Batman Gotham by Gaslight: A League for Justice #2 // Review
There’s this guy who is in from out of town. The reporter Lois Lane is calmly telling him that the bank is closed. She’s asking him if there’s something else that he might want that ISN’T in the bank. This would seem like kind of a casual encounter if it wasn’t in the middle of the night and the gentleman in question wasn’t at the helm of a giant robot that just transformed from a train. Things continue to get weird in Batman Gotham by Gaslight: A League for Justice #2. Writer Andy Diggle continues another trip into one of DC’s most venerable Elseworlds with artist Leandro Fernández and colorist Matt Hollingsworth.
It’s Lex Luthor. He’s up there in the cockpit of that infernal contraption that towers over everything else in the tiny, midwestern city. Lois is bravely stopping the progress of the giant steampunk mecha so that Jimmy Olsen can get a picture of the thing. It’s a perfectly harmless gesture, but that doesn’t mean that she’s not in a hell of a lot of danger. There aare some rather powerful people who might be able to help, but they’re all having a rather aggressive, little conversation high above it all in an airship. Hopefully they can pry themselves away from their own animosity for long enough to save the day.
Diggle has an interesting series of problems to work out with respect to translating the extended world of the DC Universe onto the page for the 19th century era. It’s a time over half a century before the majority of these characters were introduced. Some of the characters fit together quite well. Others have a bit of a stretch to them. The problem is that there isn’t much new in the story beyond the novelty of finding it planted in another era. Everything that’s going on on the page is an echo of what’s already happened.
Fernández has done an admirable job of translating the look and feel of the iconic characters into the Victorian era. The drama hits the page with the strong impact of heavy inks. Wonder Woman looks particularly powerful with the heavy rendering and open embrace of ancient warrior iconography. Clark continues to look and move like a bit of a cross between Superman and the Lone Ranger, which is pretty cool in its own way. The superhero action is well-framed on the page with plenty of mood and luminosity thanks to the sharp coloring work of Hollingsworth.
There’s real narrative power in the global vision of the story that Diggle is crafting. It keeps it from feeling too much like it’s falling into one subgenre or the other. There’s a cowboy feel to it. There’s a steampunk feel to it. There’s a Victorian feel to it. There’s an otherworldly Verne aesthetic going on. There’s even a little bit of a conspiratorial hottot King in Yellow sort of a thing going on that feels interesting. Diggle is reaching in interesting directions with the story even if they don’t always feel all that original.
