Featured Review: Batman Black Mirror

Writer: Scott Snyder

Artist: Jock; Francesco Francavilla

Colors: David Baron; Francesco Francavilla

Letters: Jared K. Fletcher

Cover: Jock

Black Mirror is often be used to refer to two things in relation to Batman. The first is Snyder, Jock, and Francavilla’s seminal Detective Comics run, the final issues of the legendary series. It can also refer to the title of the leadoff three-issue story arc that began in Detective Comics #871. For the purposes of this review, we’ll be focusing on the latter.

While the 11-issue run is considered by this writer to be the best Batman story to date, this opening salvo is not as strong as later stories. It is a solid start that clearly lays out the tone, characters, and themes the following stories will explore.

Gotham as a living city that shifts under inhabitants feet is an idea Snyder often returned in his decade of work on Batman stories. It always has more mysteries and villains waiting in the wings. That all starts here.

This story released back during the Batman Inc. era where Dick Grayson was the Batman of Gotham while Bruce was gallivanting across the world fighting spies. That may be the key to why this period of Snyder's Batman is his strongest. Snyder’s preferred mix of horror with a tinge of humor fits better with his interpretation of Dick than his super serious Bat-God take on Bruce.

Perhaps more importantly, this is not a comic about Batman. He is certainly a central character, but it could be argued Jim and Barbara Gordon are the protagonists of the larger story, though not this one.

Except the backups, that is. These are the segments with art by Francavilla and as well as they are written, they would be significantly worse without his profound mood setting abilities. Much of this story is framed like a classic noir with cool colors (especially blue) and blacks coating the characters. Until evil enters the pictures. Suddenly pages are awash in harsh reds as Jim realizes his son is back in town.

Jim Jr. is interestingly only painted in red on a single panel at the end of the second installment. Every other appearance has him in blues and blacks. This comes at the conclusion of a chapter that has Jim Sr. and his daughter covered in reds and everything else in the standard blues. It seems to symbolize the evil on their mind while Jr. does not believe himself to be evil, and thus evil is not on his mind.

Jock and Baron’s pages have much more variety in colors, though almost every scene has its own primary color with directly related ones sharing palettes. They also get to play with some surreal imagery when Dick is gets infected with fear toxin.

Perhaps the most notable visual element is the panels. Francavilla and Jock both like to experiment with layouts, though Jock is the more adventurous. One of his favorite layouts is essentially a splash page with a number of panels laid on top so as to approximate any number of traditional layouts.

Even on more conventional pages, Fletcher tends to have some fun. His word balloons often break panel borders in atypical ways. It is never confusing though. Lettering is not a subject that is often discussed (including by myself) but Fletcher is exceptional here.

Detective Comics #871-873 are not the best comics you will ever read. They are, however, good and provide solid building blocks for the incredible story thus crew would go on to create over the remaining eight issues of their time together. It also serves as the basis for many of Dick Grayson’s stories throughout the 2010s. You should read it; you will not regret it.