A Spectre of vengeance comes to Gotham in Detective Comics No. 1006

A cop is murdered and The Spectre is looking for Batman to help with the case. Not simply for justice, but The Spectre’s host, James Corrigan, has been kidnapped, as well. Spoilers for Detective Comics no. 1006 follow.

As has been the case for a good portion of Peter J. Tomasi’s run on Detective Comics, a mystery is afoot in Gotham City. On a normal Gotham night, a.k.a dark and raining, James Corrigan and his partner are called to a crime scene where they find someone shot in the head, execution style. Suddenly though, several men dressed in green cloaks come out from nowhere and attack the two detectives, killing Corrigan’s partner.

This releases The Spectre from Corrigan’s body, who begins to take vengeance on the murderer in front of him. While he is doing so though, the rest of the Green Cloaks kidnapped Corrigan and manage to escape from The Spectre.

Batman is on his routine patrols when he is alerted by Alfred to the previous crime scene. But before he can get there, he is accosted by The Spectre who begins to explain the situation to him. The Spectre then transports both Batman and himself to the crime scene, where there is blood and gore from The Spectre’s actions. This causes Batman to turn his rage to The Spectre and call him out on his hypocrisy. The Spectre takes his leave though, letting Batman conduct his time at the crime scene unfettered as a detective.

Image by DC Comics/Art by Kyle Hotz

After taking in the scene, Batman decides to take the green cloak material back to the Batcave for analysis, which hopefully is analyzed fast to save Corrigan from his kidnappers, who seem to be a cult that worships The Spectre.

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It’s great to see The Spectre get some play in the DC Universe again after seemingly being absent from the comics for what seemed like years (and ironically twice in one week, as he’s also in Batman: Damned). Pairing him up with Batman is also a great play because, while similar, they are two diametrically opposed in their views of justice. As such, that plays out in this issue in a very satisfying way that feels true to both characters.

It helps too that such a supernatural focused storyline has very Gothic style art and Kyle Hotz delivers the goods here. The art feels very different than much of what has come before, but it fits perfectly into the story being told. It’s dark and moody, which gives the book plenty of style to fit into the tone and purview of the story.

8.5/10 

Detective Comics No. 1006 brings Batman and The Spectre face to face in an extremely satisfying way that seems to be leading to a thrilling supernatural story.