This story has far more in common with a Billy Wilder movie than say Chinatown, but it works very well. In a key scene when a gun goes off, the use of white to convey the light of the bullet firing looks fantastic, with the characters drenched in an unrealistic but vivid red. Tom has crafted a story that will echo across Batman lore past and present,” continued Hester, “and I hope the storytelling techniques Eric, Jordie, Clayton and I are bringing to bear will augment his razor-keen approach. You’re offering a new interpretation of the characters, but the baggage of what those characters represent is still there.

Gotham City: Year One concludes as one of the darkest tales ever told about Gotham City with nary a mask in sight and offers readers a potent spin on the familiar. It has the lowest crime rate in the country and poised to become even greater with Richard Wayne close to opening a state of the art chemical plant that will thrust the city to even bigger heights. Richard is reduced to the pathetic man he always was, as it becomes clear that both Slam and Constance know what’s been happening.Set two generations before Batman's birth, the series will focus on Slam Bradley as he investigates the disappearance of a Wayne member. Two generations before Batman, private investigator Slam Bradley gets tangled in the kidnapping of the century as the infant Wayne heir disappears in the night and so begins a brutal, hard-boiled, epic tale of a man living on the edge and a city about to burn. After all the excitement, there is simply emptiness between Slam and Constance, and the area between them becomes an impenetrable void occupied only by the silhouette of Richard’s body.

I really enjoyed the first 5 issues of the book, with King crafting a great noir set in Gotham with everything you would want: hard boiled crime, damsels, smoking guns, and double and triple crossings.As the world falls apart around him, Slam must decide between justice and revenge—a choice that will echo down the generations and redefine both Gotham and Batman! Superstar creators Tom King and Phil Hester team up for the first time to tell the definitive origin of Gotham how it became the cesspool of violence and corruption it is today, and how it harbored and then unleashed the sin that led to the rise of the Dark Knight. I'm not sure I liked the new revelation on how Crime Alley was named or that Gotham was a sunny place where people didn't lock their doors until the events of this book. With a tragic turn of events and a city on the edge of burning, can this hard-boiled private detective close an impossible case?

Tom King is hit or miss for me but I like Phil Hester and Jordie Bellaire so I was quick to pick this up and it did not disappoint. The bold lines and dark shadows are perfect for emulating that “city lights streaming in through a pair of blinds” aesthetic that one expects. On my first read through, it felt like something was off for most of the book, and that it only picked up in the second half. It’s a problem with modern comic publishing where everything is a 6+ issue arc that can’t be fairly judged until the story is over. It’s also (indirectly) a Batman story, and the way it relates its Gotham with the one we know doesn’t work.Talking about how they killed his brother for being a black man who stepped out of line while he shows he’s no longer accepting the façade they’ve built is an act of triumph. The ingredients alone led me to believe some twisted shit was going down and I was surprised a couple times. The Batman bat symbol doesn't have a clear-cut role in the story, but it is significant as a marker of the Wayne family. Two generations before Batman, private investigator Slam Bradley gets tangled in the "kidnapping of the century" as the infant Wayne heir disappears in the night.

It’s slightly reminiscent of the comic art from the 60s when this is set while still maintaining a modern flair. This is all wonderfully mixed in with Slam fighting his way into the heart of the city and pillar of what Gotham supposedly stood for. Despite her calm demeanor, there is a righteous fury that exudes from her has she talks about the ways Richard treated her.If the premise of Gotham City: Year One was to change Bruce's family tree, then all I can say is why? Slam makes a point of explaining how idyllic Gotham is to many people, but even then there are hints of something amiss that don’t become clear until later. I had zero knowledge of this until I started reading some of my friends' reviews after I'd finished the comic. It makes sense whenever stories are issue-based, and I think I'm just too used to movie pacing and getting to get a feel for the world and the characters and the tone before jumping into the meat of the story since I've been watching a lot of movies lately, but it still bothered me.