 |
| Comic hardcover, n.pag. Published 2015 (contents: 1998-2006) Borrowed from the library Read February 2016 |
by Paul Pope
Colorists: José Villarrubia, Ted McKeever, James Jean
Letterers: Jared K. Fletcher, John Workman, Ken Lopez
Year One Hundred
It's been fourteen months since I kicked this whole Batman project off by reading Batman: Year One, but for Batman it's been 99 years, as I'm wrapping up with Batman: Year 100. In the future, America seems to be a wasteland ruled over by tyrants, but the Bat-Man of Gotham, the last of the superheroes, still stands for justice, along with the few who aid him, including a new Robin. The story is ostensibly about an overcomplicated murder mystery, but it's really about what Batman stands for: standing up and saying "no" to unjust systems.
 |
| Not a guy you want to meet in a dark alley. Or anywhere, really. from Batman: Year 100 #2 |
Paul Pope both writes and draws the whole book, and I found myself engaged more by his unique visual style than by his writing. His Batman is a terrifying enigma, seemingly over a century old but as full of energy as ever, and his Gotham is a bleak dystopia where the Gotham City Police Department seems to operate out of a pile of trash, and the rest of America doesn't seem much better off. He establishes the grotesque nature of this world perfectly, from its attack dogs to the tragic ways that even criminals are treated in the future. But the story itself felt somewhat rote to me, and what the ending conflict turns out to be doesn't really resonate thematically with what Pope is trying to say about Batman.
