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Sam Hamm and Joe Quinones’s Batman ’89 #1 returns to the BurtonVerse with a new and exciting story featuring Harvey Dent and the Dark Knight.
For many fans, Tim Burton’s Batman films are as beloved as any Batman comic. Burton’s version of Gotham City is at once campy and creepy, giving Bruce Wayne and all manner of iconic characters a perfect playground. This week, DC revitalized the BurtonVerse with the release of Batman ’89 #1 by writer Sam Hamm, artist Joe Quinones and colorist Leonardo Ito. The first issue sets the stage for an intriguing tale in the spirit of Burton’s films.
When a gang of criminals interrupts Gotham’s Halloween parade with an explosion, Batman swoops in to stop the crooks from causing any more mayhem. But, in his haste, the Dark Knight causes almost as much damage to the city as he had intended to prevent. Harvey Dent is incensed by Batman’s cavalier methods and brings it upon himself to end Batman’s crime-fighting career. His political actions cause trouble for Commissioner Gordon, Batman and countless other caped crusader sympathizers, while helping his own career.
Hamm’s writing matches the tone and pacing of Burton’s films. This first issue could easily be the first act of a BurtonVerse Batman movie. On one level, this expository tour of Gotham is an excellent way to reintroduce audiences to the universe and its inhabitants, but some of the introductions feel unnecessary. Hamm appears to go out of his way to introduce characters like Alfred, who is the spitting image of actor Michael Gough, when the narrative might have benefited from spending more time with either Dent or the criminals who terrorize Gotham in the opening scenes of the comic. That being said, Hamm does do an excellent job of establishing Dent’s character and his history, setting him up to be a remarkably compelling version of Two-Face in future issues.
Quinones is tasked with the difficult challenge of bringing the images from Burton’s movies into the comics medium. For the most part, he does a masterful job of capturing the essence of well-known actors and set pieces while maintaining a certain degree of cartoonish malleability. Harvey Dent is at once an excellent portrait of actor Billy Dee Williams and a functional character design. The same can be said of the rest of the cast and Gotham itself. Quinones presents both a return to the BurtonVerse and a vision of something entirely new. However, there are a few moments where characters drift a bit farther from their likenesses than intended. These moments tend to pull the reader out of the world, but are easy to move past.
Hamm and Quinones manage to utilize the aesthetic of the BurtonVerse to introduce a new story and a new look at Harvey Dent. They balance nostalgia with innovation to craft an exciting introduction to a familiar world. There are times when the source material threatens to hold back this contemporary story, but they manage to keep things moving without incident. Batman ’89 #1 lays a sturdy foundation for what is sure to be a wild story and is a long-overdue look back at Tim Burton’s Gotham.
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