Review: Batman by Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo Omnibus Vol. 1

Some runs generate a lot of hype upon their launch but quickly fizzle out. Others start quietly and end up becoming definitive. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman from the New 52 clearly falls into the second category. When it was announced in 2011, neither of them was yet a household name. Five years later, their run was featured on every list of the character’s best modern runs.

The context of the New 52 relaunch

In 2011, DC made the most radical decision in its publishing history: to relaunch its entire universe from issue 1 with a partially reset continuity. The New 52. The idea was to attract new readers without the burden of 70 years of accumulated continuity. Almost all the major series were rebooted, including Batman.

DC needed someone who could write Batman from scratch without losing the veteran reader. They chose Scott Snyder, who had just shone in American Vampire (the vampire series published by Vertigo) and had made his first foray into the character in Detective Comics. As artist: Greg Capullo, a veteran of the independent comic scene who had drawn Spawn for years with Todd McFarlane and had been out of the mainstream Marvel/DC scene for a while.

It was a risky pairing. It worked.

Court of Owls: the concept

The first arc of the run, Court of Owls, presents a simple yet radical premise: Batman does not know his own city as well as he thought. In Gotham, there exists an ancient secret society called the Owls, which has controlled the city from the shadows for over a century. The Waynes grew up with a children’s story about the Owls as an urban legend. Bruce always dismissed it as folklore.

It turns out the Owls are real. And they’ve been waiting.

Snyder constructs the arc as a blend of Gothic horror and detective thriller. Batman investigates a series of ritual murders in Gotham, begins to piece together the patterns, and discovers that each victim was being eliminated by the same organisation. When the Owls decide that Bruce knows too much, they kidnap him, subject him to psychological torture, and cast him into an underground labyrinth beneath the city. They leave him there for days, without water, without light, without rest, until he breaks.

It is one of the best Batman story arcs of the last two decades because it introduces a new concept. After 80 years of comics where the Joker, Penguin, Riddler and company are constantly recycled, Snyder adds something genuinely original to the mythos. The Owls are not recycled classic villains: they are a new mythology.

Greg Capullo on art

Capullo brings an aesthetic that breaks with traditional Batman. His Gotham is an organic city, almost alive, with architecture that seems to breathe. His faces are expressive without veering into caricature. And above all, his visual design of the Talons (the assassins of the Court of Owls) is one of the most memorable creations of the New 52 Batman: almost tribal masks, glowing yellow eyes, bodies that move with inhuman elegance.

Capullo draws throughout the entire run with impressive consistency. For a modern Marvel/DC regular series, keeping the same artist for more than 50 consecutive issues is quite unusual. Most runs are marred by guest artists brought in midway through due to production deadlines. Capullo missed almost nothing.

Night of the Owls

The second arc of the volume is Night of the Owls, the crossover involving all of DC’s Bat titles simultaneously. The premise: the Court, having failed in its direct assault on Bruce Wayne, deploys all its Talons at once against all of Gotham’s institutional enemies (the mayor, the councillors, the police commissioners, Bruce himself, the Bat heroes).

It is a large-scale event with a crescendo-like rhythm. Capullo draws the main scenes of the main title, whilst other artists (Jason Fabok, Rafael Albuquerque) handle the tie-ins for Detective Comics, Batgirl, Nightwing and Catwoman. The result is one of the most coherent DC crossovers of the New 52, because it is editorially directed by the writers who created the threat, not by an editorial committee.

What the volume contains

The complete Court of Owls (the issues of the main arc in Batman), the complete Night of the Owls (with the relevant tie-ins from the other Bat titles), and bonus material including original covers, sketches and editorial notes on the creative process. It’s the equivalent of buying two complete Batman events packaged into a single large-format book.

Why this is the first recommended volume

If you’ve never read modern Batman, this is the best entry point there is. Reasons:

• No prior context required. The run begins with Bruce Wayne already as Batman; you don’t need to have read anything that came before.
• Self-contained concept. The two story arcs in the volume form a complete story. It works as a standalone work.
• Balance between action and psychology. It’s not just fights. Nor is it just dialogue. Snyder blends the two elements seamlessly.
• Visually excellent. Capullo is at his creative peak.

Honest weaknesses

The Night of the Owls arc involves a crossover with several titles. If you’re a reader obsessed with narrative consistency, you’ll notice that some tie-ins written by other writers aren’t on the same level as Snyder’s main issues. It’s inevitable in coordinated events, but it’s worth knowing.

Furthermore, this is the darkest and most violent Batman of recent years. There are scenes of psychological torture, explicit violence and an oppressive atmosphere. This is no light-hearted Batman. If you’re looking for colourful adventures, this isn’t the comic for you.

Verdict

Five stars, no questions asked. If you have to buy just one modern Batman comic, make it this one. And if you like it, there’s Vol. 2 with Endgame and Superheavy, the conclusion to the entire run.

The Snyder/Capullo run is proof that you can tell new stories with characters boasting 80 years of continuity. It’s difficult. But when it works, it works like this.

See Vol. 2 in our catalogue