David Atwell reviewed Batman by Mike Mignola
Review of 'Batman' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Fun enough, I suppose; but while I usually LOVE alternate universe/what-if/elseworlds stories, this one seemed to fly a bit less high than "Red Son," for example.
I think part of what I was missing was more hijinks that could only have occurred in a Victorian Gotham. A lot of this story felt like it could easily have taken place in a modern equivalent of this story with no substantial changes. Jack the Ripper was really just a name and could easily have been replaced with some other murderer Batman needed to track down. Even the art wasn't really notably distinct from a modern version of the character; the animated film did a much better job with making the Batman costume almost steampunk, for instance.
The second story in this collection, "Master of the Future," was better in this regard, with a few features that were almost Jules Verne in their …
Fun enough, I suppose; but while I usually LOVE alternate universe/what-if/elseworlds stories, this one seemed to fly a bit less high than "Red Son," for example.
I think part of what I was missing was more hijinks that could only have occurred in a Victorian Gotham. A lot of this story felt like it could easily have taken place in a modern equivalent of this story with no substantial changes. Jack the Ripper was really just a name and could easily have been replaced with some other murderer Batman needed to track down. Even the art wasn't really notably distinct from a modern version of the character; the animated film did a much better job with making the Batman costume almost steampunk, for instance.
The second story in this collection, "Master of the Future," was better in this regard, with a few features that were almost Jules Verne in their look and feel, and a story that was a bit more dependent upon the conceit. Unfortunately that story was hamstrung by an opaque villain.
The other stories were ok. Being parts of long-running arcs that I haven't read, they were pretty confusing, but the Shazam story in particular was pretty fun to get into.
As far as the main attraction here goes, though, I felt like it needed more of what it was promising.
