Comics Review: Prelude to "Night of the Owls"

Batman #1

DC's new 52 initiative saw a rebirth of the classic "Batman" line of comics, with Snyder's new series in the forefront. From the first page, Snyder captures a specific style. This is a story of Gotham City as much as it is Batman, because the two are linked. We begin with Batman and Grayson (as Joker) stopping a breakout in Arkham. Then, Wayne publicly introduces plans to rebuild Gotham, to make it better. Wayne leaves his rafter early, however, to investigate a murder, of a man stabbed dozens of times by knives with an owl imprint. Analysis of tissue under the victim's fingernails, using his new eye chip connection to the bat cave computers, yields Grayson's name. The artwork by Capullo is beautiful to look at, and fitting for the style of Batman. And the framing of the issue, around the question of what Gotham is, is such a nice touch. This is my second time reading the issue, and it's a treat.

 

Batman #2

As issue two begins, Batman narrates the history of the century-old Wayne Tower. Snyder's focus on Gotham, almost as a character, really adds to this story, especially when Batman later says the city is perhaps his oldest friend. Gordon checks out the body of the stabbed man at the morgue, and while the coroner finds nothing, Batman notes he was likely a high-end trainer, and he also had an owl imprinted onto his tooth. Grayson visits, and says this man cornered him and warned him during a recent event, but Dick brushed it odd until now. That's likely where the DNA sample came from. Later, Wayne meets with mayoral candidate March on the top of Wayne Tower when they're both attacked by an owl. Wayne barely survives, using his knowledge of Wayne architecture to his advantage. As the issue closes, Wayne reinforces that, the city. Wing his oldest friend, he knows the court of owls, famous from a nursery rhyme, cannot exist in his city.

 

Batman #3

Ask the story begins, we see an old An Wayne,who built Wayne Tower,rambling about owls and nests before disappearing. In the present, Btman is beating up the last of five gangs, figuring that end of them let the owl in through the rail lines. Alas, it's to no avail. Alfred later tells Bruce of the story of Alan Wayne's death, how he died falling into a manhole, but was obsessed with owls, even thinking they were nested inside his home. Bruce leaves to talk to March, who says he was warned recently of evil in Gotham, and had an owl found in his own home recently. March said perhaps Bruce didn't know about the owls because they didn't want him to, but maybe the new Gotham initiative put him in their sight. Batman starts investigating architecture funded by a scholarship from Alan Wayne, and finds that in the small 13th floor, there are owls nests everywhere, spanning over a century of history. As Batman investigates, one apartment blows up.

There's some really nice artwork, especially the panel showing Alfred and Wayne talking from the viewpoint of the mask. This time, Snyder focuses on the superstition of immigrants to Gotham, and how that influenced Gotham's architecture.


 

Batman #4

This issue begins with Batman explaining the true nature of a tripwire. Is meant to fear and intimidate, but as Batman doesn't scare easily, he just escapes. Back in the cave, he starts analyzing the bones of Alan Wayne, when Dick drops by. Batman mentions to him that he knows the court doesn't exist, because he investigated it extensively shortly after his parents death. Bruce couldn't accept the randomness of their death, felt something more nefarious was behind it. It ultimately led him to what he felt was the court's base, but it was just a dusty old room. A room he accidentally trapped himself in for a week, before being found comatose by Alfred. Since then, Batman kept an eye out for the owls, but never let himself get emotionally involved in a case again. Batman deduces that Alan Wayne died by stabbing, and went on the sewers to find out more, when the Talon corners him, and pushes him into the owl's maze. The artwork here remains stellar, especially the flashbacks to young Bruce's investigations, with the Gotham map, notes, and more in the backdrop.

 

Batman #5

Batman is trapped in a maze, playing the same story over and over. A room with pictures. A room with coffins. A room with his dead parents. A big owl. A bowl of water. Over and over, room after room. Batman starts going insane, hallucinatory and delusional. Meanwhile, Gordon keeps the bat-signal on for days, as a symbol to the other members of the bat family, and as a statement to the criminals. When the signal burns out, Robin tells him to make a new one.

 

Batman #6

The Talon finds the Batman, and ultimately defeats him in combat. Talon then leaves it up to the court to decide what to do with him, and the littlest one, a child, decides to have him beat more. So Batman is beat near death, and about to give up, when he sees the final picture of Alan Wayne before his death, scared. This gives Batman the will to keep fighting, and he defeats Talon and escapes, burning part of the owl nest in the process. By then, too tired to swim, he starts drowning in the waters under Gotham. Meanwhile, the seeming leader of the owls, an elderly woman, decides to get rid of the defeated Talon, but wants to reawaken the remainders, who were sleeping in that room of coffins.

 

Batman #7

Batman starts by talking about what the ancients believed you saw before death. Your life as it really was. But then, Batman is shocked back into reality by a girl named Harper, and makes his way back to the batcave. There, he finds that Alfred found the body of the dead talon, and Bruce starts examining him. Dick comes down during the examination, and Bruce mentions that the corpse was infused with a metal that kept him alive until needed, and helped him regenerate. And he tells Dick that the man was Dick's great-grandfather, and that Dick himself was in line to become a talon, until his parents died and Bruce took him in. It looked like Dick even had an owl in his tooth, the owl that gave the person the chemical to keep them alive and healing. Meanwhile, back at owl HQ, many more talons are reactivated and sent into Gotham to defeat Batman and take back the city.

 

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