Gotham City mythology expands thanks to Christian Ward in a volume published by Panini Comics with the title of Batman: City of Madness

The volumes of Batman Usually they do not have many problems to sell well in our country and when we are also in the case of someone who is provided with a careful edition and is a story of an author with a very personal style that promises to remove his comic by the typical clichés of the character, less difficulties will still have to finish the race. This is the case of the new work of Christian department What Panini Comics public under the title of Black label DC. Batman: City of Madness.

City of madness Lovecraftiana

The opening of this volume is like falling suddenly in a visual nightmare. Gotham City It is no longer the usual gray city, but a temptular psychedelic journey in which fear takes shape and Dark Knight It takes place in something dark, twisted and overwhelming. Christian Ward, author of this self -conscious volume within the line DC black labelA tribute is brought HP Lovecrafta letter of grotesque love a Arkham Asylum From Grant Morrison y Dave McKeanAnd it makes everything a descent that bleeds through all the cartoons.

The story begins with a hypnotic premise: Gotham City, that city that seems to be already sick, has a layer below. It is something similar to a dreamy, terrible and living version of itself, like Upside down From Stranger things. For centuries, the OwlWhich here will play a fundamental role, has maintained that sealed door. But of course, obviously the moment comes when someone breaks the seal and what emerges from the subsoil is a double Lovecraftiano Batman or, rather, a Batman who has been deformed by terror. This entity escapes his ancestral prison, kidnaps a boy to make him his own Robin And it triggers terror.

Yes, to put Batman as a final enemy in his twisted version (call The Batman who laughscalled White gentlemancalled Azrael…) It is something we saw in countless comics, but it is not something that has always worked well. And here it is not the stellar element of the story (which should be left to the art of Ward or vibrations of cosmic horror present), but works enough. And the fact of using the Court of Owls as cultists and guardians of this secret is really something that does not make much sense in the continuity of the Universe DC But it still works very well for this story, and that’s what it is.

Batman, always taciturn and stopped, is forced to ally with the Court of the Owls (yes, those aristocrats extended from Scott Snyder who were a thorn blocked in the continuity of the Masked crusader Controlling the city) to contain that nightmare that goes up. And it is not an enemy who can break with the blows, but it is a creature that breaks your perception of reality. The plot advances like a feverish dream: the city collapses in the cracks, Of the boys seems to speak with voices that do not belong to him e Alfred Pennyworth Reflect on the pages of your diary: your role, your fear and that terrible feeling of seeing Bruce Wayne Resurface like something out of the world.

Christian Ward’s art

It is impossible to spend a single page without reacting into the style of the department. Its saturated and dark colors (purple blacks, ardent red, torrential) do not seek realism, but atmosphere and dissonance. In Gotham below The shadows are almost liquid, the buildings seem to move and the lines merge between them. There are cartoons that look like expressionist paintings and each double page can be read as a mural in which Ward puts your horror in the retina without asking for permission.

There is a key element, and it is that feeling that what you saw moments is no longer there, as if the city could only open up to the swallowed heroes. Batman below, that perverse version of Bat manIt is not the typical disease usually, it is a visual manifestation of Bruce’s dark reflection, a broken mirror that leaves scars that looks at him.

This comic is not for people who wait for ordered bullets. If you are looking for clean strokes, sparkling dialogues and classic effect blows, this is not the appropriate comic. Nor is it for anyone who expects a traditional history of the character or that I am afraid of seeing Batman very outside his comfort zone. But if you support vertigo and you like that graphic narration is almost a sensory experience, then you are facing something great, because here ambiguity works in favor. You don’t have to understand everything, but you have to hear everything.

The combination of plots makes the interior design of the city a powerful symbolic sense. We have twisted citizens as reflections of deep sins; The Court of Owls as desperate guardians of what they do not understand; Alfred as a human anchor and Bruce Wayne does not face an external threat, but the possibility that all his symbol ends to become a nightmare. And this is what makes Gotham below not only a hidden city, but the push of the death of the reflected and exaggerated city.

AND Volume Posted by Panini Comics On the rigid cover with jacket contains 176 color pages with a size of 24.5 x 31.5 cm. and includes the translation of the American edition of the three numbers that make up the limited series Batman: City of MadnessIn addition to all the covers of the numbers included and a section of extra material in the end. The recommended sale price is € 38 and was offered for sale in August 2025.

Black label DC. Batman: City of Madness

Buried in the depths of Gotham … there is another Gotham. A nightmare populated by twisted reflections of the inhabitants of the surface and fueled by the fear and hatred that covers from above. For decades, the portal between the two identities of the city remained sealed and supervised by the Court of Owls. But now he has opened up and the twisted version of The Dark Gentleman has escaped … to capture and train his breastplate. Batman must form an embarrassing alliance with the field to stop him and prevent anything but escape the surface.

AUTORAres: Christian Ward