Batman the Imposter

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Not that that’s a bad thing in itself (there’s a detail over why he’s not got access to his family’s billions that’s a clever touch) but I think Tomlin’s fallen into a typical pitfall when writing Batman which is that he's gone much too dark and overly serious. Sure it’s more grounded but it’s also not fun. Sometimes a deathly serious tone works but it’s better if a writer has earned that right by building up to it in a series - which Tomlin hasn’t. Frankly, it scares me, because I know it’s territory that could upset a lot of people in the same way that taking Alfred out the way that I did. I knew that that was gonna upset a lot of people and at the same time it feels narratively earned. I think that I just have to kind of go there, and if people hate it, they hate it. Otherwise, they might appreciate that there’s something different here. So yeah, that’s a long way of saying I would love to do lots more in this universe. In just three years, the Batman has made a huge impact on Gotham crime - but that good work is threatening to be undone as footage of “Batman” executing unarmed prisoners emerges. There’s an imposter out there - but who? Batman and Detective Blair Wong set out to uncover the mystery. One of the better Batman comics to come out in the past several years. It’s being touted as a “jumping-on point” for fans of the Matt Reeves movie (though whether any of this is in continuity with that universe remains to be seen). Dark and gritty without succumbing to the nihilism of the Snyderverse. Strong YEAR ONE and GOTHAM CENTRAL vibes, with a few f-bombs thrown in for the grownups. This is such an intense book, but do you think there’s ever a point in this character’s career where Batman becomes well adjusted? Where he’s able to make peace with some of these more troublesome elements of himself, but is still able to continue his career? Because all through The Imposter, Leslie Tompkins is making appeals to Bruce Wayne as a “force of nature.” I don’t know that I’ve seen that before. Is there a point where these two elements can resolve but Batman can continue to be Batman? Or does Batman only exist if those two things are in conflict?

With the entire might of the Gotham City Police Department and Gotham’s rich and powerful coming down on his head, Batman must find this imposter and somehow clear his name…but how can you prove your innocence from behind a mask? It’s not that it’s superhuman, it’s that it is a coping mechanism. So then leaning into certain realities of that…I don’t think that we talk enough about the mental health of Bruce Wayne. On the one hand, it’s visually cool and exciting to dress up as a bat and go beat people up and at the same time, that’s deranged. The point that so many creators and fans bring up about how Bruce Wayne should be in Arkham along with all of the villains, I don’t necessarily disagree with that. So it just kind of felt like, lean into that a little bit more, let’s be a little bit more honest about what’s going on with this guy. Certainly doing something that was very grounded, and something that was a detective story, that is something I'm very interested in," he said. "But honestly, I think that it might have come from a tweet. You know, the internet goes wild, and one of the memes that was going around is something like 'Bruce Wayne would rather dress up as a bat and beat people up than go to therapy.' And I just thought, that's kind of awesome. Let's send him to therapy! And I hadn't quite seen that in a really head on kind of way before.

Demoted to Extra: Alfred Pennyworth and James Gordon only receive a few mentions, compared to the central members of the supporting cast they are elsewhere. So much of what [Reeves] was doing was already set," Tomlin told SYFY WIRE. "And I spent so much time thinking about Batman that year, that I kind of felt like, 'Man, I have all of these ideas, and kind of things I would have done, or ways to go that just never applied to the movie, because it was its own thing.' And I ended up calling the folks at DC Films and kind of sheepishly asking them, 'Hey, I'm really interested in comic books. I actually really, really loved the 'books. So is there anybody at DC that I could talk to?' And they were very, very generous, and they set me right up." Having been a fan of his for years, working with Andrea Sorrentino is an absolute gift,” added Tomlin. “His vividly graphic art and truly genius layouts brought this story to new heights, and Jordie Bellaire’s astounding color work has truly spoiled me for my first outing with DC.” Awesome book. It is a good story, a bit obvious in places, great artwork, and a decent amount of action as well. It is a good idea to coincide with the movie release to draw Bruce Wayne to look more like Robert Patterson.

DC Publicity (July 16, 2021). "DC CONNECT #15 - SEE WHAT'S COMING IN OCTOBER!". DC Comics.com. DC Comics . Retrieved February 17, 2022. Batman: The Imposter collects issues 1-3 of the DC Comics series written by Mattson Tomlin and art by Andrea Sorrentino. The story provides an engaging mystery as Wong and Bruce Wayne, as well as Wong and Batman, try to find the imposter committing murders and disgracing the reputation of Batman. A surprisingly solid Batman story. Usually I absolutely hate stories about “realistic” superheroes, but this was well written and the author had a decent voice for Bruce Wayne. It was also helped immensely by the incredible art from Andrea Sorrentino, who continues to be one of my favorite artists in all of comics. Seriously, the action scenes in this book alone make it worth buying at cover price. Batman must clear his name after an Imposter begins murdering cops in the batsuit, but how does one prove their innocence from behind a mask? There are a lot of villains in this that aren’t really recognizable as villains. They’re not the antagonists of the piece. In particular, the stuff with Ratcatcher is heartbreaking, almost from the minute he appears on panel. How did you decide on including Ventriloquist, Ratcatcher, Squid… you mentioned Firebug…how did you come to populating this story with these particular characters?

We've seen pieces of that around, so it's not anything new, Tomlin said. "But again, really leaning into [the realism] in this way. Does he hold a press conference and say, 'No guys, that's not me. It's this other'? It just creates all of these complications for him that to me really felt like, 'Man, that's going to be tough for Batman to get out of.' And I love making his life hell. So that, for me, was really, it just felt like a very clear kind of obstacle."

