Better than the official Shadow War?
Punished by Giant Panda King, Gotham 1919 - 1939 is a book that reimagines Batman's mythos in said era, with more of a realistic and scary tone. The book is the basis of a series of youtube videos from the youtube channel The Batfeed, so yes, this a fan production. But I figured, why not? This is a unique experience that is worth talking about. I have not read the book, so this is a look only at the videos.
Exploring Batman's lore
Before the Shadow War, we have a series of videos talking about each major player in the main event, the unique visual style alone makes it worth it, think about Gotham by Gaslight but with more characters. There is always something cool about just imagining how a certain character would look in a different enviroment. Gotham 1919 - 1939 always goes with a darker and creepier look with its villains, Joker and Man Bat for instance are nightmare fuel. The heroes on the other hand have this steampunk or improvised look that also grabs your attention. However what makes it brillant is the presentation. This is a full on mockumentary, probably the most unique aspect of it all. Making it stand out from every other fan production.
The only real possible problem is the tone break, sometimes you're looking at pictures that sold you on this fantasy, but then it goes to comic book illustrations with some editing or even footage from some old Batman tv show. This can break the immersion from time to time.
One aspect that might not be the most eye catching but is a strong one nonetheless, the character variety. For some reason, most of the time in official DC Comics products we always get new character that function the same as old ones, and the old ones go forgotten for years. Gotham 1919 - 1939 makes use of some of the forgotten ones, like Onyx. Even tho she did play a role in one of Batman's most famous and important storylines, DC seems to do nothing with her lately. It was nice for a change to see her, even if it's just a fan project.
Comparing it to DC Comics Shadow War
I have expressed in the past how disappointing Shadow War ended up being, it totally wasted its premise, barely felt like a war and killed characters in the most pathetic and convenient ways possible. Fortunately, I don't think the same can be said with Gotham 1919 - 1939 event with the same name. Everything has more weight, the war expands for much more time than its comics counterpart, the aftermath is more real too.
Some of it can be disappointing however, one example is the "7 men of death", with Deathstroke being of of them. You could cut them from the event and nothing would really change I think.
Talking about Slade now, he's very underused, he does fight Nightwing and Robin, a good detail but there is a but. Its implied that Deathstroke never fought the Titans, so seeing that here he is, spoilers I guess, defeated by Dick and Tim definitely takes his level of danger down. As always, one consequence of having Slade related to Batman is the characters gets turn into a weaker and dumber version of himself.
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| Very creepy design, I must say |
The main villain is Ra's Al Ghul instead of a off character and poorly written Geo Force, by the way. The be honest, besides the name, there is no similarity with both stories. Still, it feels impossible to not draw a comparison.
Well, this is getting too long so I'll stop here. I'm not going to give this a score since it's a fan made project it feels unfair to. But this is a solid recomendation, such a unique experience like this is not something you find in a comic. All the videos are on youtube, you can watch it for free, so I don't see a reason to not give it a chance.
That's it for today, have a good one.
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