Detective Comics 875 (May 2011)

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Snyder starts the issue poorly. He’s got two pages of Harvey Bullock narration. There’s no point to it. Then he moves to Jim Gordon and I kept waiting for Dick to show up to take over the first person. But he doesn’t; Snyder sticks to Gordon.

The issue is layered—almost confusingly so—between the present, with Gordon dealing with Junior’s return, and a flashback to the past, when everyone thinks Junior killed some girl. It turns out—in a convenient turn of events—maybe he didn’t.

Snyder can still backtrack, but the discovery does—at least in the context of a desperately hopeful father—raise reasonable doubt.

While using Jim Gordon as protagonist has gotten to be a crutch (how can he not be a compelling character), Snyder does well with all the layering. It’s his best issue since his first.

And Francavilla does better real people than superheroes.

CREDITS

Lost Boys; writer, Scott Snyder; artist and colorist, Francesco Francavilla; letterer, Jared K. Fletcher; editors, Janelle Siegel and Mike Marts; publisher, DC Comics.

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