Mattson Tomlin employs shifting narration to allow the central mystery ("Who is the second Batman?") to play out from multiple perspectives. This narrative element works superbly, keeping the reader on their toes as bits of knowledge are revealed. Batman himself isn't necessarily a bit player, but he's also not the lead - always welcome. I like a Gotham City that's populated with more than just superheroes and freaks. Mirroring seems to be a theme in this story: the Imposter is Batman without his moral code, and Wong is Bruce without his money/desire to mete out vigilante justice, although neither seem to be presented as options we should be favouring. Because what Bruce and Batman are in this book instead is kind of a boring alternative to both: humourless, dull, and quite one-dimensional overall - effective though, apparently. Bittersweet Ending: Tends towards Downer Ending. While Batman does stop the murderous imposter, his legacy remains tarnished, perhaps irrevocably, since it's impossible for the authorities and the public to really know which Batman did what. The wealthy and the powerful of Gotham remain opposed to Batman, so he's unlikely to ever enjoy again the limited leeway he once did with the GCPD. Detective Blair Wong knows his true identity, and is ambivalent about him at best, further complicating his situation. The one positive for Bruce by the end of the story is that he's come to some kind of an understanding with Leslie Thompkins, and even sends Arnold Wesker to her for therapy. Where were you in terms of your involvement with the Batman movie when you were working on this? Had you already done your bit on that project before?

This is okay. Feels like it's longer than it should be, and there's a romantic development that is foisted upon the reader, unconvincingly. But Blair Wong and Leslie Thompkins aren't the only characters creating complications in Bruce Wayne's crimefighting life. There's also the title imposter, who appears in the first issue and sends ripples through Gotham City, from the underworld to the police department, with their attempts to imitate Batman. For Tomlin, creating an imposter Caped Crusader was motivated in part by his decision to steer away from direct confrontations with bigger villain names in his comics writing debut, but it was also part of the grounded nature of the story. If Batman really was going on, dressing up in a costume, and actually having an impact on his city, it makes sense that someone else might try to set up a twisted mirror image of that. I love Batman: Earth One for this reason, because it felt so real. It just kind of felt like there’s room for some more of those…[and] the movie is so much Matt Reeves, and there’s ideas that I was having that don’t apply to the movie. So I found myself wondering what would just my version look like? What are some of the things that I would do? Rudolph, Casper (2021-10-13). "Batman: The Imposter #1 review". Batman News . Retrieved 2022-11-22. Leslie Thompkins, far from being another surrogate parent to Bruce who is largely supportive of his crusade, is depicted here instead as someone who refuses to blindly enable his violent vigilantism and forces him into therapy by threatening to expose his true identity once she discovers it. (Although this is very Depending on the Writer even in mainstream continuity; Leslie's attitude to Batman has ranged from "largely supportive" to " will murder a child to make him stop", and is generally somewhere in the middle.)

Bruce has a bit of a dopey interaction with a psychiatrist, which isn't great. However, the rest of the narrative through the Batman and the main detective is quite interesting. The entire imposter angle also creates a lot of interesting questions and presents an unexpected perspective. Instead of using an ostentatious vehicle like the Batmobile, Batman gets around Gotham inconspicuously using an elaborate network of ziplines and hidden motorcycles. Even this isn't inconspicuous enough, however, since the GCPD finds and confiscates many of the motorcycles and cuts the ziplines. Batman: The Imposter – A Three-Issue Prestige Format Series Offering Up a Unique Vision of Gotham’s Dark Knight! Bruce Wayne’s mission as the Batman has only been underway for a year or so, but he can tell he’s making a difference in this city. Unfortunately, he’s made some powerful enemies–and not just among the colorful maniacs called “super-villains.” All the traditional power brokers of Gotham resent the disruption the Batman has brought to town… and it seems one of them has a plan to neutralize him. There’s a second Batman haunting Gotham’s rooftops and alleys–and this one has no qualms about murdering criminals, live and on tape. With the entire might of the Gotham City Police Department and Gotham’s rich and powerful coming down on his head, Batman must find this imposter and somehow clear his name…but how can you prove your innocence from behind a mask?

There are characters who mirror one another, whether it is Batman facing a version of himself that doesn’t mind the bloodshed, or Bruce forming a dynamic with Blair, who went a similar trauma as a child like Bruce’s. Considering how emo Bruce gets in the story, Blaire serves as a nice counter as she serves as a co-protagonist and their relationship brings out the emotional core, as well as showing a life that Bruce could have outside of the Batman. Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Due to Bruce's somewhat different circumstances from most other interpretations, he has no close friends or support system, since Alfred quit when he was a child, and Gordon was fired from the GCPD for working with him. He was a highly disturbed child diagnosed with OCD and acute anxiety, who was prone to violent outbursts. As an adult, he remains an emotionally damaged individual, who falls in love with Blair Wong, but has no qualms about manipulating her to gather intel from the GCPD's investigation of Batman. His therapy sessions with Leslie do help him to an extent but by the end he hasn't changed that much, and his circumstances as Batman have gotten even worse since the authorities and the public still view him as a dangerous vigilante at best and a serial killer at worst. Bryan, Carl (2021-11-25). "Review: Batman: The Imposter #2". Dark Knight News . Retrieved 2022-11-24. Tomlinson is the writer of the upcoming batman movie of 2022 (as of this time) and it seems like this story takes place there and its amazingly done and he sets up a lot of easter eggs and the main story is an imposter going around murdering people and how does Bruce react to it or stop them and I love the way he handles it with Leslie and this new detective Claire wong and also showing how similar they are and pushing the romance angle and then the revelations and all the drama that comes from it and finally the big reveal and its handled so well and leads to great ending which makes you think a lot of things!