Batman: The Black Mirror

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When you catch a conversation between Dick and Tim, it's like you're peering over the shoulders of a couple of old friends - people you can just tell immediately they've known each other too long, so there's nothing artificial or. The only other Batman comic that comes close is Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth which I also recommend. And that conflicts a bit with my position that Batgirl is awesome and bringing Barbara back in the role is the best decision in the whole New 52. I suppose my biggest fascination (and problem) with Batman stories has always been the hero's complete inability (and often, his refusal) to really conquer evil. But, after discovering some newer “Batman” comics, I wanted to try out some and one of the “Batman” stories that I had checked out was “Batman: The Black Mirror.

This exciting and brilliantly illustrated DC Comics Collection tells the story of Bruce Wayne and Batman from start to finish in exquisite detail. But, definitely, The Black Mirror is an entertaining story and a must-read to any Batman fan, specially if you want to read about the tour-of-duty of Dick Grayson while he was having the mantle. So far, I really liked Scott Snyder's other Batman stories (The Court of Owls and The City of Owls), I was almost 100% sure I was going to like this one. But meanwhile, many have hailed Black Mirror as a high note for the original series to end on, in which Dick Grayson, having taken on the cape and cowl from his boss, works with Commissioner Gordon on a particularly grisly (of course) and personal (natch) set of cases that (indubitably) all turn out to be the same case, formed by a criminal mastermind from their shared past.

Scott Snyder and Jock take the reader on a dark journey, following Dick Grayson as he tries to fill Bruce Wayne's shoes.

The younger James is popularly suspected of being a criminal, and Barbara "Still Oracle" Gordon suspected him of even being a serial killer, although there was never any proof. I found Dick to be remarkably admirable yet pitiful as well especially in those quiet moments when I see glimpses of the Boy Wonder who is still lurking somewhere in the more matured and fiercer fighter Dick has become after leaving the Robin persona behind. For years, Batman and Commissioner Gordon have stared into the unyielding black abyss that is Gotham City.Dick Grayson is meant to be the main character here but aside from stories about the circus, there is no development for him.

Dick manages to track down the Joker in the South Bowery Tunnels, but Joker tells him that he wasn't the one who mutilated Joker's ex-wife but James Gordon Junior. This is all a very long, complicated way of saying The Black Mirror reads like a well-made graphic novel that was meant to be read like a graphic novel.as he is a new character that I had never read about before, but Scott Snyder did a brilliant job at making him extremely creepy as you do not really know his true motives and yet, he can act so innocent at the drop of a hat. What's really quite fantastic about Snyder's writing (especially his dialogue) is not what's there but what's not - so much pointless exposition, all the extra details that any intelligent reader can fill in (or enjoy wondering about). In these issues, we see Gordon stumble upon an enigma he could never seem to get a hold of in solving, one whose dark nature perplex and wound him most: his own son James Jr.