Battle for the Cowl: Commissioner Gordon #1

Overall- This was a good comic book, much better than it had any right to be. This comic follows the antics of Mr. Freeze and Commissioner Gordon. Going in I wasn't expecting much, but Royal McGraw(who's work I'm completely unfamiliar with)delivered a nice little one shot here. We start with Freeze capturing Gordon after a failed attempt by Gordon and the Gotham Police force to re-capture Freeze after the break out at Arkham from Battle for the Cowl #1. Freeze explains that he wants to help Gotham City deal with the fact that Batman is dead by forcing them to deal with a great tragedy, that tragedy being Freeze destroying a chunk of Gotham City, or some crazy villainous act like that.

It's around this time that Gordon finally realizes that Batman isn't going to drop in and make a last minute save and that he'll have to take action himself. Gordon summons up the last of his strength and attacks Freeze from behind, before stealing the keyboard from Freeze's machine, and running away... You know, that's the best plan I've ever seen! Without a keyboard, Freeze can't make his machine DO anything! That's brilliant!

Freeze gets rather pissed about Gordon stealing the keyboard and chases after him, breaking through a wall to get at Gordon. However, in a stroke of luck, the wall Freeze busts through ruptures a gas pipe and Gordon lights a match, which triggers an explosion that incapacitates Freeze. This issue ends with Gordon returning to police headquarters and discovering that a Batman has been spotted in Gotham City, but is killing criminals as opposed to capturing them. Gordon declares that from this point on, the Gotham Police Department is going to re-take the streets and stop relying on others to deal with the crime in their city.

This issue gave the reader a good bit of insight into the minds of both Gordon and Freeze. For most of this issue, Gordon was hoping Batman would make the save, while Freeze was sure Batman was dead. By the end, Gordon realized Batman was gone, and upon being defeated, Freeze thought Batman had been the one who beat him. The way the two characters completely switched mindsets by the end of this comic was a neat touch.

It was also funny to realize just how spoiled the Gotham Police Department had become due to Batman's presence. The cops always seemed to count on Batman to show up whenever the going got too tough. With Batman seemingly gone, it'll be nice to actually see Gordon and his police actually try to take charge of the streets, as opposed to allowing vigilantes to do the police work. For a score, I'll give this comic an 8 out of 10. This was a perfectly acceptable comic book.