Gotham City: Year One (2022-) #1

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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.

You might argue “well none of that matters because it’s an elseworlds” (and I’m not really even certain whether that’s supposed to be true for this story) but the broader context of the existing world is still relevant. Gotham City: Year One is a noir mystery in which the Wayne family are the prime suspects in their daughter Helen's disappearance.There are even a couple of panels where Slam looks just like Humphrey Bogart, which I feel has to be intentional. Gotham City: Year One by Tom King, Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles will debut with a variant cover by Ryan Sook and a 1:25 variant cover by David Marquez.

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. With a tragic turn of events and a city on the edge of burning, can this hard-boiled private detective close an impossible case?Hardly anyone publishes a complete story in a single comic anymore; they’re all writing with the trade paperback collection in mind. But Gotham going from the golden city to crime infested dumpster fire in twenty years is quite a stretch. 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 a trip to the past that earnestly tries to tackle themes like segregation and child kidnapping without a superhero spin.

However, if this whole first issue is just the opening scenes the story, then it becomes far more appropriate and fits within the overall style that King is going for. Gripping noir tale, drenched in rain, starring a beaten down guy just trying to find some reason in this world. Similar to a past reveal of why Crime Alley has its name, we get info about Acme chemical and other reveals I won’t spoil here. The last issue ended with Slam charging into Wayne Manor after learning that Constance was the one who took the baby from Richard’s hideout and buried her in the backyard. Sam is taken by surprise when Constance reveals she followed Richard and Sam to Finger Apartments and found Helen in the room Queenie kept her in.A few instances of it are a slog, but Hester and Gapstur really set the tone perfectly between pencils and colors. He's bitter that his wife controls Wayne Enterprises' finances and is in a better financial position than himself. Constance reaches out to Slam to try and get him to help raise the boy so that he doesn’t do something stupid like “march down some alley at night”.