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Gotham Knights #28
Bridget Haines |
| Title: |
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The Mortician: Anti-Hero Pt. 1 of 2 |
| Cover Date: |
June 2002 |
| Story: |
Devin Grayson |
| Pencils: |
Roger Robinson |
| Inks: |
John Floyd |
| Colors and Separations: |
Gloria Vasquez / Wildstorm FX |
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Synopsis: (WARNING! SPOILERS!)
Part 7 of "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive!"
opens with Montoya hunched over the body
of Viper Lee from the Lucky Hand Triad. There's
been a string of recent gang murders.
A pair of asian boys talk in
their home.
The older, Keung, is leaving
because he's
going to be suspected of killing
Viper, and
he warns his little brother,
Tat, not to
open the door to anyone. Keung
breaks into
the mortuary in the hospital
to see the body,
but has to hide under a sheet
on a table
when the medical examiner leads
and nolder
mortician in.
Scene change to the GCPD HQ,
where the forensic
examiner reveals to Montoya that
the prints
on the weapon are of Steve Korey,
a street
punk who died 26 days before
the murder.
Switch to the Bat roughing up
street punks
for information on Keung. He
tells them to
do nothing.
In the Batcave, Robin is going
over the security
tapes from the murder night and
prior to
it. He spots a few discrepancies
in the tape
and contacts Nightwing. Meanwhile
Batman
breaks into the morgue to find
all the bodies
there previously, gone. The medical
examiners
enter, forcing the Bat to take
cover, and
they too discover the missing
corpses. Batman
finds the card for Mr. Porter
Vito and the
Hereafter Mortuary.
Keung wakes up at the Mortician's
place to
find him injecting corpses hooked
up to contraptions.
Batman races through the city
in the Batmobile,
running Keung's prints. Keung
yells at the
mortician to stop what he's doing.
He fears
the bringing of ghosts. Keung
runs but the
zombies of the mortician's parents
chase
after him.
Batman breaks down the door of
the mortuary
and comes face to face with a
legion of zombies.
They have Keung held . Batman
demands his
release and the mortician complies,
asking
for no violence as Keung draws
a weapon and
begins firing. Batman dives into
the fray.
Analysis:
Cover:  (5 of 5 cowls)
Brian Boland. I probably don't even need
to review his covers any more. You know they
are going to be exceptional. This one is
utterly creepy, and I particularly love the
use of stained glass. As someone who grew
up in a devout family, stained glass is one
of the lovliest facets of church. And the
window angles here helped with the eerie
perspective. The detail level is stunning.
Story: (3 of 5 cowls)
The story was overall ok, but nothing spectacular.
A good creepy two-parter, but it seemed out
of place considering the current upheaval
in Batman's life at the moment. Where fugitive
was nicely blended last issue, and was the
main indirect focus of the non-bannered issue,
this one, bearing the banner, had a brief
snippet with Robin and Nightwing regarding
doctored tapes, as the only tie to the story.
The banner should have been on 27, and not
on this issue.
Artwork: (3 of 5 cowls)
Robinson was a little too loose in his pencil
work this month for my tastes, it looked
rushed, or as if he didn't have as much invested
in the story. The dark inks are still plaguing
the book, someone needs to get over the fetish
real quick.
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