Batman: Detective Comics, Volume 1: The Neighborhood: 03/26/22

Batman: Detective Comics, Volume 1: The Neighborhood is actually the sixteenth of the "Detective Comics" omnibuses that started in 2016. It includes issues 1034-1039 and some side issues written by other authors.

Mariko Tamaki's piece is the "The Neighborhood" arc. Bruce Wayne, having lost his company to Fox is now living in a walk-up in the middle of Gotham. As Batman he's lost access to the Bat Cave and is using some older sewer tunnels instead.

Meanwhile something is driving up the violence in Gotham. I mean, someone or something always is, but this one seems to be targeting specific people, causing certain people to hurt or kill other certain people. It's not the large scale affairs of the older supervillains.

The side stories are there to give backstory and context when a simple sidebar wouldn't be enough. They're a little odd though in that they come with little to no warning and are all written/illustrated by different teams than Tamaki and Mora. Ultimately it's better than being given a couple dozen sidebar notes to read such and such issue to get the full context.

I don't know if there's a volume 2 in the pipeline. If there is and if it's written by Mariko Tamaki again, I will read it. If there is and it's written by someone else, I'll consider it but it's not a guarantee.

Four stars

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