I was looking for some good comic to read about. Something that give me a different experience from the usual super-hero-butt-kicking and then I find some interesting cover with the words “Gotham by midnight”. The premise looks interesting, giving the point of view of regular law forces against all the mystery and danger of the city we all know as one of the worst of the entire DC world. The possibility of finding cops resolving cases of murders and robberies with such elements as The Penguin, Cat woman, Victor Szasz and more was quite attractive to me, so I decide to read the first issue of this series and share it to all of you.
First of all, this series is from the New 52, before Rebirth showed up. We begin reading how some internal affairs cop called Rook appears on the 13th department, called also “Midnight Shift”. In this issue, is showed how skeptical is Rook about the progress of the whole unit which hasn’t make the first arrest. Thanks to this new character in the group we get and introduction of the members. The first one is Weaver, a regular cop that has some months in the unit and has some fresh behavior to the strange ambience of the group’s headquarters. At this point is show how the characters (a curious forensic and a tense nun) deal with something more that simple criminal. Besides them, is showed how the main protagonist is nobody but James Corrigan, The Specter’s avatar, who, with Batman’s help, finds and separate normal cases from the paranormal ones, resolving these with the 13th department. He also works side by side with the detective Lisa Drake, which has some intense interest in her job and shows some kind of extra sensorial perception.
Page after page we see Rook, standing strong in his position and opinion about the imminent closing of the department, but the case of some lost twins that return home, unable to speak and understandable language to their parents wake up his curiosity. With Morrigan taking him to a mysterious swamp where the evidence leads them, Rook would find himself in front of a kind of criminal that he never saw before.
As it seems to be, the history has some good points to hook readers, such as the mysteries in the darkest Gotham City and the possible closure of Morrigan’s unit and the dynamic of such a particular team of individuals working in that class of tasks. Beside this, the latent existence of the Specter in this history is quite a promise of some good and intense moments. The art is not detailed as other artist, but this kind of dark and irregular paint and drawn make give the sensation of uncertainty with a bit of a Noire like style.
I’ll be writing about this soon. The series has just 12 issues and an annual. The plot is not the more original that I’ve read, but the characters involved and the resources available could make this comics a great reading to have in the library.