Weird Science DC Comics: Detective Comics #1095 Review

In Detective Comics #1095, one door closes when another one opens. Rather than acting as the world’s greatest detective (as the title would suggest), Batman is simply handed all the answers in an envelope from Asema.

What’s in the envelope? First, you have the medical records of one Joe Chill, confirming Thomas Wayne operated on Joe to save his life before Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered by Chill. Next, the records show that Scarlett Scott is Joe Chill’s daughter, absconded away by Martha Kent to escape Chill’s abuse. Last but not least, the envelope spills the beans on everything related to Theromise, the Sangraal procedure, and the link to the murdered teens. In effect, Batman is handed everything except Asema’s identity.

After receiving multiple calls and visits from concerned friends, Batman chases down each lead to its logical conclusion.

First, he confronts Joe Chill to find out if the death of the Waynes was random or an act of revenge. It’s random, which narrowly avoids an ill-advised retcon for Batman.

Second, Batman turns over the Theromise information to Clark Kent for a story that exposes the company’s vampire-like procedure that involves blood stolen from teenagers. When the story goes live, Theromise is effectively ruined. 

Last but not least, Batman confronts Scarlett Scott about her father, but she appears to not know his identity. However, Scarlett is deathly afraid of the organization watching her and warns Batman to get away from her. The issue ends with the name of the shadowy group – Elixir.

How’s the Art?

For reasons that aren’t clear, Mikel Janín and Norm Rapmund execute an art style that somewhat mimics Bruno Redondo’s work on Tom Taylor’s previous title, Nightwing. The figure work is decent and the interesting camera angles create maximum visual drama. That said, Janín and Rapmund, much like Redondo, have a posey stiffness during what should be dynamic action scenes.

What’s great about Detective Comics #1095?

Well, if you were looking for answers because Tom Taylor was taking too long to make progress, Taylor more than makes up for it in this issue. The mysteries are blown wide open, and Taylor wisely chooses not to retcon the death of the Waynes, which is a backhanded compliment since he introduced the retcon potential in the first place.

What’s not great about Detective Comics #1095?

The whole point of Detective Comics is to show Batman fighting crime with his brains instead of his brawn and gadgets. What’s the point of setting up a mystery if Tom Taylor literally hands the answers to Batman instead of figuring out the answers with expert detective work? Doing detective work is the whole point, but it seems Tom Taylor didn’t get the memo.