The Arkham Knight is revealed to Batman in Detective Comics No. 1003

The Arkham Knight has captured Robin, somehow taking him entirely off the grid, much to the chagrin of Batman while searching for his son. Spoilers for Detective Comics no. 1003 follow.

With no fear of Batman finding where Damian is being held, the Arkham Knight quickly attempts to bring Damian over to her side. Yes, that’s right, her. In order to build a repertoire with Damian, she takes off her mask revealing herself to be…nobody that he or, the reader, recognizes. This feels a bit anti-climactic at first just because you don’t know who the Arkham Knight truly is beyond her face, but that changes later in the issue.

Ready for a fight though, Damian begins to be on the offensive toward the Arkham Knight and her army. However, she doesn’t actually want to fight, she just wanted to talk and lets Damian go. Damian signals Batman with his Robin sigil on a spotlight, a Robin-signal if you will, and Batman finds him. Together, they then go back to Arkham Asylum to stop the Arkham Knight from pulling off her plan, which they aren’t even fully clear about at this point.

Image by DC Comics/Art by Brad Walker

Once they arrive though, nobody is there other than Jeremiah Arkham. He then reveals that the Arkham Knight is in fact a member of the Arkham family and her name is Astrid Arkham. This is a nice change in the mythos of the character and makes the name actually make sense rather than trying to be a misdirect.

Peter J. Tomasi and Brad Walker are doing a great job with this story and in making the Arkham Knight an actually interesting character, rather than simply Jason Todd in a different mask. Jason’s a great character, but he never really felt right as the Arkham Knight. Here though, Astrid actually feels like a sensible choice for the character.

8.5/10 

Detective Comics no. 1003 changes that mythos of the Arkham Knight in a way that makes the character, and story, all the more interesting.