A bit ago, I had taken a look at the first issue of a new run on Batman from Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jiménez. That’s since come and gone—and is one of the larger bumps in my pile that I’ll need to return to at some point—and now we have another launch of the mainline Batman series that looks to reorient us by bringing us back to Batman #1—by Matt Fraction, Jorge Jiménez, Tomeu Morey, and Clayton Cowles—and picking up in a place that’s familiar, but just different enough to keep things new.

While this Batman is starting with a #1 again, it isn’t a full relaunch of the character—Absolute Batman is where that’s happening in a sideways kind of way—and brings us straight into the new continuity Bruce finds himself in. Gordon is no longer police commissioner and is back to being a beat cop, Vandal Savage is the GCPD commissioner and is bringing in private security to handle supervillain threats, and Alfred has died. Bruce is dealing with the latter the best way he can—by hallucinating conversations with Alfred while tracking down a recently escaped Killer Croc. But this is a Croc that’s different as his ailment is progressing in a way that is turning him into a new person—a more dangerous metahuman, but with a mind more akin to a child. This is where Batman confronts him, but sees how much the Croc he’s known for years has changed.

There’s already a distinct feeling running through this first issue that makes it truly feel like we’re starting out somewhere new. Bruce is down in the streets for the majority of the issue—looking for hints as to where Croc has gone, helping people being assaulted by a new gang in the park—and so the concerns are all that much smaller. The crime in Gotham is still the larger issue at play, but it isn’t the city-wide, or global, peril that we’ve been seeing from the series in the past. The way the story is telegraphing from its first issue is showing us the small before expanding out—which is why we get that stinger with Robin being held up by cops on the last page—but giving us those small steps. Establishing a baseline in the first issue is necessary for a series like Batman, but it shows us those smaller stakes in moments like Bruce taking off the cowl to talk to Waylon Jones while waiting for his doctors to arrive.

First issues can be difficult, but Fraction, Jiménez, Morey, and Cowles show just how much can be established in twenty-two pages with the right kind of pacing and small hints as to where the story can go from this point. There’s a dozen winding paths branching off of just one issue and it’s enough to keep the story going dozens of issues further into the run. 

Get excited. Get new.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, 510, 651, & 674) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.