This arc reintroduces everyone's favorite fowl, the Penguin. It's kinda funny that there are much more powerful, much scarier villains in Gotham, but the Penguin has remained an A-lister nonetheless. Not bad for an obese deformed midget.
A meeting of Russian mobsters is disrupted by a ninja with a clown mask. Batman gives chase, right into a protest in the park. Shades of Occupy mixed with Anonymous, they all wear clown masks and idolize the Joker. The Mayor is letting them get away with it mainly because their ire is directed at Batman. The clown escapes from Batman, meets up with his employer, and double crosses him to steal his ticket to the Iceberg VIP Lounge.
Cut to the Iceberg Casino, which is now an actual floating artificial iceberg just into Gotham's international waters. Clever. Charlotte Rivers is arriving, as is Hugh Marder (Bruce's shirtless climbing partner) and his arm candy, a woman named Sophia Lake. Charlotte is here to investigate the Iceberg, so she changes into a maid outfit, somehow not expecting known slimeball Oswald Cobblepot to have cameras in every room. Of course he does, and of course he was watching her change. So were his three henchwomen Lark, Raven, and Jay, who now have speaking roles and seemingly more of a role than they ever had before. I really like their new looks too, the blonde with freckles in a bellhop uniform especially. Not sure which one she is. However, not so fond of Penguin's new look. He looks out of place and cartoonish. Ah well.
Issue 5 is about half taken up with a B-story about a kid named Eli in a high stakes poker game. Turns out he's just a distraction, as Catwoman is busy ripping them off. She bails him out when he's caught cheating, and he escapes with his cut. Someone watches him from a security camera, and Eli is revealed to be Hugo Strange's son. Strange is watching him and is impressed at how he always manages to get out of these situations. We're finally shown the new Hugo Strange, and...no sir, I don't like it. He's now a shaved bare Q-ball who resembles either Mr. Freeze or Grant Morrison. Come on now, Hugo Strange's huge bushy beard was iconic! That's like Power Girl without her boob window. Oh, wait...
Quick score here, since this is the only issue: 2/5. Nice look at catwoman outside of her series, but Eli doesn't have near enough character development and Hugo Strange's redesign is too generic.
In issue 6, the unknown assailant is revealed to be female and is talking to her male accomplice as she hands him the lounge pass. Also, good lord, I have to point out a panel here. There's one panel of her getting dressed and putting on her high heels while he slips the card into his wallet. Granted the way this room is setup, someone's butt was going to be in the "camera" but the woman's butt fills up the entire freaking panel. At least she's wearing a knee-length skirt. I think it would have been funny to put the guy's butt in the panel and have her putting her clothes on in the background.
Anyway, turns out she's...a woman with an eyepatch named Chase. I dunno, is she supposed to look like someone? Comic artists need to get better at drawing female faces. Speaking of faces, the guy she's with turns out to have a super power that when his face is injured, he sheds his skin and looks like someone entirely different, thus giving him the name Snakeskin. Ch, and she doesn't like his face so she punches him, and he becomes someone else.
Batman is on her trail, following her by the name Jill to a seedy motel where the owner tries to shoot him with a shotgun at point blank range. This was a mistake, as Batman just forces it down and the guy blows off all the toes on his foot. Lulz. Batman gets the info and follows the clue trail all the way to a warehouse where Jill had a guy making bombs. Batman finds the bomb-maker chopped up on ice, and he's been killed in the same way as one of the thugs at the start. Jill, Chase, and the clown are the same person.
At the Iceberg, we see Charlotte searching through someone's room dressed as a maid. She is interrupted by Jill, in a slinky black dress and trenchcoat. A catfight ensues that is definitely not fanservice before they recognize each other. They're sisters, and pretty much loathe each other. Ah, so that's who Jill was supposed to look like. I couldn't tell. Elsewhere Penguin is talking to a bunch of new villains. One brief commentary on these guys, they all have bizarre character designs and obvious super powers. Whenever a group like this shows up all at once, you can probably assume they all suck and most of them will die. They'll be lucky if one of them survives this comic. The Penguin is going to take all their money...and keep it safe, of course. From whoever's been picking off criminals lately. This is most definitely not a setup and these guys are definitely not idiots.
Batman arrives at the Iceberg, and makes brief reference to another comic that I plan to check out (I, Vampire). He tells Alfred that finding missing train passengers is *top priority*, as he goes to rescue his girlfriend. I'm sure *top men* are on it. Meanwhile, Charlotte is following her sister Jill. She's caught by Snakeskin however, and he stabs her repeatedly. Batman catches him and beats his face sideways. He tries to save Charlotte, but gets locked in an ice generator. This, however, works to his advantage as he is able to cover Charlotte in ice to deliberately induce hypothermia and slow her bleeding (actual medical technique, though controversial). Alfred picks her up, and Batman goes back to stop whatever's going on.
As if Batman wasn't enough, Jill beats five more shades of ugly into Snakeskin for hurting her sister. Unfortunately, in addition to breaking his face, she broke his powers too, and instead of shedding into something presentable he's stuck on "shit pizza" setting. She sends him on his mission anyway. The police are arriving due to a bomb threat called in by Batman while Jill is robbing the Penguin's vaults. The villains are getting really nervous and considering going to get their money out of the vault.
All of the plots start resolving here in a huge double-crossing climax that I'm not even gonna attempt to recount here due to the sheer complexity. Suffice to say everyone gets screwed and the Penguin comes out on top...well, Batman does deck him, but other than that? He gets away scot free. I'd almost consider getting punched by Batman a bonus in something like this. Don't judge me.
While the previous arc was bleak and depressing, this one feels more like a caper movie. It's like Batman done by the Coen Brothers, where everyone gets out of it worse for the wear. Jill is a pretty awesome character. She can fight Batman hand to hand, wrap a goon like Snakeskin around her finger, and execute a complex and multilayered plot. Charlotte's fate is also in doubt, and having Bruce Wayne's love interest be related to a supervillain (and the mayor's daughter) would make for a nice dynamic. Of note is that this story passes the Bechdel Test as when the sisters meet, neither Snakeskin nor Bruce Wayne are on the agenda. It's purely what the other one is up to and how it's going to screw up their plans.
That said, the ass panel fanservice is just lame. There isn't very much fanservice, but what there is isn't even good fanservice and it'd be better off without it. Snakeskin's attack on Charlotte feels dangerously like fridging, but it also impacts Jill as well, so it's hard to say it's purely to give Batman angst. I do wish we got to see more of Penguin's new trio, particularly the blonde with freckles. Unique character design, most of the work is done by the others. Shame, that.
Finally, as an introduction to the Penguin, it works really well. Showcases just how well connected, manipulative, and dangerous he is. He may get decked at the end, but he still comes out on top and there's really not much Batman can do about it. This is why Penguin is A-list, while a flashbulb in a top hat named Mr. Combustible is lucky that he got that one line saying he survived.
Overall this is an entertaining read that's really hard to say anything bad about. Aside from a few plot twists that come out of left field and a bit of egregious fanservice, Detective Comics is shaping up to be one of the better Bat-books. It's a must-read, so I'm actually going to give this my first 5/5 stars.
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