The Batman Below spreads its influence throughout Gotham in an exclusive first look at City of Madness #2
Nov. 1, 2023Preview | Check out some gorgeous new pages from Christian Ward’s beautiful nightmare
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The first issue of Batman: City of Madness plunged the Dark Knight into a surreal and sinister new adventure.
A sink hole has opened up in Gotham and a monstrous new threat, the Batman Below, has emerged and is now stalking the streets. Meanwhile, a young man named Jevoney is seeking justice following the killing of his father, while theCourt of Owlsare plotting and scheming.
The new Black Label book from writer/artist Christian Ward is terrific. It embraces the more dream-like aspects of Batman’s adventures and feels, in some ways, like a spiritual sequel toGrant Morrisonand Dave McKean’s classicArkham Asylum(which it directly references in the first issue). It’s a gorgeous-looking and often deliriously strange book - and we’ve got an exclusive preview of the second issue right here.
In the gallery of pages below Bruce Wayne tackles a pack of mobsters, while the Batman Below starts to makes its influence felt on young Jevoney.
DC’s official synopsis for the issue reads:
“The Court of Owls summons Batman, demanding he venture deep beneath the city to fight what has been unleashed from its depths: a wave of madness infecting Gotham’s villains, driven by the monstrous creature they’re calling “the Batman Below.” But the Court has not-entirely-noble reasons for wanting this chaos stopped…Is Batman their weapon, or their bait?”
DC has also released a trio of covers for the new issue. You can check those out in the gallery above. They are by (from left to right) Christian Ward, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Tula Lotay.
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Batman: City of Madness #2 is published by DC on December 12.
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Will Salmon is the Comics Editor for GamesRadar/Newsarama. He has been writing about comics, film, TV, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he has previously launched scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for over a decade. He sometimes feels very old, like Guy Pearce in Prometheus. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places and he runs the micro-label Modern Aviation, which puts out experimental music on cassette tape.
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