John Layman

Batman Eternal was DC's attempt at a weekly Batman series: fifty-two issues published in a year, plotted by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV with a rotating writing team. The premise is a slow-motion demolition of Gotham's institutions: Jim Gordon imprisoned for a crash he did not cause, Falcone back in the city, and Batman losing the police force, Arkham and eventually Wayne Enterprises. A weekly schedule forces a plot that never idles, and at fifty-two issues in one volume it reads closer to a season of television than to a comic run.

Batman: Detective Comics: The New 52, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Batman: Detective Comics: The New 52 Omnibus Vol. 1 starts the New 52 Detective Comics era with a sharper, more violent Gotham and a Batman pushed through crime, spectacle and body-horror shocks. Tony Daniel and James Tynion IV make the book feel immediate, glossy and aggressive in a way that matches the relaunch mood. The second Detective Comics New 52 omnibus covers Gotham's most unstable stretch of the era, with the city cycling through hallucination, corruption and a replacement Batman. Gothtopia is the standout: a Gotham where everyone is happy and Batman is the only one who notices something is wrong. Layman's run is far better regarded now than it was on release, and having the Gordon material here connects Detective to the end of Snyder's Batman run.

Batman: Detective Comics: The New 52 Omnibus Vol. 1 starts the New 52 Detective Comics era with a sharper, more violent Gotham and a Batman pushed through crime, spectacle and body-horror shocks. Tony Daniel and James Tynion IV make the book feel immediate, glossy and aggressive in a way that matches the relaunch mood.

The second Detective Comics New 52 omnibus covers Gotham's most unstable stretch of the era, with the city cycling through hallucination, corruption and a replacement Batman. Gothtopia is the standout: a Gotham where everyone is happy and Batman is the only one who notices something is wrong. Layman's run is far better regarded now than it was on release, and having the Gordon material here connects Detective to the end of Snyder's Batman run.