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Detective Comics 2025 Annual (2025-) #1 (Detective Comics
“Batman, do not solve my murder.” Those are the words, written in blood, that the World’s Greatest Detective has found next to the body of a dead billionaire. Clues are few in this dead man’s home, save for a book with the alarming title "How to End The Universe." Now, armed only with questions, Batman must set off to England to solve a murder against the deceased’s wishes. Then, writer Joshua Hale Fialkov and artist Mike Norton bring you a tale of Batman teaming up with one of the most brilliant deductive minds in David Rosales, seventh grader?!
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Published April 30, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 1, 2025
Batman, Do Not Solve My Murder: 3 stars
I liked the detective story. The slow collection of clues, the outsmarting of the bad guys every time, and the retracing of steps once he had more info. What I didn’t like is the ahead-of-its time technology and the world-ending physics a 1970s vanity-published writer came up with. It asks a lot more questions than it answers. Like, hey, coming from a librarian, do you know how impossible it would be to digitally archive EVERY book? He definitely would’ve run out of computer storage before coming across this random book from 1970s England with a grand total of 5 copies in its print run. How did he even find it? How is he even finding any of these obscure books, if they aren’t catalogued by libraries and archives? I know it’s not the point here, but I can’t help but think about it, which really ruins the believability of the whole story for me.
Batman and David Rosales, Seventh Grader: 5 stars
I’ve also got experience relevant to this story, but in a way that works much better in its favor. I taught 7th grade once, and let me tell you, never underestimate a 7th grader! This story was really cute and much more plausible, in my opinion. David was bright without being unrealistically Batman-level smart, but they let Batman be a good mentor, exhibiting patience and trusting the kid’s instincts. Even when David’s ideas led them in the wrong direction, Batman was careful not to discourage him. I love when they let Batman do things like this.
I liked the detective story. The slow collection of clues, the outsmarting of the bad guys every time, and the retracing of steps once he had more info. What I didn’t like is the ahead-of-its time technology and the world-ending physics a 1970s vanity-published writer came up with. It asks a lot more questions than it answers. Like, hey, coming from a librarian, do you know how impossible it would be to digitally archive EVERY book? He definitely would’ve run out of computer storage before coming across this random book from 1970s England with a grand total of 5 copies in its print run. How did he even find it? How is he even finding any of these obscure books, if they aren’t catalogued by libraries and archives? I know it’s not the point here, but I can’t help but think about it, which really ruins the believability of the whole story for me.
Batman and David Rosales, Seventh Grader: 5 stars
I’ve also got experience relevant to this story, but in a way that works much better in its favor. I taught 7th grade once, and let me tell you, never underestimate a 7th grader! This story was really cute and much more plausible, in my opinion. David was bright without being unrealistically Batman-level smart, but they let Batman be a good mentor, exhibiting patience and trusting the kid’s instincts. Even when David’s ideas led them in the wrong direction, Batman was careful not to discourage him. I love when they let Batman do things like this.
June 8, 2025
Fun self-contained murder mystery and a cute back up story. I enjoyed being able to sit down and read an entire Batman closed-door mystery without waiting a month in between.
May 2, 2025
Wow I have really been missing out int he Al Ewing train. To be fair I’ve been reading his metamorpho and absolute green lantern series, but this annual really takes the cake. Such a well contained one shot with such an expert use at the three different artists at his disposal to tell one amazing story. Plus the backup issue by Fialkov was so sweet and made me tear up a little bit. But this detective story starts with a very interesting message written out in the victim’s own blood: “Batman, do not solve my murder.” Batman noticed the dead billionaire, Cody Morse the co-ceo of a big company, locked away in his bunker when the bunker started to emit a very specific Morse code (ironic I know) which spelled out BATMAN in Morse code. Batman was able to break into the high tech bunker and find it completely empty. Cody definitely didn’t kill himself, the knife is in his back, but based on the elevator security logs no one else has been in the building. We have a locked door murder everyone!! As Batman investigated the high tech bunker he found nothing useful, no finger prints anywhere. But with how high tech this place is, it’s even using million dollar hover equipment, the mind trickster uses, to make video game controllers float around in this guys man cave. Cody also had a library without any books, just walls of digital screens which contain almost every book to man and can be read aloud when selected. To us it doesn’t seem like Batman found anything important, but he has already picked up on everything he needed. He went back to the kitchen, and just like how he activated the man cave hover controller earlier…he activated the kitchen. Suddenly it came to life, and knives began flying all over the room…immediately trying to kill him! It was an automated process so he could easily follow the rhythm and disable all of them by slamming them into the counter. But with the murder weapon disabled, it raised another question…why does a killer robot kitchen need 5 paper books!! What makes it even more interesting is that each identical book is missing the same pages and the title of the book is: “How to end the universe.” It was published in England in 1972…Batman is going to England!!
