After last month’s detour into the depths of the juvenile detention system, the story returns to the ongoing Asema mystery and the ethical question of who deserves to live or die. With still a few issues left before everything resolves, this issue brings us a small step closer to the identity of the Asema serial killer. Who she is, why she’s killing these criminals, and how it all ties to Bruce’s father with Joe Chill decades ago continue to be the series focus.
The issue opens with Batman coping from finally learning the big shocking twist that kicked off this arc, that Thomas Wayne saved Joe Chill’s life all those years ago. It sends him into an existential dread as he questions everything he knows about his values. Mainly, it once again touches on whether some people “deserve” to be saved. If nothing else, this story is very consistent in hammering home that point, from Asema’s victims to the punishment of criminals, to now whether even Joe Chill deserved to live given what he would go on to do. Ultimately, it’s a speech by Leslie Thompkins that reminds Bruce how integral the sanctity of human life is to him as a person. It’s a good speech, and one that ties a bow on the counterargument to the villainous call for utilitarian deaths.
Of course, this doesn’t stop Batman from storming into Joe Chill’s apartment to demand answers on whether he purposefully killed Thomas and Martha Wayne as revenge for helping his girlfriend and daughter escape. I’m not a big fan of the idea that Batman not only knows where Joe Chill lives, but surveils him at all times. At his core, Joe Chill shouldn’t really be a person, at least not in the narrative sense. “Joe Chill” works best as an idea – he could be any random mugger. On that night, it just so happened to be a man named Joe Chill. His identity isn’t important, but rather what that act represents. By placing so much importance on him specifically (and by extension his daughter and family), this arc somewhat misses the point of what makes him work as a piece of mythos.
Beyond the involvement of Chill, there still remains the question of Asema. As every issue so far (and a few solicits for the future) have asked: who is she? It’s the driving mystery of the story, but also one that has started to feel dragged out. Tom Taylor understands that a book called Detective Comics should be about a detective story, which is good, but there doesn’t seem to be quite enough meat there to support 8+ issues of intrigue. There will be crumbs of information pertaining to details like her connection to Commissioner Savage or relation to the secret grail organization, but that’s all ancillary. Because the story is so insistent on what it’s about and trying to say, we’ve known her motivations from the beginning.
With the reasons for her killings clear, what remains the big open question is what her actual identity is. Let’s also stop beating around the bush; the question is less “who is Asema?” and more “Is Scarlett Asema?” The comic has repeatedly gone out of its way to give hints teasing that it might be her, lending to the dramatic irony of her being Bruce’s latest love interest. You can imagine the dozens of clickbait news articles reading “Batman sleeps with Joe Chill’s daughter???” It’s a tantalizing morsel to dangle in front of readers that hopes to keep them reading to find out the answer.
However, as I’ve said in past reviews, the comic always makes sure to never fully commit to it being her. For example, Scarlett’s distinctive purple hair is unnoticeable because Asema is always lit in saturated oranges and reds that don’t let you see what her hair color is, and we never see anything that conclusively proves it has to be her. There’s always plausible deniability. This issue even reverses course a bit and suggests that it might not be her, with facts such as Asema’s letter incriminating Scarlett’s company and Scarlett claiming she never knew her father, despite Asema earlier clearly having a grudge against him.
At this point, the idea of “maybe it’s Scarlett” has been teased for so long that if it does end up being her it will almost feel like an anticlimax. It would mean anyone paying loose attention to the glowing signs pointing to her will have known since the first issue. Conversely, if it’s not her, (and perhaps another woman who was introduced to the story and has a grudge against people like Joe Chill) then the constant red herrings towards Scarlett will come off as frustrating in their insistence. It’s a bit of a lose-lose. When you spend so long building your narrative around whether or not your mystery is one specific answer, then neither possibility will be fully satisfying.
Recommended If
- You’re still captivated by the Asema mystery
- Joe Chill is someone you want to see explored more
- The new characters of the story so far interest you
Overall
This latest arc of Detective Comics has plenty of drama, and potentially dramatic irony to go with it, but it’s questionable whether there’s enough substance to fill a story of this length. The same ideas keep being revisited as it crawls towards finally answering the questions raised in the very first issue. Hopefully with all its build-up, whatever ending it arrives at will deliver a satisfying payoff.
Score: 5.5/10
