Detective Comics #1000

This landmark issue came out this week, and it’s a big one!  Like Action Comics #1000, it contains several unconnected stories that pay homage to the history of Batman and his rogues galleries.  The range from funny to action-packed and serious.  There’s also several variant covers.  Thanks to my LCS for doing everything they could, save physically forcing me, to grab this issue.  It’s worth it.

The Cover

As I mentioned, there are a lot of variant covers.  I picked up the 1970’s themed cover by Bernie Wrightson and Alex Sinclair.  It features Batman kneeling on a roof, with a red sky in the background, the Bat-Signal looks like it’s burning through the clouds.  Of them all it was my favourite.  I dig it.

The Art

It’s hard to pin the art down on this book, as each story has its own artist and writer.  This gives each one a unique feel, and these teams did a great job.  While the art is more of a modern style, it still pays homage to the entire history of Batman.  There are some different looks, but the book still feels like it has a consistent atmosphere throughout.  It’s just really hard to pick favourites visually.

The Story

This book is broken up into several stories, each handled by a different writer.  They have different feels to them, but all still distinctively fit as a Batman story.  Some are lighter than others, like the one involving Knute Brody the worst henchman in Gotham, or the Bat-Family gathering for a group photo.  There are also more mysterious stories, such as the opener(but hey, I’m a sucker for Detective Chimp), and historical ones.

All told you can tell each creative team took their duties with this issue seriously, and poured their hearts and souls into this character that is such an important part of pop culture.

Though this book may not have any real impact on the ongoing Detective Comics story-lines, this book is still very much worth picking up, and it’s going to be one that’s easy to re-read again and again.