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Shawn Martinbrough, today's featured creator, is not a familiar name for me, though he's got a few mentions in my collection, mostly for this particular run of Detective Comics scripted by Greg Rucka. He also did the art for Creeper #1000000, part of one of my favourite DCU crossovers, DC One Million.
If I might digress for just a moment, writer Mr. Rucka is a great proponent of diversity in comics. Two characters who show up in this issue, Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya, are two of the best POC characters I've read, with Ms. Montoya also getting a shout out for her queerness.
But back to Mr. Martinbrough. I got most of this run of Detective while I was running my comic store, and I've actually not read much of it. Batman, for me, is one of those really overdone characters, much like Wolverine was at Marvel in the late 80s and all of the 90s, so I don't tend to read Batman stories unless it's a favourite writer or a key story from the DCU. This, I'm finding, is a mistake, as we have wonderful runs on the character throughout his history that ought to be considered on their own merits, rather than on blanket thinking about the character. So when I opened up today's comic, it didn't quite look like I expected it to. The art reminded me very much of Michael Avon Oeming's work, and numerous outlets describe Mr. Martinbrough's work as "film-noir" influenced, which I can definitely see. But there's also the stylization, into a Darwyn Cooke-kind of place, that still gives the comic, despite its darkness, the feel of a superhero comic. I think sometimes writers and artists forget that Batman, though unpowered, is still one of the greatest superheroes to have come out of American culture. And even when he's on his darkest cases, we shouldn't forget that. Martinbrough's art manages to bridge these two worlds nicely, and has honestly pushed me over the edge into tracking down a bit more of this run. Rucka is always a draw, but when he's paired with artwork this good, how can I say no?
Though I've not read it in a while, I can also see how Mr. Martinbrough's art would work wonders on the Creeper installment of DC One Million, and it also appears he did the art for the short-lived series as well. There's a few short-lived series from DC at that point that I've made an effort to track down (Chase, Chronos, Vext) - they seemed to be willing to experiment a bit with their shared universe, and I think they produced some really spectacular comics that just didn't resonate with the wider readership. Creeper has definitely just made that list.
More to follow.
Further Reading and Related Posts
I've read a fair bit of Mr. Rucka's work for the project, if you're interested in some of my other thoughts on his work.
And, despite my previous statements, I've read a ton of Batman stuff for the project. Peter Milligan's Detective run is really quite excellent.
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