Batman: Gotham by Gaslight - The Kryptonian Age #1 Review: Pulp Century Batman

The new Gotham by Gaslight fails to balance pulp tropes with original content, but still is an enjoyable read thanks to its art.

By Christian Hoffer

DC returns to Gotham by Gaslight with a new story aiming to widen the "Gaslight" universe, including more of the DC universe but largely playing on a number of pulp tropes with no real innovation or surprise. Batman: Gotham by Gaslight – The Kryptonian Age, written by Andy Diggle and illustrated by Leandro Fernandez with colors by Dave Stewart, is a grand return to the first Elseworlds story, featuring a number of familiar characters making their first "Gaslight" appearance. On its own, the comic is an enjoyable pulpy read, but this new miniseries is a bit of a stepdown from the heralded original Gotham by Gaslight and its equally enjoyable sequel. 

Set a year after Batman: Master of the Future, The Kryptonian Age focuses on Selina Kyle as she enacts the daring theft of an artifact said to be from a lost "Kryptonian Age." However, the ring (which bears a certain resemblance to Green Lantern's and taken from an exhibition organized by the Wayne Foundation) is revealed to be a fake orchestrated by Batman to draw out the League of Shadows, culminating in a fierce fight atop a moving train and the revelation of yet another Batman paramour with deadly intent in her eyes. 

The original Gotham by Gaslight, a one-shot by Brian Augustyn, Mike Mignola, and P. Craig Russell was a masterpiece, largely due to the moody and somber tone struck by Mignola and Russell's artwork. Fernandez and Stewart are fine successors to Mignola and Russell – Fernandez has a distinctive style that captures both the gaslight era of the series and the penny dreadful/pulp themes that this particular story embraces with the mysterious artifacts, bowler hat-wearing thugs, and shadow warriors. Stewart utilizes a palette of mostly blues and grays to set the mood, but still maintains Fernandez's distinct details without being obscured in a dark palette. Stewart has long been one of the industry's top colorists, and it's not lost on me that he utilizes similar color choices to his work on Mignola's Hellboy. Honestly, Stewart's work on Gotham by Gaslight is a good reminder how much a colorist can define a seminal work. While The Kryptonian Age doesn't look like a Mignola comic (and that's not a knock on Fernandez's style), it certainly possesses some of the same feel largely because of Stewart's contributions. 

The story and writing for The Kryptonian Age isn't bad, but it does lean too heavily on pulp tropes. From Native Americans lurking in the Kansas plains to not so veiled winks at brothels to ninja warriors that may be an uncomfortable reminder of some Yellow Peril tropes that plagued actual pulp stories at the turn of the century. There's certainly room for subversion of these tropes (and the comic strongly hints that will be the case for the Native American warriors at least) and Diggle avoids any obviously offensive tropes (which to be fair is impressive given how many commonpulp tropes are viewed as racist or misogynistic today), but taken on its own, the comic perhaps loses itself a bit in all these clustered hallmarks of a past era. And while the original Gotham by Gaslight's charm was attributed to it being one of the first DC comics to place DC characters into radically different settings, it's now one of DC's most-used tropes. Batman: Gotham by Gaslight – The Kryptonian Age is the third Elseworlds series published by DC Comics this year to feature Batman pulled "back" in time, so the series doesn't have the unique luster it once did simply because DC goes to this particular well quite often. 

Gotham by Gaslight – The Kryptonian Age has strong artwork and an okay story with plenty of room to grow. My sensibilities lean more towards like this particular Batman Elseworlds comic than some of the others published by DC Comics this year. By choosing to make a Gotham by Gaslight sequel, DC is inviting comparisons to the original and currently, The Kryptonian Age doesn't quite stand up to that comparison. 

Published by DC Comics

On June 11, 2024

Written by Andy Diggle

Art by Leandro Fernandez

Colors by Dave Stewart

Letters by Simon Bowland

Cover by Leandro Fernandez and Dave Stewart

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