I continue my journey of reading every Batman comic from Year One and up next is Matt Wagner’s Dark Moon Rising arc. This and Mad Monk are to be read back to back, and it also follows directly from Year One.

I have to say that this series starts out way too slow. There’s so much pre-amble and plot development of just panel after panel of people talking. There’s little action in the first few issues here. I did appreciate the connections to Year One such as Gordon’s “World’s Greatest Dad” mug and his internal battle with trying to accept Batman and referencing Batman saving his baby in Year One. I also like how vulnerable Batman is here. He’s essentially a superhero noob.

While the dialog is a bit dry and dull at times, and there are some weird anatomical shots that look off, the overall art direction continues off of Year One with a dark and dirty Gotham that is unforgiving. Batman’s shots in the shadows are just cool here. Continuity wise we only have two main villains here. The Roman and Dr. Hugo Strange who is reintroduced for the Year One timeline. We also get to see Bruce’s first true love, Julie Madison, and her father Norman Madison who is in deep with The Roman financially.

The battle between Bruce being Batman and balancing out his personal life really shows here. Despite how much Julie cares for him it’s not enough to pull him away from being Batman and we start seeing the internal struggle early on. People question his motives, and whether or not his existence is making crime worse in Gotham and encouraging these insane people to come out of the woodwork. I really like this a lot as it adds realism to the series.

As the series goes on we do get to finally see the Monster Men who are awesome looking, but there are no surprise plot twists here. This is mostly world-building which I really don’t mind and it helps continue the insanity of Year One and helps continue the thought process of Batman’s moral existence. I would have liked to see more action in this series during the first three issues, and just have it more balanced out, but what’s here is good and well worth a read. While the connections to Year One are subtle and sparse the overall world-building and continuity are great.