Batman, Vol. 1: I Am Gotham

Great characterization, not that thrilling of a story. But my first Batman comic book anyway, so I'll give it a pass.

After the hit and the misses with the re-birth so far I was actually pretty please with this one. I like Batman so far and his dynamic with Alfred is very strong. If you want a strong Batman I think you need a strong Alfred...People often forget how cool and essential Alfred is to Batman and the Bat-Fam so I'm glad he is in this one with some good scenes.

Anyway, I liked this volume in particular with the dynamics of Gotham they city itself and what it represents. Gotham is the city that made Batman hard but also is what gave Gotham the hero it deserves. Someone who uses fear and darkness to make the city a better place. Interestingly enough this inspires some other heroes who become obsessed with Batman and they care enough about Gotham to [ buy some super powers (hide spoiler)] protect it. They start of nice enough but ultimately fail in the worst kinda way. This is what the city takes from you if your not strong enough to handle some failure. Ultimately Gotham and Gotham girl (finally I know where they came from! I read Batman: Night of the Monster Men before this volume) wills are broken. The only way to fix Gotham is to destroy it then realizing that Batman IS Gotham. Pretty awesome to think of Gotham, a place and also a Hero, has it's own dynamics with characters. It's also amazing to think about Batman really having such a big impact on the citizens of Gotham that they want to protect the city also.

I'm very interested to see where this is going...Will there be more Heroes/ Villains that are untrained and have their own version of justice? What will happen when normal citizens can obtain powers? ~Ashley

The only thing that kinda confuses me is this seems to be leading into Batman: Night of the Monster Men which kinda read like a climax ...are they related?

Not enough of a Batman aficionado to get all the finer nuances but I liked the overall story.

Another reboot and given the history not all that great. The stories of boy and girl are interesting enough but do not pull you in. A tad disappointed overall

Snyder's run was tough to follow but this is a pretty good start to King's run.