Publishers: DC
Writers: Ray Fawkes
Artist: Juan Ferreyra
Colourist: Juan Ferreyra
Release date: OUT NOW!
Price: $2.99

Gotham by Midnight #9 is buzz-a-plenty in the comicverse. And, for once, the buzz is justified and not just hype. The Bill Sienkiewicz cover means you can judge Gotham by Midnight #9 too. There is very little to disappoint here.

The story revolves around Jim Corrigan, who becomes (releases?) the Spectre, an incredibly powerful supernatural being put on Earth to do God’s will and punish evil. The idea originates from 1940 when DC introduced the Spectre as one of the first superheroes.

But back to Gotham by Midnight #9, where the city is being plagued by a series of violent riots and killings, and the Gotham itself is covered with Black Flowers, which have a supernatural nature and show up when the Spectre is around. To battle the crisis, Commissioner Jim Gordon created the Detailed Case Task Force, or Midnight Shift, including Jim Corrigan.

In one of the most violent, if not the most violent page to ever have been printed in a mainstream comic book, the Spectre turns the two cops into a bloody pulp. The horrified Corrigan can’t understand why the Spectre would kill innocent people. “God wanted this?” he asks the Spectre. “You wanted it. It is you. It was always you,” the Spectre tells him. For Corrigan it’s a Nietzschen nightmare: his God is dead.

By changing the canon in Gotham by Midnight #9 and making the Spectre a manifestation of Corrigan’s id (can you say the film Forbidden Planet? Ed. Yes you can. Freud and I are one on that subject). DC goes full grit and like today’s gun debate in the U.S.A, it’s getting harder to tell a good guy with a super power from a bad one with a super power.

Ironically Gotham by Midnight #9 has only three more issues before cancellation comes a calling. It’s not clear what DC plans to do with this turn of events. But, boy howdy, do we want to find out.

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker