the best Batman story ever, and we all need to talk about it constantly when everyone brings up mid-Batman stories.
What do you think of “Gotham Nocturne”? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