Batman ended up in York where he met his friend Dr Jenny Sykes, a professor of quantum science at the university, and someone he has talked online to in the past. She was able to talk to some of her predecessors and the author of that book, Arthur Milligan, is not very well known. When he published it quantum mechanics was quite young and full of wild theories like Arthur’s. He had ideas about the observer effect and wondered about it being applied to the whole universe. And to find a way to collapse it into another state by observing it. Pretty scary stuff as it would basically destroy everything that exists. Apparently the story goes that he came up with the mathematical equations to solve it but didn’t have the computer to actually solve it. He didn’t have a doctorate and everyone called him a laughingstock, so he ended up going to a publisher who owed him a favor and got five prints. The five prints Morse locked himself away with so no one could find them, he realized computers could now solve it…but he forgot about the publishers proof copy. There could be a sixth copy! Batman makes way to head into the city, but Sykes does have to warn him…apparently there is a bit of a flap on. Which is a really confounding way of saying a super villain attack. When Batman arrives and talks to the police it’s so funny how minimal they treat this. Apparently some dude named Mr Mystic has taken over the town, and they have called in the hero Templar to take him on, but his trains been delayed, lol. But good thing for them Batman is here and doesn’t mind taking this guy on. Apparently he has some magical powers and has deployed angelic apparitions along the streets. They aren’t fatal but they make people scream and forget what they saw, and with the older people in town that could be bad. As Batman heads into the town it doesn’t take long for him to find these angelic figures. He has prepared for afterlife scenarios, and recognizes that they are speaking a form of Enochian, the “angel language” discovered by John Dee. Finding out this information we start to see that Batman is forming a hypothesis about the situation. But with new creatures there comes new room for error, and one of them ends up touching him and filming him with raw emotional pain. But he is used to that kind of pain a lot more than they are used to the physical variety, so he is able to hit them back way harder, lol. Once he crosses the bridge and gets into town it’s time for the main event: Mr Mystic. Who immediately confirms that the city is his through the power of John Dee’s magic. Mystic claims that in the walls he is invincible, but Batman doesn’t need to say anything to this guy. They are both tourists and he has confirmed everything Batman has hypothesized, which only leaves a question up in the air…does mystic know the background of this town? Batman immediately begins to run so mystic eould chase him, eventually they reached a dead end and Batman stopped. As mystic approached he asked Batman if he had any last words…and he has quite a few, lol. He began to explain the history of a dam that was built in this area, and now it subsequently flooded the area and created a fishpond. It was used as a defensive measure until it was drained later, but when the city walls were built there was no need to surround it. But here’s the kicker, in John Dee’s time the bounds of the city would have ended outside the pond…the pond they are currently standing in. Hahahaha, as the smile fades from mystic’s face as he realizes his power is gone…Batman has already knocked him out cold. With that situation dealt with, it allows batman to meet with the granddaughter of Malcolm Conway, the publisher of the book, where he found the original proof for the book in her basement. The original proof with the original pages. But as soon as he got the book his belt began to flash. The message at the bunker changed, it’s not longer just spelling out BATMAN, but now it is saying BRING ME THE BOOK BATMAN. BEJNF ME THE BOOK IN ONE HOUR OR DR SYKES DIES.
