By Dustin Cabeal

If there is one thing that DC excels at in the comic book and movie realm, it’s creating interesting variations of their characters. Each iteration of Batman on film has been successful because of the tweaks and adjustments. It’s the film makers version of Batman rather than the definitive version of the character. You may be wondering why I’ve brought up the Batman/DC movies on a comic book review, well because they share many similarities with what DC has always done in the comics. Look at Frank Miller’s numerous Batman titles and just in recent years the Black Label has become a haunt of different versions of Batman.

Truly DC excels when they abandoned the shared universe. My two cents on the matter is that if they were to give up on the shared universe in their comics the way they have in the movies, they would see the same level of success. Does anyone care when Superman stops by to see Batman anymore? It wasn’t thrilling on the big screen and really no one says it can’t happen. If DC were smart, they would pump out a hundred versions of characters and see what entices readers and then expand and keep the successful ones. You can still have your other characters stop by, but you don’t have to worry about if this lines up with another storyline that people may or may not be reading. Don’t believe me? How many volumes of White Knight have there been? How many seasons of Harley Quinn on HBO? DC has primed the audience without even realizing it.

My other reasoning for this is that younger audiences rarely go back and digest everything before it. Intrigue them for six issues and get them to dabble with other books over and over again. New readers don’t give a shit that Batman once had his back broken by Bane and then all that was erased in a total missed opportunity of a reboot. Mentioning it will send them to Wikipedia, not their local comic shop. They just want something like Batman: The Imposter that’s easy to digest with familiar elements.

Part of me really didn’t care that I was reading another take on Batman that still felt strangely like an origin story without being one. The part of me that kept reading told that part to shut up and just enjoy this very grounded Batman story. Given that it was written by a Hollywood creator, it’s not surprising that it has TV mini-series feel and pacing to it. It might have been too similar to Nolan’s Batman in which he takes a lot of pointless damage, this Batman is a knife sponge just soaking up every knife on the page. He’s a shit fighter too which was at odds with his narration which seemed to present Batman as intelligent and well-trained. He gets stabbed a lot though. Without counting I would say at least 7 or 8 times. You were probably expecting double digits, but I’ve never been stabbed 7 or 8 times in my life so that feels like a lot.

The other thing to note about Batman: The Imposter, is that unlike most Batman stories this is more of Bruce Wayne’s story than Batman’s story. Which isn’t a bad thing. The neglect and piss poor attempts at building Bruce Wayne as a separate character from Batman, has frankly been poor at best in recent years. The character has to be thrown into another series and given a love interest to get any kind of development outside of the cowl. Imposter may not build the best Bruce Wayne ever, but for once it wasn’t a disappointment or a waste to see Bruce on the page. The downside being that when knife sponge Batman shows up, it is a bit of a disappointment.

To jump over to the art for a moment, the Bat-a-rangs and the subsequent throwing of the Bat-a-rangs was one of the most disappointing aspects of this comic. It was overly presented on the page, given a massive panel for this tiny looking Bat-a-rang that Batman could throw with just two fingers… and hit absolutely nothing. The first time seemed like a miss. The second time, I became cautious and the third time I began to feel that it was just filler on the page or that there was a massive disconnect between the script and the art. The panels are intense and dynamic, but I’m left wondering if at times it was at a detriment to the story. The two-page splashes in particular don’t seem to have any substance worth reading on them, instead it’s there solely for the art to shine, but without a purpose it feels like a giant page of filler. Sure, it’s beautiful, but the most striking pages say something to the story with or without words and this is just a clever panel layout with a bunch of stuff crammed on the page.

Much like the story, the art feels more grounded. It’s less fantastical and more hyper-realistic with its execution. Gotham feels like a believable city that people would in fact keep living in regardless of giant bats and other lunatics running the streets. One of our characters says it best, “I tried to leave Gotham once.” This line and the art that accompanied it gave the feeling that there’s nowhere else on earth like Gotham, that once it’s in your blood it’s there to stay. You don’t escape Gotham; you survive it for as long as you can. I’m projecting a bit there, but that’s what the story inspired in me upon reading.

There are three to four major elements going on within the story. There’s the mystery of the imposter killing criminals dressed as Batman. The question of whether the symbol of Batman can every be cleaned once it’s been tainted. The mental health of a man dressing as a bat instead of using his status and money to fix Gotham in another way and while these are all very meta internet conversations that people have brought up and joked about, there is one story thread that I found the most interesting and refreshing. For the first time that I know of, they give Bruce another person that understands his pain. Detective Blair Wong had her parents gunned down in front of her as a child as well and this creates an interesting connection for Bruce Wayne, not Batman. The entire relationship between Bruce and Blair is complex and yet simple to understand. It’s one of the most meaningful relationships that’s ever been given to the character and that’s saying a lot given how many members of the “Bat Family” there are.

I’m going to bounce back to my point about abandoning the shared continuity of the DCU because Blair Wong seems like a character, they’d instantly want to introduce to the normal DCU, but also a character that wouldn’t work in the least bit when slapped in with the rest of the Fam. A series in which we continue to explore the complexities of Bruce/Blair and Batman is something I would absolutely subscribe to as a reader.

That’s not to say that every character introduced in the story is creative and refreshing. The book takes the biggest dump ever on Alfred Pennyworth, making him come across like a heartless monster that’s just working for the weekend. Dr. Leslie Thompson tows the middle of being a great supporting character and also a broken record. At first, her veiled threats of turning Bruce over to the police creates a reason and a purpose for her in the story. It works as an outlet for Bruce Wayne to talk about Batman without fear of incarceration. It then seems to be the only thing she can say night after night. Even Bruce isn’t buying it and I think the acknowledgment that she was never going to turn him in from both parties, but still having him continue therapy would have said more about both. Bruce realizing on some level that he needs an outlet to talk about his life as Batman is more profound to the character and ultimately the story.

Though Batman: The Imposter is an entertaining read overall, it’s slow to start and it nearly lost me in that start. I also couldn’t imagine reading it as a monthly series. It’s a better story read in one sitting. After reading Imposter as a trade, I would be more interesting now in reading a monthly series set in this world. That’s mostly due to the groundwork done in this story which is why I said it’s a feels like an origin story without truly being one.

While the name “Black Label” is catching and memorable, it also gives the impression of being dark and mature. Which Imposter is not; It doesn’t fit with the DCU and it’s obviously not for children, so it gets shuffled to the Black Label and hey if this is the type of stories to expect then I’m all for it. Black Label should and can be the place where the hundreds of versions can come to be developed and created and while this is a successful and interesting Batman story, it would be nice to see similar takes on other DC characters.

In the meantime, if you’re a fan of a more grounded and realistic Batman, that absorbs knife stabs, then Imposter is the read for you. If you’re more Batman than Bruce Wayne, then wait for something else to strike your fancy.