Batman Detective Comics Vol. 2: The Victim Syndicate
Written by: James Tynion IV and Marguerite Bennett
Art by: Alvaro Martinez, Eddy Barrows, Ben Oliver, Al Barrionuevo, Carmen Carnero, Raul Fernandez, Eber Ferreira, Scott Hanna, Julio Ferreira, and Szymon Kudranski
Colours by: Adriano Lucas, Brad Anderson, Ben Oliver, Gabe Eltaeb, and Hi-Fi
Published by: DC Comics
Review by Stephanie Cooke
I’ve been reading Batman Detective Comics (BDC) in trade as they come out. They’ve been Must Read comics on my list for the characters that they feature, namely Stephanie Brown aka Spoiler, Cassandra Cain aka Orphan (both Cass and Steph being former Batgirls), and Kate Kane aka Batwoman. These three women are three of my favourite characters in comics and seeing them on a team together gave me a reason to initially check out BDC (As an irrelevant sidebar, I honestly hadn’t realized that Cass and Kate shared a last name – albeit spelt differently – until now).
Within BDC, these women are joined by Clayface, Batwing and Batman with Red Robin MIA and thought to be dead. The story here follows what happens after the events that transpired in Vol. 1, making this volume not an ideal jumping on point for anyone who is looking to just pick this up to start things off.
Adding to the mix of things, however, we get a new bunch of baddies that are out to make things difficult for the Bat-family. They, as you might’ve guessed, are The Victim Syndicate, a team of villains built up from the bystander lines of Batman’s war on crime.
Initially I was very intrigued with The Victim Syndicate and the idea behind them. A group of people, not inherently villains, who want justice for what Batman has unintentionally done to them. It always irks me when characters take issue with the hero and put the blame on them instead of on the people who actively attacked them and hurt them. It’s hard to wrap my brain around that sort of thinking and it makes me frustrated since it’s the kind of argument that you can’t win since the logic is already broken (not unlike the mentality of trolls on the internet).
The Victim Syndicate had so much potential to be up there with The Court of Owls for me, which is saying a lot. Snyder’s creation of those rogues was absolutely fantastic and easily one of the best new villains created within the DCU. I was completely transfixed with that whole storyline and as I started BDC, I was feeling like The Victim Syndicate would be up there for me too in epic recent rogues.
However, somewhere along the way, the storyline for The Victim Syndicate got boring. Not bad but they gave everything up so quickly for everyone but the main baddie. There wasn’t really a shocking moment to be taken from the reveal of who they were for me and ultimately the damage they did wasn’t so much a widespread mayhem as a virus planted within the Bat-family, which actually is pretty interesting. BUT on a personal note to that specifically, without spoiling anything, this book took a character that I loved and made me really dislike her and the choices she made. Characters have their own arcs separate from the main story being told and maybe the character in question will find redemption but I was so disappointed with how this all went down and how it made me feel towards a character I have a strong connection to.
Speaking to the art within BDC here too, I think ultimately I was a bit disappointed. The art isn’t bad but it’s inconsistent which is one of my biggest pet peeves in big mainstream books.
James Tynion IV wrote the main arc of The Victim Syndicate and then for the last two issues, he is joined by co-writer Marguerite Bennett. That worked for me here and I think that Bennett and Tynion have worked together enough at this point so that their voices seemlessly flow together in the story.
Going back to the art though, we had Alvaro Martinez, Eddy Barrows, Ben Oliver, Al Barrionuevo, Carmen Carnero, Raul Fernandez, Eber Ferreira, Scott Hanna, Julio Ferreira, and Szymon Kudranski and then FIVE colorists: Adriano Lucas, Brad Anderson, Ben Oliver, Gabe Eltaeb, and Hi-Fi. R-E-A-L-L-Y?! How crap, DC, that’s honestly ridiculous. They didn’t just have an artist and a backup artist, they had TEN artists on seven issues. That is INSANE. That’s not to say that these ten artists didn’t do the characters justice… it’s just that DC had to bring on TEN ARTISTS for this book. Jesus.
Nothing drives me away from a book like art inconsistency. That and it being crappy…
Thankfully BDC doesn’t have to contend with the latter thing as the writing makes up for the art being all over the place.
I was completely wowed by what I read in this second volume of the new BDC series but it still kept enough intrigue going to bring me back for more. I definitely want to know where they’re going with the story and I want to know what’s happening with the characters here. There’s a lot currently going on and it seems like the next volume won’t be a great jumping on point for new fans either, but we’re not so far into the series that you can’t go back and catch up.
Verdict:
Check it out. I didn’t love Batman Detective Comics Vol. 2 but I liked it. I want to see more with these villains and a more fleshed out origin for them that isn’t just rushed through.
Tynion and Bennett are creators doing very interesting things within the DCU and within comics in general. If you follow creators rather than characters and you aren’t already following these two, make sure you fix that.
Like I said, I wasn’t completely smitten with this book but I trust that these writers have a place in mind where they’re going and whatever that is, it’ll be full of payoff.
