Batman: Reptilian #1 Review

 Writer: Garth Ennis

Artist: Liam Sharp

Rating: 5 of 8

Batman: Reptilian #1

There's more than one kind of monster. When you think of monsters, you probably think of demons, vampires, or werewolves - things like that. But those are just things of myth and legends. The worst ones, the ones that really haunt you, are entirely real.

In Batman's line of work, he comes across many of these and how he deals with them varies, depending on his mood and the depths of their lunacy. Here, he confronts Edgar Licchario, a boxer that's been recently exonerated. He lays into him in the most brutal way possible, before he finds a legal reason to hurt him.

Ultimately, it's not fully clear whether Edgar is a guilty man who got away with it, or an innocent one who just got through a brutal ordeal. Batman believes it's the former and goes some way to enacting his own kind of 'justice'. It's here we get a glimpse of a far more vengeful Dark Knight than we usually see, though it does fit with the nastiness often seen in Ennis' tales.

It's not what I like to see from the character, though given the writer and that it's more of an adult tale, it does make sense. Though the series promises a monster killing various Gotham villains, we don't actually get to see it here. Here, we get the aftermath of the killings and Batman attempting to figure out just who - or what - was behind them.

Here, we get a different edge to the line 'Batman doesn't kill', as the Knight turns it into a threat, telling one thug ''I'm far, far worse than that multicolored rabble. I will not let you die''. When you hear things like that, you can see why anyone would be afraid of him.

When it comes to the art, there's parts of it that are really impressive, like just how fearsome Sharp makes Batman, how deep he makes the shadows, or just how imposing he makes Edgar. But then there's other parts that disappointed me, like just how small he makes Scarecrow, who's usually a lot larger than he is here. Then there's the Joker, who looks a lot more like a clown with a bruised nose, instead of the refined, yet unhinged, killer he usually is.

Overall, a pretty mixed issue, that ultimately disappointed me. Though if you're up for a darker Batman, with a very different visual style to most books on the shelf, this is probably the one for you.