As Batman heads back to the library where he met Sykes originally, he got a chance to read through the entire book. Once he arrived he found an armed hit squad standing outside, based on his experience there should be about 5 of them. But Batman takes everything an extra step further and ties the book to his chest! He guessed correctly that they are under strict orders not to damage the book, which makes it almost impossible for them to respond efficiently before he takes them down, hahahaha! Therese guys are trained but not trained for Batman and be is able to quickly take them down before he has to get to the boss. The boss currently standing over Sykes with a dead man’s switch on a bomb. Turns out the boss is the co-ceo at the company the billionaire killed at the start owns. Seems that while continuing his book archival project the victim found the book and realized what it meant, but his partner also realized they had the computing power in their phone to solve it and wanted to immediately. To stop him from solving it, the victim hid away in his bunker and destroyed the relevant pages. That’s when the boss setup his plan, he hacked his bunker and changed the automations to kill his partner then setup the Morse code to lure in Batman so the worlds greatest detective could solve it for him. But upon hearing the Morse code the victim figured it out and wrote the message in blood for Batman. But at this moment we find ourselves at a crossroads, the boss has a dead man’s switch and is ready to blow up Sykes if he doesn’t get the necessary pages…so Batman does what he says and hands him over the necessary pages. The man takes the page and scans it into his phone, and almost immediately reality begins to distort around the man…in only an 8 foot area before he is frozen in a sphere of space where physics stops. The dead man’s switch didn’t trigger and they are now safe, leaving Batman open to free Sykes. It turns out that the original writer had a few different equations around the observer effect, some for the entire world…some for an 8 foot area. Seems the man didn’t consider why he only got 1 page out of the four. And because that area is stopping all physics, including time, that man will stay alive in a form of temporal stasis until it can be reversed. Pretty hellish fate. As this story comes to a close we see Batman back in the batcave with the other pages. The criminal made a comment about Batman wanting to know the answer as well, and it seems that he does. He sees the possibility to rid the world of nuclear waste, bombs, world destroying asteroids, threats of any kind…but also sees it in the wrong hands as getting Reid of people, countries, or even universes. So at the moment he tells himself he is only studying it to reverse the effect int he trapped criminal… he is that where it will end? Knowing Batman…I think so. Or he will do the right thing we are all thinking…and hand it over to Mr Terrific, lol!
This annual also includes a really sweet backup story. It follows a seventh grader named David Rosales, who is the president and founding member of his Gotham Middle School Junior Batman detective club…and there is something wrong at school. The kids are getting sick and they are starting to hallucinate and David has deduced that it must be the scarecrow! David unfortunately doesn’t have many friends, and everyone sees him as a bit of a freak, but that doesn’t stop David in the slightest. He sees what is below their noses, the school was built on an old scarecrow hideout and David deduces that he must have come back for some weapon which is poisoning the kids as a byproduct. While sneaking around and investigating the school, David comes across a padlocked door. Before getting the chance to pick it open, a janitor came by and opened it…allowing David to sneak in…and subsequently get locked in the utility room. And without many friends to notice he is gone, no one told an adult he was missing. With it getting late, David is realizing he needs to find a way home…and that’s when Batman pops in the window!! Hahahahaha. David is ecstatic, he knew it, where is scarecrow hiding?! Batman questions david curiously, what makes him say that? David explains his reasoning with the sick kids and the weird canisters on the vent system in the room. But unbeknownst to David, those are standard Waynetech green power recyclers…but that doesn’t mean David is wrong about scarecrow. The number of sick kids alerted Batman’s system. The initial blood screens were clean, but barman retested and his pass found trace amounts of scarecrow toxin. So it seems that David is along for the ride to investigate the school with Batman, padlocks be damned Batman is kicking down the door, hahahaha! David begins to fill Batman in on other strange things he’s noticed, like one of the teachers acting strangely. David was even able to show off his lock picking skills to Batman to get into the teacher’s classroom and investigate the closet keeps locked. But once they opened it they found a bunch of lunch bags with kids names (side note: one of the bags has Epstein listed on it. WHY THAT NAME, lmao?! Any other name would have been fine). And it turns out that the kids names are not the victims but some of the poorer ones, and that yeah see has been helping them get food to take home. But suddenly barman’s toxin detector comes alive right as the AC sends air into the room. Seems there are trace amounts of toxin in the air vents. So it seems that no person was poisoning anyone, the building itself was because of a sloppy cleanup job from the crew that cleaned up scarecrow’s lab. Batman put in a few anti toxin filters to neutralize the air and cleanup what’s left and promised to peak to the people who signed off on the project. A good days work, but it’s quite late and it seems that David doesn’t have a ride. But as the president of the junior Batman detective club, the least Batman can do is offer him a ride home in the Batmobile vs taking the bus!!
