Batman : Streets of Gotham; is it any good?

**The Man From Room X** · 11-04-2012, 03:09 AM

I bought the initial 3 or 4 issues of Batman : Streets of Gotham, and though there was some great Dustin Nguyen art in there, I found the story supremely boring with Firefly and Hush of all people as the opening villains.

Does it get better later on? Does it have any guest stars like Batgirl or Red Robin? Thanks.

**Patroklos** · 11-04-2012, 05:23 AM

I think it's great, but it does feature Hush in a prominent role in some of the following stories as well. I think Huntress guest stars down the line, and the Damian Wayne Robin is also featured pretty heavily along the way. When published monthly SoG was plagued by delays and strange back up-stories, but I still think it's one of the best Batman titles DC has published since old Legends of the Dark Knight. Great art by Nguyen, and few writers knows Batman and his world while still infusing a unique tone into the stories like Paul Dini does. I also loved how it focused on other parts of Gotham than the Batcave, and that the villains took center stage in most arcs.

**Statham** · 11-04-2012, 05:55 AM

I think the book tends to get unfavourably overshadowed by Morrison's run; Some of the villain choices are admittedly a little weak, and IMO, the book suffers early on from being tied rather roughly to Battle of the Cowl, which is where elements like Black Mask's appearance comes from. But on the whole, it picks up the baton from Dini's Detective Comics run and keeps on running, and damn well; There's the further development of Hush and his backstory and how he ties into Bruce's life, and - whilst some have complained about it - I also enjoy the inclusion of Zatanna, another carry over from the history Dini built whilst writing Tec. But it's a solid book, and I enjoy how Hush's storyline - far better than anything Loeb put together - comes to a fitting end. If Dini never does another Batman book again, he at least deserves some kind of credit for developing this one-note clown in bandages into something solid. And Dini's one of the few people who focuses on the importance of Martha Wayne, whereas things usually tend to focus on Thomas. So.. Yeah. Given it's only three TPB's, it's easily worth buying, IMO.

**sidekick77** · 11-04-2012, 06:19 AM

I think it was great and I agree with the above poster that it was unjustly overshadowed by B&R at the time. Streets of Gotham had strongly innovative street-level, vice-type stories that pulled in the entire Gotham cast at large, along with some cameos from other parts of the DCU as the book delved into the happenings of Wayne Enterprises and Bruce's absence. It was very sharp, concrete plotting compared to Morrison's much broader epic and abstract style of writing. So you can enjoy both as they compliment each other in my mind.

Overall, you'll get some good characterization on Damian and some very favorable Dick!Bats for your efforts.

**InformationGeek** · 11-04-2012, 06:37 AM

I enjoyed it quite a bit and I really liked how it looked at a lot of the different characters and villians of Gotham. I've only read 2 out of 3 volumes of the series, so I don't really know how it all ends. I would recommend it, but I would also recommend Heart of Hush since it is a sort of prequel in a way to the events going on in the story with Hush.

Interesting enough, Chris Yost did a two issue arc in it featuring Manbat and Huntress that was pretty good. This was before he moved over to Marvel started writing Scarlet Spider.

**kevink31593** · 11-04-2012, 09:01 AM

Yeah, it was pretty good, but not as good as Dini's run on Detective IMO.

**nepenthes** · 11-04-2012, 02:46 PM

I actually liked the first 4 or 5 issues most and thought it started to go downhill from there. The opening arcs had a large cast and new takes on classic characters, and it felt like a genuinely fresh and unique alternative to the rest of the books. The art was lush but that remained a constant throughout the series. By the Zsasz arc it just started to drag on a little and then all of a sudden there's was this silly new character Abuse, lots of fill ins and interruptions to the main story, a female villain called The Carpenter, then one long boring Hush saga until it's end.