As the Darkseid War rages on, Batman’s role in Gotham City-—and the world—alters drastically as he’s forced to accept his new role as a God of Knowledge.

Batman as a know-all God is a fascinating concept, especially considering his role as a detective. Justice League: Darkseid War: Batman #1 squanders most of that potential instead giving us a cross between Minority Report and A Christmas Carol.

The issue is basically two parts. The first has Batman and Gordon debating about Batman’s new knowledge, how he’s using it, and his end goal. It’s interesting to see how much of the concept of Batman changes with something simple as switching his general reactive actions to proactive.

The second part of the issue is the character visiting Joe Chill. Here things are pretty so-so not breaking a whole lot of new ground. Instead just showcasing how unstable Bruce/Batman is, as if it wasn’t clear in the previous half.

The comic very much feels like two short stories mashed together.

The art isn’t bad. It’s not quite as solid as Justice League, but it’s not poor art like we see in Annuals or big event tie-ins. I think my one gripe is that Joe Chill doesn’t look as old as he probably should be compared to Bruce. They look like they’d be about the same age when there’s at least a few years at least.

I give this a read mostly because I don’t know how it fits into the otherwise excellent “Darkseid War” as well as Batman’s story as a whole (though it’s super unclear how this all ties in to Batman considering that series’ current story). Not a bad comic, I was just hoping for something more.

Story: Peter J. Tomasi Art: Fernando Pasarin
Story: 6.75 Art: 7 Overall: 6.75 Recommendation: Read

DC Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review