Gotham By Midnight #3 [The New 52] - DC Comics

GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT No. 3, March 2015

It is not entirely clear which is the more frightening aspect of “Gotham By Midnight”. This issue's spine-tinglingly good narrative of a soul-sucking shadow creature skulking the dimly-lit corridors of Gotham County Hospital feasting upon whoever it can find, or the fact that according to Diamond Comic Distributors, the book dropped in sales by over six thousand copies to an unsettling 21,300 magazines in January 2015.

Whatever the reason for this disappointing decline in popularity, possibly connected to the news of artist Ben Templesmith’s imminent departure from the periodical, many readers have missed Ray Fawkes pen a superbly sinister and claustrophobic tale which not only offers plenty of modern-day thrills and scares. But also delivers a somewhat engaging backstory as to how Detective Drake and the human host of The Spectre, Jim Corrigan, first encountered one another during an undercover narcotics operation.

In addition the “Batman Eternal” writer also provides forensic specialist Doctor Tarr with some most welcome ‘screen time’ as Szandor steps away from translating endless hours of “gibberish” within Midnight Shift’s precinct house and physically comes face to face with “tall, dark and gruesome.” Indeed the bespectacled expert’s confrontation and subsequent conversation with the “autonomous human shadow with an articulated heart” in ‘Hungarian’ is probably the highlight of “We Become What We Fight”. Certainly it allows for Corrigan to demonstrate his usual dry-wit during a high-pressure situation and stalls the demonic creature long enough for Lisa Drake to destroy the monster with the light from her hand-torch.

Marginally less satisfying, perhaps simply because it concerns a more mundane or rather predominantly ‘non-supernatural’ storyline, are the six pages depicting Jim’s recruitment of the young female cop after she rescues him from the boot of a drug dealer’s car.

Both stories are wonderfully illustrated by the quirky cartoon-like pencils of Templesmith. Although for once the Australian’s panels portraying the flashback scenes aren’t obvious enough not to require repeated re-readings just to ascertain what is happening during the “Skull Dust” bust. Albeit a lot of the difficulty in discerning the Eagle Award winner’s drawings is due more to the predominantly grayscale pages being overly inked and therefore unfathomably dark, than any inability on behalf of the artist to adequately visualise events.

The variant cover art of "GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT" No. 3 by Bill Sienkiewicz

Gotham By Midnight #2 [The New 52] - DC Comics

GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT No. 2, February 2015

There is something distinctly disturbing and unsettling about the contents of “We Will Not Rest”. Something which is only hinted at by the rather sedentary Ben Templesmith cover of Sister Justine and Detective Corrigan, the hand of The Spectre eerily glowing at his side, simply ‘standing there’ atop a grotesquely distorted grinning face.

But just as soon as the first page is turned, the chilling tone of this comic is swiftly ramped up as writer Ray Fawkes takes both reader, and to a lesser extent Sergeant Rook, on a horrifying journey to see some of the things which nightmares are truly made of. Whether it be the giant spectral Nun, her wimple hiding little of her putrefying features and whose large clawed talons can clearly tear a man’s soul to shreds, or the ghastly transformation of Father Keller into a multi-tentacled slavering fiend, there is little content within these twenty pages which won’t quicken the beating of your heart. Indeed, by the end of the comic I was almost as mentally exhausted as Rook, stunned by what I had experienced and eager to “…go home’ and read something somewhat less emotionally intense.

Unfortunately the 2012 Eisner Award nominee just won’t let his story’s grip on the reader rest, for after a brief interlude of coffee and bagels, the Midnight Shift discover that the dread terror witnessed at Slaughter Swamp States Park is just the beginning of something even more disgustingly horrific.

All of these distressing events are wonderfully illustrated by Ben Templesmith, worryingly so at times. His unique somewhat scratchy style of pencilling perfectly captures both the distorted and stretched aspect of the Nun’s frenzied ghost, as well as the debilitating fear ‘frozen’ on the faces of Sister Justine and Sergeant Rook. Although Templesmith’s depiction of the demonic drooling Minister, tombstone teeth and snaking tongue is perhaps the most disturbing series of drawings of them all. “Woof Woof!” 

The highlight however has to be the Australian artist’s handling of The Spectre, especially when things “…get biblical…” There’s no sign at all of the green cloaked, white tight-wearing spiritual manifestation originally co-conceived by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily. Fittingly so as well, as such an appearance, ghostly apparition or not, would doubtless destroy the ‘realistic roots’ which Fawkes is currently trying to plant with this title. Instead, Templesmith simply hints at the coming of the vengeful spirit, producing a series of panels concentrating on the terrified facial expressions of witnesses to his presence and awesome power rather than The Spectre himself.

The variant cover art of "GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT" No. 2 by Ray Fawkes

Gotham By Midnight #1 [The New 52] - DC Comics

GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT No. 1, January 2015

It is clear, straight from the eerie and distinctively Ben Templesmith cover art, that “DC Comics” want this particular title to evoke a sense of supernatural foreboding and dread within its readership. In fact I’ve seldom encountered a comic which is so rank with the effort to portray a demoralizingly gloomy, dark and sinister world of the paranormal.

Certainly the book’s writer, Ray Fawkes, would seem an obvious choice for the publisher to have selected to script the storyline. Previously responsible for “Justice League Dark” and “Constantine” the Toronto-based author clearly has something of a pedigree when it comes to writing about ‘situations deemed unfit for traditional’ police work. Fawkes also uses the tried and tested technique of starting “We Do Not Sleep” from the perspective of an outsider to the Midnight Shift; a sceptic from Internal Affairs whom the reader can relate to and accompany, as Sergeant Rook encounters the various “…guys who handle the strange stuff” and faces the horrors of their latest macabre investigation. There’s certainly plenty of unsettling ‘spooks’ throughout this first issue with which to unnerve the reader and these provide some genuine spine-tingling moments; especially as Detective Corrigan and Rook approach Slaughter Swamp State Park and the Attwood girls increase their frantic babbling in a long dead language.

Perhaps most disconcerting (and thus successful) of all however is Fawke’s use of The Spectre, which is masterfully underplayed despite there surely being the temptation to attract attention to the title by ‘showcasing’ one of the most iconic anti-heroes in the “DC Comics” universe. This story is predominantly centred on the character of Jim Corrigan, the human host, and his ‘down to earth’ fellow officers facing terrors from beyond the grave. It is not supposedly a super-powered tale of the spirit of justice obtaining his vengeance upon the criminal fraternity of Gotham City. As a result there’s a genuine vulnerability to the fears and concerns of the cops in the story, including Corrigan, and that simply adds to the unease of the reader as the supernatural events unfold.

All of these happenings are reasonably well illustrated by Ben Templesmith. But the Australian Comic Book artist’s scratchy, almost child-like scribblings, though quite fitting and ghost-like for such a title as this, are only truly effective because of his tremendously impressive application of colour to each panel. Indeed his stark contrasting use of browns and blues for ‘safe’ and ‘sinister’ scenes, whilst superb at conjuring up a disquieting atmosphere of trepidation, arguably demonstrates Templesmith’s creative abilities are far better suited to ‘one-off’ posters, trading cards and motion picture concept work, than for the ‘heavier’ multiple-panelled pages of a comic book.

The variant cover art of "GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT" No. 1 by Andrea Sorrentino and Marcelo Maiolo