I’m coming into Ram V’s Detective Comics run late, and probably with more foreknowledge and preconceived notions than is useful — that it will run five volumes, that it is patterned as something of a gothic opera, that reviews of this run were mixed.

All of this ran parallel to Chip Zdarsky’s Batman run, which went so far as to introduce a major antagonist into the Absolute Power crossover and barely mentioned Detective if at all. That is, at the outset of Batman: Detective Comics Vol. 1: Gotham Nocturne: Overture, whereas usually I might wonder what Ram V’s run might say about Batman and how long it might go on and whether it might be in some way definitive, I already know the answer to most of those questions in the negative.

Which is not to say a just-so Batman story can’t be meaningful. Also, while knowing the length of the run dampens what would be some of my usual first volume considerations, a tight five-volume cohesive ride can itself be appealing. Mainly, having seen now the strong presence of Jim Gordon in this story, I’m curious to see how Detective might or might not dovetail with the Gordon-centric final volume of Zdarsky’s Batman.

[Review contains spoilers]

But one volume in, and maybe I’m judging too harshly, but my reaction was largely “meh.” Talia is here, seemingly right after she was leaving the scene following Batman: Shadow War, immediately giving the sense of the story retreading old ground. Also Barbatos, whom I guess we last saw in Dark Nights: Metal but it feels like it was more recent? Either way, at the same time Zdarsky is mining Grant Morrison’s Zur-En-Arrh, Ram V is using Morrison and Scott Snyder’s Barbatos again, and so far there’s not much that feels new and different.

Further, there’s a recurring idea in Overture of Bruce Wayne getting older — too old, perhaps, to go jumping rooftops every night — which equally we also saw in Zdarsky’s Batman. That’s not Ram V’s fault — I could as easily have registered that complaint the other way around if I’d read this first — but it again adds that note of repetitiveness. It also seems to me a flaw of the more-prominent-than-ever Bat-family if Nightwing in leadership positions and such leads not one but two writers to think about how Batman’s too old or slow for superheroing. It’s a trope not particularly appetizing for the reader, which I hope DC’s got out of their system now.

I am not usually a fan of Batman and the supernatural, though in this self-contained setting I don’t mind it as much. Given again how disconnected this run is, DC could as easily have billed this as a mystical Batman maxi-series along the lines of Batman: Damned or the more recent Batman: Full Moon and, thus prepared, it wouldn’t have piqued me anyway. But artist Rafael Albuquerque is strong with a zombie at the beginning and comics coloring stalwart Dave Stewart brings some excellent neon to the horror scenes, making for a fun time in the demons and monsters genre.

At some point, the currently destroyed Arkham Asylum will be rebuilt (just the same as Gordon being commissioner again and Alfred Pennyworth returning to life). In the meantime, I thought Ram V’s idea was clever, that the destruction of the asylum was the catalyst for the occult “Orgham” family with ties to ancient Gotham to renew their reign. We do end up in another familiar situation — lack of knowledge about Gotham’s history leaves Batman unawares — and in the climax it seems everyone knows about the Prince Arzen Orgham arriving at the Gotham docks except Batman — but it works at least as a premise. I’ll be interested to see if Ram V draws a line between the Orghams and the established Arkhams (Jeremiah et al.) or if that particular history will just be left aside for now.

It is good to see Jim Gordon here, with Simon Spurrier penning a horror-infused noir tale with art by Dani (Low, Low Woods, Arkham City: Order of the World). I was somewhat surprised that Spurrier presents Gordon so defeated, given this collection runs parallel to his relative triumph in Joker Vol. 3. At the same time, I also know Gordon’s going to end up in even worse straits by the time Batman Vol. 5: The Dying City comes around, so again, I’m looking for some meeting between this and that. I did note Ram V’s suggestion that Gordon thinks he knows Batman’s identity, which equally relates to Dying City; maybe Gotham Nocturne is more relevant than I thought and I just don’t know about it.

As mentioned, Albuquerque draws some convincing horror in the book’s beginning and I’m impressed with his range; I originally knew Albuquerque as an artist with a “cartoony” style, though my understanding is that this is more common for him than that. Toward the end there were some bits of melodrama, like the flop sweat on Commissioner Montoya’s forehead, that felt like they veered back to the cartoony, and I hope that rights itself in the next volume.

It’s early days, of course, but again some of what seems to come out of Ram V’s Batman: Detective Comics Vol. 1: Gotham Nocturne: Overture is this idea of Batman old and tired, chided by Barbatos over what he’s failed to accomplish. That’s wholly old hat, asked and answered, and the only thing that could make it worse is if Batman were forced to realize, yet again, that his family is his legacy, a la what Chip Zdarsky just did and what other writers have done before him. It’s just the overture, but so far this is a familiar tune.

[Includes original and variant covers, promotional art, sketchbook, script page, logo designs]