Batman ended up in York where he met his friend Dr Jenny Sykes, a professor of quantum science at the university, and someone he has talked online to in the past. She was able to talk to some of her predecessors and the author of that book, Arthur Milligan, is not very well known. When he published it quantum mechanics was quite young and full of wild theories like Arthur’s. He had ideas about the observer effect and wondered about it being applied to the whole universe. And to find a way to collapse it into another state by observing it. Pretty scary stuff as it would basically destroy everything that exists. Apparently the story goes that he came up with the mathematical equations to solve it but didn’t have the computer to actually solve it. He didn’t have a doctorate and everyone called him a laughingstock, so he ended up going to a publisher who owed him a favor and got five prints. The five prints Morse locked himself away with so no one could find them, he realized computers could now solve it…but he forgot about the publishers proof copy. There could be a sixth copy! Batman makes way to head into the city, but Sykes does have to warn him…apparently there is a bit of a flap on. Which is a really confounding way of saying a super villain attack. When Batman arrives and talks to the police it’s so funny how minimal they treat this. Apparently some dude named Mr Mystic has taken over the town, and they have called in the hero Templar to take him on, but his trains been delayed, lol. But good thing for them Batman is here and doesn’t mind taking this guy on. Apparently he has some magical powers and has deployed angelic apparitions along the streets. They aren’t fatal but they make people scream and forget what they saw, and with the older people in town that could be bad. As Batman heads into the town it doesn’t take long for him to find these angelic figures. He has prepared for afterlife scenarios, and recognizes that they are speaking a form of Enochian, the “angel language” discovered by John Dee. Finding out this information we start to see that Batman is forming a hypothesis about the situation. But with new creatures there comes new room for error, and one of them ends up touching him and filming him with raw emotional pain. But he is used to that kind of pain a lot more than they are used to the physical variety, so he is able to hit them back way harder, lol. Once he crosses the bridge and gets into town it’s time for the main event: Mr Mystic. Who immediately confirms that the city is his through the power of John Dee’s magic. Mystic claims that in the walls he is invincible, but Batman doesn’t need to say anything to this guy. They are both tourists and he has confirmed everything Batman has hypothesized, which only leaves a question up in the air…does mystic know the background of this town? Batman immediately begins to run so mystic eould chase him, eventually they reached a dead end and Batman stopped. As mystic approached he asked Batman if he had any last words…and he has quite a few, lol. He began to explain the history of a dam that was built in this area, and now it subsequently flooded the area and created a fishpond. It was used as a defensive measure until it was drained later, but when the city walls were built there was no need to surround it. But here’s the kicker, in John Dee’s time the bounds of the city would have ended outside the pond…the pond they are currently standing in. Hahahaha, as the smile fades from mystic’s face as he realizes his power is gone…Batman has already knocked him out cold. With that situation dealt with, it allows batman to meet with the granddaughter of Malcolm Conway, the publisher of the book, where he found the original proof for the book in her basement. The original proof with the original pages. But as soon as he got the book his belt began to flash. The message at the bunker changed, it’s not longer just spelling out BATMAN, but now it is saying BRING ME THE BOOK BATMAN. BEJNF ME THE BOOK IN ONE HOUR OR DR SYKES DIES.
As Batman heads back to the library where he met Sykes originally, he got a chance to read through the entire book. Once he arrived he found an armed hit squad standing outside, based on his experience there should be about 5 of them. But Batman takes everything an extra step further and ties the book to his chest! He guessed correctly that they are under strict orders not to damage the book, which makes it almost impossible for them to respond efficiently before he takes them down, hahahaha! Therese guys are trained but not trained for Batman and be is able to quickly take them down before he has to get to the boss. The boss currently standing over Sykes with a dead man’s switch on a bomb. Turns out the boss is the co-ceo at the company the billionaire killed at the start owns. Seems that while continuing his book archival project the victim found the book and realized what it meant, but his partner also realized they had the computing power in their phone to solve it and wanted to immediately. To stop him from solving it, the victim hid away in his bunker and destroyed the relevant pages. That’s when the boss setup his plan, he hacked his bunker and changed the automations to kill his partner then setup the Morse code to lure in Batman so the worlds greatest detective could solve it for him. But upon hearing the Morse code the victim figured it out and wrote the message in blood for Batman. But at this moment we find ourselves at a crossroads, the boss has a dead man’s switch and is ready to blow up Sykes if he doesn’t get the necessary pages…so Batman does what he says and hands him over the necessary pages. The man takes the page and scans it into his phone, and almost immediately reality begins to distort around the man…in only an 8 foot area before he is frozen in a sphere of space where physics stops. The dead man’s switch didn’t trigger and they are now safe, leaving Batman open to free Sykes. It turns out that the original writer had a few different equations around the observer effect, some for the entire world…some for an 8 foot area. Seems the man didn’t consider why he only got 1 page out of the four. And because that area is stopping all physics, including time, that man will stay alive in a form of temporal stasis until it can be reversed. Pretty hellish fate. As this story comes to a close we see Batman back in the batcave with the other pages. The criminal made a comment about Batman wanting to know the answer as well, and it seems that he does. He sees the possibility to rid the world of nuclear waste, bombs, world destroying asteroids, threats of any kind…but also sees it in the wrong hands as getting Reid of people, countries, or even universes. So at the moment he tells himself he is only studying it to reverse the effect int he trapped criminal… he is that where it will end? Knowing Batman…I think so. Or he will do the right thing we are all thinking…and hand it over to Mr Terrific, lol!
