Batman #4- Enter the Minotaur
Spoilers:
We open on an ambush at the Port of Gotham to steal a truck. Cut to news coverage of crimes across the City, watched by our new villain, The Minotaur, and his agent. The footage is of different gangs, all fighting, stealing, and retaliating amongst themselves. It’s revealed they all run money through “The Bank,” with an organization called Torus, led by The Minotaur, who freezes their accounts and calls for parley to quash the violence. This seems terribly bold, and logical. I do find it unrealistic that the heads of all of these criminal organizations are just okay with being controlled like this. Surely, this will only lead to conflict.
Bruce Wayne pays a daylight visit to the Wayne Experimental Sciences Building to discuss Titanographene and the Crown of Storms with Dr. Zeller. I very much enjoyed the humor and playfulness of Fraction’s dialogue here, showing us that ol’ Wayne charm. It’s a bit of a meet-cute, with Bruce ultimately telling the doctor he’ll pick her up tomorrow at 7:00 for his undivided “time and attention” on the previous night’s Riddler incident.
Former reporter, Jack Dean, with junior informant, Huston Gray, in tow, heads to The Gotham Eye offices to visit a former colleague with the story of Huston’s eyewitness account of Commissioner Savage planting a Batarang on the dead cop. After a heated exchange that we are not privy to, they leave the office, unsuccessful in convincing The Eye to run the story. Without the full conversation, it’s hinted that the paper is complicit with a coverup on some level, with Dean calling his former boss a “propaganda spewing apparatchik.” I had to look it up, too. Time will tell if there’s a there there.
Anarky is hurriedly packing a bag, then running through his building, but is literally caught by Batman after leaping through a window. Restrained and interrogated, we learn that Anarky was behind the failed truck-jacking that started the whole gang war. He was paid “to boost the truck and dump it into the river,” but doesn’t know by whom. Batman begins connecting recent events, and Anarky is so scared of someone or something that he offers to turn state’s evidence. Bats finds out Anarky is terrified of a new player controlling Gotham’s organized crime. Anarky was created during my formative Batman reading years, so it’s cool to see him pop up, and he’s as good a device as any to facilitate this exposition drop to move Batman along the trail. Anarky has had several looks over the years, and I really like this take. Updated with more of a mischievous tagger look, with a hoodie and baggy, paint-splattered clothes, Lonnie seems less scary than in the past, but still has enough ties to the underground to be a source of information.
Our parley takes place inside the former Wayne Manor, which Vandal Savage appears to be renovating. He introduces The Minotaur, who explains the significance of a torus knot, with its “seven independent yet interconnected loops made unbreakable together,” signifying the six gangs and The Bank. It’s also revealed here that Minotaur has seven fingers on his right hand. The parts must work together to maintain the whole. To ensure this, Minotaur has kidnapped family members from all the gang leaders, including Lola, one of Penguin’s beloved…Penguins. Yep. Guns at their heads, Minotaur monologues about his efforts to build this criminal empire, revealing the cops, City Hall, and the press are all under thumb, and they’re keeping Batman too busy to notice them. At the end of his speech, all of the family members are murdered to assert his dominance.
The final splash page is a beautiful shot of Batman swinging over Gotham, with Anarky’s words telling Bats he’s too late to stop Minotaur.
Metalhead Mundy
It’s kind of unreal just how much information we get with how quickly this issue reads. This appears to be one of Fraction’s strengths. It’s a lot of fun seeing him lay groundwork, then watching the moving parts come together as Batman weaves those parts into a whole. The Minotaur seems to have his ducks in a row. I do hope we get more background on him, and exactly how we got here. In recent years, the penguin has been portrayed as fiercely independent, and a force to be reckoned with, so I’d love to see how gang leaders like him and the others were brought to heel, seemingly very quickly. The Bank itself has the potential to be a long term thorn in Batman’s side, with possible rotating leadership stepping up as each top dog is put down. I hope neither The Bank, nor The Minotaur, get burned too quickly. Time will tell, and I’m here for the ride.
There are lots of regular, non-costumed people for Jiménez to work his magic on in this issue. Unsurprisingly, everyone looks fantastic. From the beautiful people (Bruce and Dr. Zeller), to the various shapes, sizes, and colors of the crime bosses and supporting cast, Jiménez can draw them all well.
His design for The Minotaur is superb: a classic tailored suit, paired with a sleek, modern bull helmet, which is more digital representation than literal depiction.
Foggy
The Metalhead nailed it- Fraction is at his peak here. Wonderful story ideas, executed beautifully. It’s difficult to create new villains in comics that seem unique, dangerous or clever. Fraction manages to do this with his new villain The Minotaur. As Mundy says, the visual is spot on. But what I really like is that he isn’t playing games. He isn’t just threatening; he is cashing it in. When he not only threatens the members of his gang, but executes their family members to make a point; Fraction took him to a new level in only a few pages. It was interesting that Fraction used another villain in this issue with all the focus on his new villain The Minotaur. I think it was pretty cool to show how seemingly non-threatening an older Batman villain, Anarky, is to show how frightening this new villain actually is. The juxtaposition was not lost on me.
One interesting note here is that Fraction seems to be breaking from his one-and-done story telling with connective tissue. This issue is seemingly building to a much larger story involving the Minotaur. Perhaps each issue will tell how he brought all the criminal in line, or the storytelling has shifted a bit. In the end, I don’t care as long as this storytelling continues. This is peek Batman.
As for the art, Jorge Jimenez shines again. His Minotaur design is brilliant. He appears smart, kind of regal and dangerous. He brings the action as he always does, but he truly shined in his presentation of Bruce and Dr. Zeller. It was slightly comedic and romantic; his “direction” on the page really conveyed the feelings. The catch on the treadmill was particularly well done.
Mundy: 4.5 our of 5 batarangs
Foggy: 4.5 our of 5 batarangs
