DC Announces Shadows of the Bat Event

By Jenna Anderson - September 15, 2021 09:00 am EDT

The Gotham City corner of DC Comics definitely isn't slowing down, especially as the Fear State event is expected to shake up the status quo in some significant ways. Fans have been eager to see exactly what that could entail — and in this week's DC Connect #17, we began to get our answer. The publisher has officially announced Shadows of the Bat, a twelve-week event that will follow various Gotham heroes and villains into a dark conspiracy within Gotham. The series will be written by Mariko Tamaki (Detective Comics, Future State: Dark Detective), with a rotating array of artists that includes Ivan Reis (Action Comics) and Danny Miki (Batman), Max Raynor (Challenge of the Super Sons), Amancay Nahuelpan (Crush & Lobo) and Jordie Bellaire (Batman). It will also feature back-up stories written by Matthew Rosenberg (Task Force Z), with art by Fernando Blanco (Catwoman).

In Shadows of the Bat, out of the ashes of Arkham Asylum, Arkham Tower rises in Gotham City... but the tower soon falls to the inmates and Batman's allies are drawn back into the madness at the heart of Gotham, and the plans of the mysterious Dr. Wear. The back-up stories, meanwhile, will explore Arkham's dark history.

The Shadows of the Bat event is expected to be teed up with a prelude in November's Detective Comics 2021 Annual, which will be co-written by Tamaki and Rosenberg with art by David Lapham (Stray Bullets) and Trish Mulvihill (Birds of Prey). That issue will see Mayor Nakano sign off on the new Arkham Tower, and Batman and Nightwing grapple with their opposing ideas on the place of Arkham in Gotham City, and with a new villain, The Maeger Man. The event will then properly kick off in Detective Comics #1047, which is on sale on January 4, 2022.

You can find the solicitation info for Detective Comics #1047 and #1048 below, and keep scrolling to check out!

DETECTIVE COMICS #1047