Last issue had a lot of what felt like "big moments", where there was some sort of twist or event that drove the story forward. This issue has less of that, as it's mostly reacting to those moments and preparing for what will be coming next. Well, I suppose that's not entire true. There is one of those moments at the very end of the issue that everything else is setting up for, but that's only one page out of twenty-two. During all that set up, we do get a bit more context for the victims and possible suspects of the Asema serial killer case.

Continuing the trend from last issue of characters acting strangely, the story opens with a flashback where Scarlett's mother introduces her to Bruce in a bizarre way. She wants to thank him for what his mother did for them when Scarlett was born, but for seemingly no reason freaks out in the middle of it, lunges her arm through the bars of the gate, and grabs Bruce. I get that this is an understandably emotional moment for her, but it's hard to have a reaction other than "why is she doing this?" Also, as a small and possibly unfair side note, it's an interesting creative choice to have a scene where young Bruce reacts to Scarlett's middle name being "Martha" given a certain other, incredibly infamous scene where Bruce Wayne reacts to someone having the same name as his mom.

Back in the present day, Batman has enlisted all his allies to find all the juvenile criminals that might be Asema's next targets. It mostly consists of a few pages where one by one each of the bat family shows up to grab one of the kids. It's a sort of neat moment, but feels somewhat too much like a series of cameos for their own sake. They're all interchangeable and just strike a pose for their respective panels. It's also a sequence you've seen multiple times before if you read Taylor's previous work on Nightwing.

Batman himself gets a much more involved scene where he has to rescue one of the kids from his abusive stepdad. In it, he gives a big speech about how parents should be a place of safety for children, not a source of fear. That's all well and good, sounds perfectly in character for Batman, and certainly I agree. The only problem is that it comes out of nowhere and is disconnected from anything else in the story except on the loosest of thematic ties. It's just a morally righteous lesson involving characters we haven't met that happens and is then forgotten about immediately. It almost comes across as a PSA. It's good to have moments where Batman can be the (dark) knight in shining armor, especially with children, but they should be more woven into the fabric of the rest of the comic.

What everything builds up to is the confrontation between Batman and Asema. Their strategy of secretly trailing all the kids until Asema shows up to attack works, which leads to a big fight scene as Batman rushes to the rescue. Narratively there's not much to this fight that hasn't already been established before. Bruce wants to save everyone, but Asema insists that some people aren't deserving of life. It's the theme of the arc. Instead, this acts as a way for Mikel Janín to draw a really cool fight scene lit by flames for about six pages. For someone who has mostly been known for their pencils and not their colors up until now, he's really taken to it like a duck to water. Even when the characters sometimes look a bit stiff, the glowing reds and oranges seep everything with a sense of dramatic tension.

That lighting, by the way, is doing something very important. If you haven't noticed up until now, every scene with Asema has been lit (and more importantly stylistically colored) in such a way that you can never make out what her hair color is. This is because we're kicking the mystery can of her identity down the road until some later issue, but also that the comic has been doing everything in its power to repeatedly suggest that it's Scarlett (who has clearly identifiable purple hair).

She has the combat training, the motivation to hate criminals, is involved with a secret organization, gives vague descriptions of her alibi, and the list goes on. In fact, it's so insistent that you can't help but suspect that it's all a misdirect and the real identity will be someone like her mom. If nothing else, if it is Scarlett, Batman (who is not beholden to artistic coloring decisions) should have recognized the very noticeable hair color during their fight. At this point I'm not sure whether it's preferable for it to be the obviously implied culprit or rather a big fake out for the sake of it.

Recommended If

• The Asema mystery has you hooked
• You like seeing all of Batman's friends show up to help
• You're a fan of big, dramatic fight scenes

Overall

Detective Comics #1093 serves as a bridge between the big revelations of the previous issues and the mysteries it teases down the road. What that means is that much of this issue can feel like buildup that may or may not pay off at some future date. However, the artwork makes what action there is feel dramatic and exciting.

Score: 6.5/10

DISCLAIMER: DC Comics provided Batman News with a copy of this comic for the purpose of this review.