Review by Ian Keogh
Arkham Asylum, the discredited psychiatric facility housing many of Batman’s criminally insane foes was destroyed. Gotham’s authorities decided that rather than housing the city’s shame on the city’s outskirts, the replacement facility would be a centrally located tower. Instrumental was the persuasive, yet little known Mr. Wear. It’s state of the art and prioritises treatment and rehabilitation over punishment. Could anything go wrong?
Despite continuing directly from Batman: Detective Comics – Arkham Rising and with Mariko Tamaki writing, this is cover titled Batman: Shadows of the Bat – The Tower. As Batman is almost entirely absent there’s a reason for separating this from the Detective Comics volumes Tamaki writes, and it’s Batgirl, Batwoman, Huntress, Nightwing and Oracle as the shadows playing prominent roles here.
Tamaki is first teamed with Ivan Reis, an artist with a spectacular back catalogue who delivers page after stunning page of art (sample left). Action scene or conversation are given the same polished gloss, and after his four chapters Max Raynor picks up the baton, with The Tower completed by Amancay Nahuelpan (sample right). This is one amazing looking story from start to finish. It also reads pretty well.
Tamaki structures The Tower as a three act play with distinct breaks, meaning the switch to a different artist is no adjustment. She initially takes a fragmented approach to the storytelling, showing in the first chapter that it takes just over three weeks after opening for all hell to break loose, and dotting back and forth showing how the primary cast have infiltrated the facility beforehand and what they’ve discovered. There are mysteries, not least how the patients are being kept so docile, and Tamaki closes the fourth chapter by dropping her revelation, which is a good one involving a face familiar to DC devotees, if not necessarily Batman’s world.
What seemed out to be one type of story actually concerns another kind of crime, and it’s very clever. With readers now in on the secret and the heroes unaware Tamaki uses the middle four chapters to progress a little further as she fills in the background, while the finale may seem to be heading for predictable mayhem, but three surprise late introductions keep things fresh and change everything.
Unless you’re adamant all Gotham stories should have Batman at their heart, this crime thriller should press all the right buttons. It’s unpredictable and the art is stunning, and the book closes with more great art in a cover gallery featuring plenty of Bermejo and Jorge Molina paintings. From here Tamaki completes her Detective run with Riddle Me This, and you may also want to check out Shadows of the Bat: House of Gotham.
