Batman: Fear State: Omega #1
DC Comics 2021
Written by James Tynion IV
Illustrated by Riccardo Federici, Christian Duce, Ryan Benjamin
Guillem March & Trevor Hairsine
Coloured by Chris Sotomayor
Lettered by Clayton Cowles
As Gotham’s Fear State comes to a close, a new day dawns on the city…one without Batman. But the Dark Knight’s absence does not mean the city is without heroes.
This does a nice job kind of tying up loose ends and let’s us see who is in Gotham and on the streets taking on the bad guys. With Crane being transferred and his attempt at using henchmen in a standard ploy to get him free we see Batman taking control of him and where he’s going. While this happens and the two talk we see how the others fared during this whole mishegas. I love the segment with Crane the way this whole thing plays out and how damn smart and creepy the man is as he’s no longer a caricature of the Scarecrow but uses those smarts, that degree and his full mental capacity to do what he’s doing makes him an incredibly powerful and dangerous individual and after seeing him Titans and now here I’ve got a whole new respect of him as a person and villain.
I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a marvellous job with their personalities. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the aftermath and it makes us want to see more.
I like the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow. I also like how we see layers within the story open up new avenues to be explored. Now hopefully some of these we’ll see pop up elsewhere in Gotham. What this does is add some great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. I am particularly fond of the Poison Ivy and Clownhunter segments, more so since the latter really lets him have it and that along with that Secret Files issue make me want to see more of him. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are impeccably handled.
Some segments of the interiors really caught my fancy and the Crane segment and the Clownhunter are those that left the strongest impression. Also that page with Batman and Scarecrow that showcases that soft highlight colours blew me away. The linework throughout is clean, crisp and strong and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work we see throughout the book is extremely well rendered. How we see backgrounds enhance and expand the moments as well as how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is handled well. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show some strong sets of eyes for storytelling. The colouring is where this all really shines and the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a master colourist at work.
I am definitely intrigued by what this means for the future of Gotham City. There are a lot of costumed crime fighters taking on a lot of various avenues to clean up the streets. This wasn’t as strong as the rest of Fear State but that’s okay because it sets up something that looks promising on the horizon. It’s got some interesting writing and some extremely creepy characterisation along with some truly inspired and bespoke interiors and it’ll get you thinking about what is still to come.
About the Creator
Steven Leitman
Just me talking about the comics I enjoy reading, ones that you might not know exist and spotlighting the indie creators that excite me.
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