Shop, Drop and Comic Review

This time the comic in my sexy little hands is Batman: Arkham City #1!

I had to wait a while for this one, they sold out this prequel to the video game sequel issue straight away. There's only going to be five issues and smelling a collector's item, some eBay peoples already had the single issue up for something around ten bucks. Ouch.

It's penned by the Harley Quin creatin' machine Paul Dini and illustrated by Carlos D'anda, who I haven't heard of but I'm sure he's pretty cool too.

RUINS

Opening on a flashback to the end of the Arkham Asylum game where a Titan formula using Joker is defeated by an exploding Batman, the first five pages (showing a glimpse of Harley Quinn) were previewed in a few DC comics and foreshadowed a messy end to a now possibly terminal and weak Joker.

I love that Harley Quinn - even on her sane and legal outings - carries part of her jester identity with her at all times. Diamond studded jeans, two-toned jackets, dyed hair... all that jazz. I was a bit surprised that an asylum would let her keep anything that would trigger her Harley Quinn persona though, she's seen here with her hair still pigtailed in two-toned hairbands and on her hands she wears the fingerless alternate black and red gloves from the game and has alternate nail polish to match.

Obviously they've let her keep her make-up as well. Or else she's going for a new Pierrot style makeover via mascara. I'm sure they wouldn't have given her anything sharp either, but her cell is adorned with Harley + Joker engravings, various love hearts and what have you. That's my girl.

Mayor Sharp is about to give a speech on the television box and is shown talking to his psychiatrist via web cam in his dressing room. As he makes his speech about empowering Gotham and removing 'super-criminals', the newsreaders comment on the anti-costume theme and how little a role Sharp played in restoring order to Arkham but the psychiatrist's voice in his earpiece calms him down.

Commissioner Gordon watches the show in disgust, voicing his opinions on it to Batman. Batman comes out from the shadows to take on another Titan problem, the T&T twins and the trail leads him to Harvey Dent. Two Face confirms that they were in his gang but then turned against him when they started using the drug without his knowledge.

Best bit: A before and after photo of the twins.
Batman: 'And you never suspected a thing?'

Come on dude, they were your bodyguards! You didn't connect the dots between your buying a shipment of Titan and the fact that they turned super ridiculous body builders size in a few weeks? Really?

Anyway, the Trask twins are about to destroy the dedication ceremony for the new city hall. Sadly for these twins, Batman is about to destroy them. Or at least he tries to, but the evil psychiatrist giving them orders destroys them first. Big ba-da-boom.

In the aftermath, Sharp and the council lobby for martial law in this war zone and the GCPD is shunted offside. Half of Gotham is now walled off and has become an open air city - Arkham city - patrolled by Sharp's armed forces. Batman ponders how to stop the *strange* unseen power behind Sharp.

There wasn't much Harley Quinn in here besides what was seen in the preview pages, but it's a good start and of course I'm going to get the other four issues. I'm expecting a lot more Harley Quinn in these ones, and I am pretty interested to see how the Joker deals with the Titan aftermath. You know, like how close he was to death in Last Laugh. Or when he got shot in Cacophony. Or all those other times we thought he was dead. ......Guy's pretty dependable, really.