Batman: City Of Crime

July 31, 2006 | Trades

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Batman: City Of Crime
David Lapham, Ramon Bachs, Nathan Massengill
DC Comics
$26.99/$19.99 US (Paperback)
*** 1/2 (out of five)

Gotham City has always been the cesspool of the DC Universe — the kind of place that’s so bad that even the tireless Batman can’t stop all the crime there.
But things seem to be going from bad to worse lately.
It begins, as these stories so often do, with the death of innocents — seven teenaged girls, to be precise.
Six of them are killed in a fire, while the other, an acquaintance of Bruce Wayne’s, is found dead in an alley.
As the circumstances of the fire and of the lifestyle of the seventh girl come to light, Batman begins to unravel a startling conspiracy in Gotham, one that involves plenty of Wayne’s fellow bluebloods, city officials, police and residents.
And when the hero finally figures out where to point the finger for all these tragedies, he finds an answer that may be more unsettling than the deaths themselves.
Crime-noir writer extraordinaire David Lapham (Stray Bullets), with help by artists Ramon Bachs and Nathan Massengill, takes his time with his first foray into the DCU, building a complex and very visceral story that is highly satisfying.

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