Hunting for policemen
The comic begins with the title thread. Here is once a week Alfred goes to the cemetery to take care of the Wayne’s graves. Right next to it there is one empty, prepared years ago for Bruce. Whenever Alfred comes here, he always feels that a time will come when he will have to look after the third tombstone as well. After this introduction, the writer goes to the main action. Namely, it turns out quite quickly that someone is hunting policemen. First an incident with a criminal known as the Face Eater, then there is an assassination attempt on Gordon in Arkham Asylum. Batman, as befits the best detective in the world, will have to spend all his strength to discover who is behind it all. And the time is running out, the attacks are repeated, and in addition, Gack’s enemies are so confident that they even blow up his Batmobile! Or this timeBatman has a chance to win? More importantly, will he make it out alive?
Wayne graves
I like Black Label comics because they can break certain established patterns, they don’t have to stick to any timeline. These are just independent stories that can surprise me, even Batman Imposter was a big surprise for me. This story made a great impression on me! I was hoping it was Batman’s Tombwill be an equally spectacular and amazing comic. The title itself, as well as the fictional description, intrigued me so much that as soon as I got the title in my hands, I did not break away from it. And here comes a contradiction, because although I liked this item very much, I also felt a bit disappointed. I was captivated by, for example, the fight scenes, the characters of psychopaths like Stirk who devours human hearts or the Face Eater, as well as the course of the entire investigation. I also really liked the dialogues between the characters, especially the conversations between Alfred and Batman, especially the extremely apt remarks of the butler. Moreover, the ending surprised me, because I did not expect that so much would happen in the last few frames. Nevertheless, for the sake of the title and description of the likes of “the best detective in the world buried alive”, I expected something more unusual and surprising. I expected a completely different atmosphere, as well as a different antagonist. The comic book is a great story that breaks certain patterns (for example, the interview scene by Gack is endearing). The main opponent is interesting because of the similarity with Bruce, but I missed something. I was hoping thatBatman’s tomb will move me more and the atmosphere will be much darker. I wanted to feel the breath of death on the Dark Knight’s neck, but these were threats that the protagonist had faced many times before! I was expecting a revelation, a position worth a nine or ten, and I got an excellent Batman comic book deserving only a strong eight. The horror atmosphere pouring out of the dark cover in particular is deceptive. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of the better comics I’ve read this year.
The deadly beauty of the Bat Hounds
I really liked Bryan Hitach’s line. The combat scenes look exceptionally epic, and such a Stirk, although appearing only in a few frames, looks like a demon. However, I have minor reservations about the composition. Namely, I don’t like the fact that some of the alternative covers are in random places, instead of always at the end of a given chapter. The worst part, however, is that they are preceded by a full-page frame that looks like part of a comic book. At least that’s how I perceived it at the first contact, and then it turned out to be something like a cut-scene, a cover. And sometimes this appendix is right at the end of a chapter, and sometimes it is near the end. It disturbed my compositions and took little pleasure from reading. I just missed more consistency. Besides, there is no fault with the release.
Is it worth following Gack to the grave?
Batman’s Tomb is an interesting comic book, filled with action as well as interesting and fun dialogues. It’s easy to get caught up in this story and it’s hard to break away from it. Although I regret that the title tomb is only a minor episode, and the main antagonist, although intriguing to some extent due to some similarities to Bruce, he lacks much of such iconic opponents as: The Joker, Two Faces or even Penguin. All in all, Warren Ellis made a great story with the help of a talented cartoonist like Bryan Hitch. I believe that this item is worth reading, even if you are not a fan of Gack.
