Gotham After Midnight

Opening with the words 'I'm Batman' this is a story which explores a more confident Batman, at least in the beginning. All of his major villains are established - and some of his minor villains too. We see a few of them in this volume, manipulated and used in a similar way to the manner in which Bane or Hush uses Batman's minor villains to wear him down.

Batman is hunting down Scarecrow, who has just escaped from Arkham (which we are informed of via a windswept newspaper headline). We see his confidence as he confronts Crane, who uses his trademark fear gas, only to discover that Batman has been exposing himself to the gas to build up a resistance. This is the Batman who is prepared for anything. Other examples of his preparation are demonstrated when he fakes his own death to try and get to the mastermind behind these events early on, and in the large combat suit which Alfred questions but is later useful in fighting an oversized Clayface.

However, in the midst of the panic surrounding the gruesome murders where the killer 'Midnight' takes the hearts of his victims, something begins to change in Gotham. A GCPD detective, April Clarkson, is taking the credit for the villains that Batman is taking down. As the murders become more frequent, and more of Batman's villains make their appearance, he starts to lose his confidence and begins to shut people out and make mistakes. The fight between Batman and Clayface that I mentioned earlier destroys many of the cities buildings, which leads to some of the public losing their confidence in the. Bat as well.

Here we see Bruce Wayne's influence on Gotham as well, when he holds a fundraiser to help repair the damage caused by the fight. It's not often we see the repercussions of Batman's war on crime in this way, at least not so far in the timeline, so it's interesting to see Bruce Wayne doing his part to help the Batman's cause. It is as this fundraiser that he begins to fall for April Clarkson, which is another event that causes a domino effect later on in the story.

The artwork in this story is very different to most of the artwork so far, with a lot of the panels having a very surreal and dreamlike style to them. Whilst reading, this did sometimes have a disorienting effect, meaning I had to go back and read some panels again. But then looking back it did reflect the mental state of Batman as he became drawn further into the case and the ongoing fight with 'Midnight'.

Midnight is an interesting villain, who spreads panic and chaos throughout Gotham, to the point where crime figures hit an all time low. Some question whether this is necessarily a bad thing, as Midnight achieves results that Batman can only dream of. At one point Midnight even offers to let Batman join forces with him, so they can clean up Gotham City together. Obviously, Batman sticks to his morals and refuses.

Tragedy strikes about midway through the story, which again calls into question the idea of whether anyone can ever truly get close to Batman without being hurt. Over the years there have been so many people who have been caught in the crossfire between Batman and his villains, but as Alfred points out in the end, it is the people around Batman who give him hope. Even though Batman doesn't always appreciate the help at the time.

An interesting character development for Batman here was in seeing him lash out in frustration, destroying equipment and becoming more distant as he hit dead end after dead end. This worked especially well given the contrast to how confident he was at the start, and helped to demonstrate that he is still in the earlier years of his career.

Things come full circle though, and in the final confrontation with Midnight's brainwashed villains, we see the confident Dark Knight again. Even though the odds are stacked in his favour five to one, he removes the brainwashing commands and takes out each villain as the GCPD look on. A GCPD officer, presumably a rookie, comments to Commissioner Gordon 'Are you seeing this commissioner? He's amazing.' And so the legend of Batman is strengthened once more, giving hope to Gotham's citizens whilst installing fear in its criminals.

The final reveal of the mystery was well handled, even though it was a twist I did see coming (easy to say after reading, but it's true). I loved that the villain managed to get under Batman's skin and truly hurt him. Not many Batman villains manage that, so it's a testament to the writing of Steve Niles that this villain did it in a believable way.

This was a fantastic read, despite the sometimes confusing artwork, and one which I had never heard of before. I recommend that you go out and read it if you haven't yet, and see what happens to Gotham, and Batman, after midnight.

Next up - Strange Apparitions