Batman fans, crime fans, or anyone looking for a gritty comic on the shelves, be sure to check out this series. Grampas story may not be for the faint of heart, but it certainly is worth exploring for the bloody and gritty experience. Read Full Review

Grampa's art is always astonishing, of coursecheck out the noir edition, in black and white, to see the full detailand the story is intriguing, even if it might have a few too many subplots for a very busy first issue. Read Full Review

Wherever this gothic murder mystery is heading, readers may rest assured knowing that they will experience a viscerally tense saga of vengeance and obsession only possible in the comics medium. Read Full Review

Grampa delivers some beautifully gritty and visually engaging art throughout the issue. I love the visual style and how it works perfectly with Gotham and the story being told within it. Read Full Review

Overall, it is a blast to read, even if it's over the top. Read Full Review

Rafael Grampa and Matheus Lopes bring readers a strong but shaky introduction to their interpretation of everyone's favorite Caped Crusader, and despite their errors deliver an entertaining comic with a lot of discussion to be had about Batman as a myth. Read Full Review

The issue is also available in the “DC Noir” format, in black & white. This version highlights Grampa's unique, quirky art style. Read Full Review

I went into Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham #1 excited for a new Batman story but left extremely underwhelmed with the story while simultaneously being a bit overwhelmed with the illustrations. The design was a mixture of cartoony meets gory in an effort to shock and amaze. However, I found the style took me out of the story on multiple occasions as well as the subtle story beats that were uncharacteristic of Batman and just didn't jive well with the character. Read Full Review

Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham #1 is a convoluted start to a story with some cool concepts, but it needs tightening up going forward.  Whether you like this book or not is going to hinge mainly on if you like Rafael Grampa's art, and personally, nothing in this first issue wowed me.  Hopefully, things improve in the next three issues, but this #1 was a big disappointment for me. Read Full Review

https://youtu.be/j5zyeplecx0?si=fhq-lph5YNfJFCBm

Review at (1:55) in link

This is an interesting book. The art and coloring are fantastic, the villain is good, and the comic is chocked full of well-designed panels and great action moments. Where the book falls short is in the writing department. Sometimes the dialogue feels wooden and inorganic, and Batman's inner monologue is a repetitive snorefest. Every other panel featuring the caped crusader basically just have Batman being as brooding and "dark knighty" as humanly possible, to the point where it just becomes a chore to read through. The book would've benefited dramatically if writer-artist Rafael Grampa toned down the inner dialogue and allowed the action on the page to shine. With that said, Batman's conversations with Alfred shined via an innate chemistry between the two Rafael Grampa nailed. This book would be an easy 8-8.5 with more refined writing. It's a solid 7.5, but the overall story and art direction have me onboard to read the next issue. more

Grampa should have hired a writer. But it's funny.

REVIEW

The first thing that stands out in Gargoyle of Gotham #1 is Rafael Grampá’s unique style of dark and twisted illustrations. From the opening panel to the closing “to be continued” box, the visual tone of this book is unabashedly Grampá. As a Dark Knight story about a serial killer, the art is gratuitous and Grampá doesn’t hold back with plenty of blood spilled. On one page, Batman pokes the eyes out of a henchman in gory fashion.

The killer Batman is hunting has an unhealthy obsession with an older cartoon with a dark past and one of the more interesting visual representations in this first issue is a scene involving said killer watching old reels of the cartoon as he waits for Batman to find him. Grampá employs a black and white palette for these panels to great effect. The killer himself is always shown entirely in black with pops of white to highlight his eyes and his penchant for crying on cue. It’s a captivating look that isn’t matched by equally compelling character. The cartoon obsession allows for an interesting visual yet it doesn’t do anything to create much in terms of complexity for the character. The final page reveals that he has a connection to Bruce from long ago, which was both highly predictable and entirely uninspiring. This type of motivation or explanation for villains’ fixation on Bruce Wayne/Batman is overdone and lazy.

This new villain is a microcosm for my main problem with this issue (and my worry for the rest of this miniseries) — it all looked great yet nothing in the story felt like it was breaking new ground, exploring new depths of Batman’s psyche, or providing a new wrinkle to the Dark Knight lore. Batman wants to become a darker version of the Dark Knight and eliminate the public life of Bruce Wayne so he can achieve it? That’s a tough story to tell when it’s already been done in the iconic work of Frank Miller. It’s all been done before so any writer looking to attempt a story about it needs something to establish their story as a worthy addition to the Dark Knight pantheon.

There’s a random monologue from Batman about the ills of Gotham being perpetrated by the city’s wealthy elite. In theory, it’s not a concept I disagree with. However, it’s quite the u-turn from Batman’s recent defense of Gotham’s aristocracy from Catwoman’s plans in Battle Lines. These two stories aren’t happening in the same universe but it was still a weird argument for Batman to make when that opinion didn’t come back to mean anything in the context of this issue.

Another random scene that fell flat involved Alfred posing as “the biggest collector” of the artist who created the villain’s cartoon obsession. Batman puts him up to the task of paying a visit to the artist’s widow hoping to learn more about the cartoon and it’s blatantly obvious that Alfred is in over his head. The widow calls out several inconsistencies with Alfred’s story and yet doesn’t feel any cause for concern as to a strange man in her house? Not of it made any sense.

FINAL VERDICT

There are three issues left for Grampá to establish his own perspective, but, as the review’s title implies, this story came off as Dark Knight Rises fanfic. And mediocre fanfic at that. When the pitch said the limited series was Grampá’s “twisted vision of the Dark Knight,” I didn’t realize how much this would echo Miller’s Dark Knight stories, including Batman planning to fake the death of Bruce Wayne. Such strong connections to those iconic tales make it hard not to compare the two and, unfortunately, Gargoyle of Gotham can’t stand up to Miller’s work. I worry that we are treading into the territory of DC wanting a really cool visual and being ok with whatever story was paired with it.

Rating: 5/10 more

If you are a fan of Grampa's art, you may like it more, but the story is Dark Knight Returns Lite!

This was bad. Bad, bad, bad. The art is a matter of personal taste but I for one really thought it was bad. The inner monologue of Bats is bad and makes little sense. It drones on and on with little to add to the action....because it's bad. Frank Miller this guy ain't. A bad take on the dark knight. A bad waste of time and money. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad....BAD!