Detective Comics #1090-1106, and the return of mystery storytelling

I have recently been catching up on Tom Taylor's run on Detective Comics, and it has been great fun. I haven't been a fan of Batman comics in recent years because I couldn't find what I loved about the character. It's not the action, the gadgets or the confrontations with the Joker's devious plans or Cobblepot's latest conspiracies. What drew me to the character was his status as the 'World's Greatest Detective': a character so smart that he could solve seemingly unsolvable crimes. However, writing a good detective story is difficult, and often writers end up telling another action-blockbuster-type story. So it definitely caught my attention when Tom Taylor took over Detective Comics right after Ram V's run, which was nice overall despite some concerns. After all, Taylor wrote some of my favourite DC pieces in the past four or five years, such as Superman: Son of Kal-El, Titans and the incredible Nightwing.

And, once again, I have not been disappointed. Taking on the Dark Knight, the Aussie writer has adopted a detective approach, bringing the character closer to the traditional Batman than the raw and uncompromising brute we have seen in some comics (please, no more Batman Metal). The two main cases so far have involved a cult seeking immortality, which made Batman question his own mortality, an easy trick, but an effective way of making him seem more human, and a suspicious virus that could be unleashed on Gotham, making people fearless. Both cases are written very well, depicting a Batman who is not overpowered, but rather smarter than his adversaries. He still struggles here and there while discovering their plans, make mistakes, gets confused and questions himself, but this is what makes the story so enticing. We get to cheer him on, discover clues at his pace and slowly piece the puzzle together. And with Mikel Janin's beautiful artwork, it's a great success.

That's why I loved it so much. Batman does not always need to be raw, fearless and brutal; he does not need to be a killing machine like he was in Scott Snyder's stories. It's being a detective that makes him different from other DC superheroes, and it's his humanity that makes him better than the GCPD. It justifies the respect he got from the Bat-family. The reason it works so well is that Tom Taylor is a great writer who knows how to write a mystery and deliver surprising endings without compromising cohesion. Everything makes sense, and we can see a real evolution in his character between his first take on Detective Comics released at the end of 2024 and the latest issues released this spring. We can see his character growing and getting smarter while also embracing his weaknesses, which is important for a hero who inspires kids and teens all over the world.

That doesn't mean that everyone has been failing with Batman lately. Ram V has produced some good work, and there's certainly a certain appeal in viewing Batman as a powerful brute, as despite my aversion to everything Scott Snyder did with the character before, I've been enjoying his Absolute Batman series. However, there's something about this Detective Comics that I immediately connected with, and it's something that I relate to and wished to see again in the character, something that made me fall in love with its detective side ever since the first time I read The Long Halloween.