Tuesday, August 13, 2013

DETECTIVE COMICS #670 - January 1994



Cold Cases
Credits:  Chuck Dixon (writer), Barry Kitson (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), John Costanza (letterer), Adrienne Roy (colorist)

Summary:  Detective Montoya is left to guard a frozen body that’s been taken to the morgue.  The body unexpectedly comes to life, pursuing her and the coroner, Colleen.  Batman overhears the gunshots nearby and enters the morgue.  They soon discover the body is Mr. Freeze, who is hiding in one of the refrigerated rooms.  Batman defeats him, but has to be stopped by Montoya before killing Mr. Freeze.  

Irrelevant Continuity:  
  • I believe this is the first time Renee Montoya appears as a detective, unless her promotion occurred in a story not reprinted in the Knightfall trades.  
  • Mr. Freeze was apparently left a frozen slab after a confrontation with the Joker.  I believe this is a reference to one of the original Robin miniseries.

Review:  The attempt to make Jean-Paul slightly more likable last issue is walked back, as he stands idly by and lets a couple get mugged while Christmas shopping.  They needed to be taught a lesson about “the jungle,” you see.  This does work, as a quick scene meant to establish just how cold and un-heroic Jean-Paul can be, I just wonder if everyone was on the same page regarding how Jean-Paul should act, of if he’s intentionally written as erratic.  Anyway, this issue is essentially a horror story, using Mr. Freeze as a stand-in for Alien.  It’s a decent change of pace from most of the recent issues, although I don’t think Barry Kitson’s art lends itself to horror.  Mr. Freeze is also a dull villain at this stage, as his animated series revamp has yet to make its way into the comics.

5 comments:

cyke68 said...

Mr. Freeze has become so intrinsically liked to his Batman: TAS portrayal that it makes any other interpretation hard to reconcile. What a weird take on the character.

I've had the itch to read the Knightfall epic in its entirety (my exposure to it as originally published was spotty), but your write-ups are somewhat talking me out of it. The Jean-Paul as Batman issues sound mind-numbingly tedious.

Is it safe to say Knightfall is the inverse of Death of Superman? The former starts off with a bang and peters out, while the latter picks up steam and gets really good in the post-Doomsday Funeral for a Friend/Reign of the Supermen aftermath.

m!ke said...

do we know why the header dress on this issue is marked as a knightsquest: the search, when the jean-paul valley material was supposed to be knightsquest: the crusade?

Anonymous said...

I'd say that the series starts good with Knightfall, dips with the Jean Paul Knightquest issues (but is decent enough in the Bruce ones) and then rebounds with Knight's End. Not that Knight's End is a classic story, but it's like a John Woo movie; Decent filler around pretty good action scenes.

Dobson said...

Knightfall and the surrounding arcs aren't bad, but it's definitely not "written for the trade," so there's a lot of basically independent stories that barely move the larger plot at all. Some of these are good stories on their own so it's no big deal, some of them are pretty lame because they're third-string Batman stories that don't even have the regular Batman.

J said...

If you count Prodigal as part of Knightfall (and it is printed in the new trades), I quite enjoy that story. It's on par with Knightfall and better than Knightsquest and Knightsend

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