Batman: The Dark Knight #1

Review: Back in Gotham as Batman for the first time in a while, Bruce Wayne finds himself digging into the disappearance of an old flame of his named Dawn Golden. Bruce's investigation leads him to a Venom-using Killer Croc, who Bruce manages to defeat and tie-up after some difficulty. Bruce demands that Croc tells him what he did with Golden, and after some threats, Croc tells Bats that he sent her to some scuzzy friend of his named Lars Beck. Bats looks into Beck and discovers that he was a small-time club owner, and that he was discovered floating in the Gotham river, meaning he'd be offering no clues. Bats decides to search Beck's club anyway and discovers Dawn's necklace in a safe. While he's searching around the building, somebody takes the Batmobile off-line and disables all of its security systems. Alfred alerts Bats to this, and smelling a trap, Bats turns to leave, where he runs headlong into... *sigh* The Penguin and a bunch of his gun-totting goons, which ends this issue.

Thoughts: First things first, the Penguin appearance automatically deducts 1/2 from the final score of this comic. Before Penguin stuck his ugly, misshapen nose into things though, this was a very good, old school mystery/detective based story. I've always liked the detective side of Batman's adventures, and all too often we get Bats beating up some thugs, fighting super-villains, but not showing off his detective skills. So for that reason alone, I enjoyed this one. Sure, it was a set-up issue, meaning there were a whole bunch of little scenes that as of right now don't make any sense, but I'm sure as this storyline unfolds, it'll make sense down the line. For a first issue though? This was a promising start.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Dude, you're a giant crocodile... Do you really have rights?