Customer Reviews

Gotham Central Book One: In the Line of Duty

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker team up to write a stellar police drama set in Batman's home, Gotham City. Michael Lark provides the outstanding art work for this crime drama.

There are three stories contained in this great collection. The first has the writers co-writing a plot introducing us to the night and day shifts of GCPD and the Major Crimes Unit as they take on Mr. Freeze.

Brubaker then tackles the mystery of a kidnapping and murder. With plenty of plots and twists to keep an mystery fan jumping for more.

Rucka takes a more personal look at one of Gotham's Finest, Renee Montoya, as she deals with personal issues and the revenge of a twisted perp she arrested who was released on a technicality.

One of the strongest highlights was seeing how these police officers deal with a city that is protected by the Batman. The spectre of the Batman looms over each story but Batman only makes brief appearances. Brilliant handling by the writers to ground a real world story in the world of costumed vigilantes.

I can't wait for the next volume.

Length:: 2:21 Mins

I love just about every single thing about this book. It's written by two of my all-time favorite writers, Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker. It's drawn fantastically by Michael Lark. It's a police procedural. It's set in Gotham City. When factors like these combine to create a comic as incredible as this, it's as if the stars in the heavens above have aligned. Seriously though, Gotham Central is the most unique take on life in Gotham City that I've ever seen, and you'd be remiss in not checking it out.

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A great read for adult Batman fans. There's not much of the Bat, but I found that refreshing. It focuses on the cops, and their resentment toward Batman for solving the crimes they cannot. I really started empathizing with each of the characters. The art is also very nice, and evokes a Year One quality. Highly recommended. I'd love to see this made into a TV show on HBO.

For all those that have read and enjoyed these issues in single-issue or TPB format, this book is totally beautiful and well worth upgrading to. The color is the major improvement here, and reveals this stunning artwork in a way that those gray-looking pages of the TPB just could not. The use of dead black throughout the book is unique and evocative.
The artwork takes me back to the work of David Mazzucchelli from the Year One story.
A very well done hardcover collection of a fantastic comic book series.

Gotham Central: In the Line of Duty collects issues #1-10 from Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker's highly acclaimed Batman spin-off title, which had a short-lived run of 40 issues from 2003-2006. The book focuses on Renee Montoya, Crispus Allen and the detectives working GCPD's Major Crimes Unit as they solve cases in a city where Batman's presence is as much a liability as an asset.

If any series ever deserved the hardcover reprint treatment, Gotham Central is it. The book is as good as any police procedural on television, giving names and personalities to the Gotham police force that up until that point had been relegated to minor background characters and cannon fodder for Joker, Two-Face and the like. A tragic run-in with Mr. Freeze in the opening pages is enough to suck readers in, and Rucka and Brubaker continually drive home the cost of being a good cop in a city that relies on Batman for protection. Honestly, Batman's portrayal during this era of comics was never great, often crossing the line from being edgy and gritty into just being unlikable. Gotham Central really puts this in perspective with the cops only asking for assistance from Batman as an absolute last resort (a theme that intensifies in the next volume). Also spotlighted this volume is the relationship between Renee Montoya and Two-Face, which Rucka had been steadily building since Batman: No Man's Land, Vol. 2.

This hardcover edition features the best presentation of Michael Lark's gorgeous artwork, and it's great to have Gotham Central in a format that will include the entire run (as opposed to the earlier trades, which omitted select issues). Two supplemental stores that fill in the Montoya/Two-Face history from the original "Half a Life" trade paperback are not reprinted here - one of them can be found in the aforementioned No Man's Land volume, while the other was also collected in Batman: Evolution (No Man's Land). Readers may also be interested in Batman: Officer Down (New Gotham 2), which shows Gordon's retirement from the force and leads to the status quo presented here.

Haven't read this series yet? You're missing out. One of DC's best offerings of the decade.

