GRAPHIC NOVEL
Batman
Year 100

Author: Paul Pope
Artist: Paul Pope
Titan Books
RRP: £11.99, US $19.99
ISBN-13: 978 1 84576 424 1
ISBN-10: 1 84576 424 2
Available 25 May 2007


A murdered federal agent. A contingent of Washington's best spooks hot on the suspect's trail. Amid the chaos, GCPD's detective Gordon, Grandson of the former commissioner, launches his own investigation and discovers that the man they are chasing is a man who shouldn't exist at all...

Gotham, circa 2039: welcome to the future. Psychic police, satellite surveillance and a completely intrusive government ensure that personal privacy is a thing of the past.

When a government agent is murdered in Gotham, a contingent of top Washington operatives is despatched to find the killer. Launching his own investigation, GCPD cop Jim Gordon - grandson of the commissioner - discovers that the man wanted for the murder shouldn't even exist; after all, surely the Batman is dead.

Paul Pope's creation is interesting. Taking the Batman and putting him into a future where everything is even more corrupt than the world we know, is a brave move - especially when the residents of Arkham Asylum are taken out of the equation.

My only reservation about this title is that I don't really know why author Paul Pope insisted on having Gordon's grandson as the cop element. Are we really to believe that Gordon's grandson, who looks identical to his grandfather at that age, would really manage to become a cop in Gotham City? Okay, being a little anal here, but if you read Batman: Year One it explains that Gordon didn't really want to move to Gotham in the first place. I'd assume that he would either retire away from Gotham, or at the very least ensure his children (let alone his grandchildren) were brought up in another city. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have some one else working as a cop in Gotham?

But if you ignore my pathetic ramblings, and don't think too hard about this title, it represents another interesting tale that adds much to the Batman mythology.

Pete Boomer

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