Books : Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (Elseworlds)

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Rating:

- Batman, the period piece.
This book is a batman elseworlds story and it deals with batman going up against jack the ripper. it is a really great book. features great art, great story, and setting batman in victorian gotham is an interesting concept.

Rating:

- Grim and Gritty
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight is a great retelling of the Jack the Ripper murders.

Mike Mignola's artwork, masterful in its use of shade and shadow, is a perfect match for Batman. The story is compelling and offers a great twist at the end.

Unlike some techno-nerds who bitterly bewail the absence of a 19th century "Bat-Carriage" or "Bat-musket" or whatever, I am glad to see this stripped down Batman.

Rating:

- Fantastic opportunity, utterly wasted
I ask you, what's the point of having a Batman steampunk story without steampunk gadgets or ambiance? I've read this collected TPB, and I have no idea.

Lest you think my appreciation of Batman is so shallow, usually I find focus on Batman's arsenal of tools and weapons redundant and silly. Batman Begins, for instance, bored me to tears with its origin and history of all his toys. But with the Victorian "steampunk" genre comes an implicit expectation, of anachronistic technology. And whose universe is better tailored to these devices than that of Mr. Utility Belt! But alas, the only tool of his own that he employs is a knife (and it's not even shaped like a bat!).

So squandered was the opportunity of a steam-powered Bat-carriage, or grapple, or even those neat little spherical bombs with fuses. No ornate gilded Batarangs, no Tesla-designed electric stun thingies. Just a re-telling of Batman's rather bland origin in which his doomed father this time wears a top-hat, and Batman rides a horse instead of a nuclear-powered rocket car. Not even Mike Mignola's pencils were in any way recognizable as the exciting, unique art it is today.

So if you want to see Batman with a collared cape, by all means, buy. But if you're a fan of Batman and steampunk fan who is excited to see them mashed together, beware. Instead seek out Mignola's later steampunk effort, The Amazing Screw-On Head.

Rating:

- Simply outstanding!
One of the best Batman stories I ever read. The artwork is gorgeous! I particularly like the depiction and characterization of Bruce Wayne. Typically, Bruce isn't very memorable in any given story. He's just a generically handsome placeholder until he puts on the suit and "becomes" Batman. Here, he's strikingly good looking (the receding hair at his temples was a nice touch)and very much a dynamic, charismatic gentleman. The Jack the Ripper mystery which forms the heart of the story is interesting and entertaining, though the surprise ending didn't surprise me as much as the writers, perhaps, hoped it would. Overall, an outstanding effort.

Rating:

- Batman + Steampunk = A really good read.
DC Comics' Elseworlds imprint has been around a number of years. This imprint probably would not have gotten started "officially" had it not been for the first story in this TPB: Gotham By Gaslight. In it, Brian Augustyn shows a Gotham City highly unlike the one we are so used and yet still awkwardly familiar. This is Victorian Gotham. And Jack The Ripper has come calling for it. Enter Bruce Wayne, a rich man whose parents met with a tragic end in front of him only to be saved from his would-be killer by a swarm of bats. He becomes the Batman we all know and love. I'll stop the story here as I don't want to give too much away.
One thing that must be commented on is the artwork. Mike Mignola, of Hellboy fame, did the pencils in Gotham by Gaslight and P. Craig Russell mastermind behind the comic adaption of Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung, inks. The combination of these excellent artists makes for a graphic story seldom seen these days. There is a steampunk feel to both stories that is rather interesting to see in a Batman story. It almost feels like one is reading Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen only with Batman as the main character.
If there is any real qualm I have with this TPB is the fact that Mignola does not do the artwork for Batman: Masters of the Universe although his replacement in quite good nonethless.
This book is sure to entertain any Batman fan out there and is also a very good read for anyone wanting to be entertained without thinkning of that nasty word we all know as "continuity."

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