Gotham City Year One

Gotham City: Year One by Tom King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Slam Bradley is hired to deliver a letter to Richard Wayne, he gets caught in a web of kidnapping, lies, and murder!

Tom King is hit or miss for me but I like Phil Hester and Jordie Bellaire so I was quick to pick this up and it did not disappoint.

Slam Bradley is a PI hired to deliver a letter to Richard Wayne, only to wind up as the Wayne's bagman when it turns out their baby daughter Helen, aka the Princess of Gotham, is kidnaped. After that, things get complicated. Hester goes more Tothian than usual in this and Jordie Bellaire's stark, minimalist color palette is prefect for the tale. King's writing reminds me of a lighter James Ellroy. The ingredients alone led me to believe some twisted shit was going down and I was surprised a couple times.

I'm not sure I liked the new revelation on how Crime Alley was named or that Gotham was a sunny place where people didn't lock their doors until the events of this book. Gotham was pretty bad in All Star Western, after all. Still, it's a Black Label book and probably not a part of continuity, although it's DC so does that really matter?

Questions/Spoilers - (view spoiler)[This is just speculation and it doesn't matter much either way but was Slam Bradley previously described as half black? Since Constance Wayne and Slam Bradley banged, he could in fact be baby Thomas Wayne's true father and Batman's grandfather, making the caped crusader 1/8th black. (hide spoiler)]

Anyway, I liked this quite a bit. Gritty AF, captivating, and a great looking book. Is every street in Gotham named after a former Batman writer or artist? 4 out of 5 stars.



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