I am generally not a fan of the DC universe, but my brother loaned me this hardcover, and it's pretty great. It can't get around the fact that Mr. Freeze is awfully silly-looking, but the appearances by super-types in tights are minimal. Mostly, this is a straight-forward police procedural comic, with realistic characters who work difficult jobs in a dangerous city and don't really like Batman getting all the credit for the good stuff. In one story, two detectives chance upon Mr. Freeze, and the department comes together to take him down before Batman steps in, and in the other stories, the superhero world plays a basically tangential role to the well-paced gritty crime stories being told. Brubaker, Rucka, and Lark have not sold me on any of the rest of the DCU, and the great work here makes me just a little more disappointed in the Brubaker/Lark Daredevil run, but this is top-notch crime writing, with art that matches well, and I look forward to the next volume.

I finally got this book after a lot of people informing about the creative team. I am very please with the product by DC and the team. Brubaker, Rucka, and Lark created characters that are three-dimensional, and not the same out boring cops. Every character has their flaws, and some more than others. This is not a pretty world that the cops live in with the madness that is Gotham City. There are egos, conflicts, and that just in the department.

I can remember back when Gotham Central was first announced, I was hooked before the first issue was even released. The concept alone made it impossible for me to even think about passing up. When it was finally released, I was extremely happy to see that it lived up to my expectations. There have been many, many cop shows on television, but only one was ever appointment television for me, Homicide: Life on the Street. Thankfully, if writers Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka took any inspiration from TV, that was the one they used as their model. Despite being a comic book and set in the world of superheroes, the series never leaves behind its down-to-earth approach. Even when the fantastic intrudes upon the gritty street-level happenings of the stories, it's presented in the most mundane fashion possible. Michael Lark's art helps a lot in this regard. His characters always look realistic (without looking photo referenced), including the costumed heroes and villains. (In a later story arc, he even avoids giving The Joker the exaggerated features--e.g., the nose and chin--that many artists tend to draw.)

The first story is a perfect set-up to the series. Following a lead on a kidnapping, two detectives unexpectedly cross the path of Mr. Freeze resulting in one cop's death. From that point, it becomes a race against the clock to find Freeze before Batman does. The police department already begrudges the fact that a costumed vigilante makes them look bad, and they're not about to let him avenge the death of one of their own. The story is short, sweet, and to the point, as is the next one which follows up on the kidnapping that was only mentioned in the first.

The final story in the collection is a bit longer and is a much more character-driven story. It focuses on Detective Renee Montoya--who was originally created for the '90s animated series but appeared first in the comics--as she deals with elements of her personal life suddenly becoming not so personal thanks to a vindictive ex-con whom she arrested but was released on a technicality. The first time I read this story, I thought it went on a bit too long. (The first two stories were two and three issues, respectively. "Half a Life" was five.) Upon rereading it, I have reversed my opinion. It's a story that reads much better in quick succession.

I still have all the single issues of this series, but I look forward to when it's been released in hardcover in its entirety. I know it will be something I revisit many times in the years to come.

This book collects inventive stories from the fringes of the Batman world, focusing on the police force. Now that commissioner GORDON is retired, members of said police force strive to bring Gotham to order without the help of the Batman. Will they win their self-imposed challenge? If so, at what price? And who will foot the bill?
Very good plots (on a gripping modern noir tip), very fine dialogs, very efficient drawings, very strong characters. I am seriously hooked, and I can't wait for the next hardcover collection!

This volume reprints the first 10 issue of DC Comics' Gotham Central series, written by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka, who are noted for their non-superhero work, and the art by Michael Lark complements their stories perfectly. The stories follow the two shifts of the Major Crimes Unit of the Gotham City Police Department The first story is written by both authors, and then the alternating shifts are written by Brubaker or Ruka, as they move through the days. Basically, these are the ordinary police who have to fight ordinary crime while constantly interrupted by both super-villains and Batman. They consider it a triumph if they can solve a crime without Batman getting involved, and a major one if they can bring down a super-villain. The stories are excellently written and drawn, and I shall be borrowing the rest of the series from my local library.