This annual also includes a really sweet backup story. It follows a seventh grader named David Rosales, who is the president and founding member of his Gotham Middle School Junior Batman detective club…and there is something wrong at school. The kids are getting sick and they are starting to hallucinate and David has deduced that it must be the scarecrow! David unfortunately doesn’t have many friends, and everyone sees him as a bit of a freak, but that doesn’t stop David in the slightest. He sees what is below their noses, the school was built on an old scarecrow hideout and David deduces that he must have come back for some weapon which is poisoning the kids as a byproduct. While sneaking around and investigating the school, David comes across a padlocked door. Before getting the chance to pick it open, a janitor came by and opened it…allowing David to sneak in…and subsequently get locked in the utility room. And without many friends to notice he is gone, no one told an adult he was missing. With it getting late, David is realizing he needs to find a way home…and that’s when Batman pops in the window!! Hahahahaha. David is ecstatic, he knew it, where is scarecrow hiding?! Batman questions david curiously, what makes him say that? David explains his reasoning with the sick kids and the weird canisters on the vent system in the room. But unbeknownst to David, those are standard Waynetech green power recyclers…but that doesn’t mean David is wrong about scarecrow. The number of sick kids alerted Batman’s system. The initial blood screens were clean, but barman retested and his pass found trace amounts of scarecrow toxin. So it seems that David is along for the ride to investigate the school with Batman, padlocks be damned Batman is kicking down the door, hahahaha! David begins to fill Batman in on other strange things he’s noticed, like one of the teachers acting strangely. David was even able to show off his lock picking skills to Batman to get into the teacher’s classroom and investigate the closet keeps locked. But once they opened it they found a bunch of lunch bags with kids names (side note: one of the bags has Epstein listed on it. WHY THAT NAME, lmao?! Any other name would have been fine). And it turns out that the kids names are not the victims but some of the poorer ones, and that yeah see has been helping them get food to take home. But suddenly barman’s toxin detector comes alive right as the AC sends air into the room. Seems there are trace amounts of toxin in the air vents. So it seems that no person was poisoning anyone, the building itself was because of a sloppy cleanup job from the crew that cleaned up scarecrow’s lab. Batman put in a few anti toxin filters to neutralize the air and cleanup what’s left and promised to peak to the people who signed off on the project. A good days work, but it’s quite late and it seems that David doesn’t have a ride. But as the president of the junior Batman detective club, the least Batman can do is offer him a ride home in the Batmobile vs taking the bus!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 24, 2025
Great couple of stories in this annual.
November 11, 2025
Menudo bait de diseño de portada XD y es que tenemos un "whodunit" impensable en los habitules términos conceptuales de ciencia ficción especulativa que gustan a Al Ewing que hasta pedía mejor desarrollo fuera de este ámbito de "one shot" y de postre una historieta con uno de los jovenes Gothamitas influidos de forma positiva por Batman. Al cual busca emular en una investigación en su propio colegio del que asume una amenaza de un gran supervillano del Caballero Oscuro... que quizás no sea tanto.
December 31, 2025
This annual is split about 70:30 into two separate stories. The first and main story is very typically Batman-like (although he does visit York!), very well-drawn, moody, mysterious, clever, topical and quite brilliant. The second is drawn in a different style, but has some heart to it, and is very decent too. All in all, a really good Detective offering and one of the best DC annuals. 5/5
May 8, 2025
Worst annual ever.
Weakest annual I have ever read. Why was this book 6 bucks and this weak? Seek a different Batman story elsewhere. This ain't it.
Weakest annual I have ever read. Why was this book 6 bucks and this weak? Seek a different Batman story elsewhere. This ain't it.
May 17, 2025
I love this grizzled yet dad-like characterization of Batman, truly the worlds greatest detective and community member.
June 2, 2025
This was good! I liked the story. Some parts were a little cheesy, but overall, it was an interesting concept and mystery.
December 25, 2025
Orfebre orgánico, ocultismo tímido y con pantuflas, rápida solución. Ternura imperfecta.
January 8, 2026
I enjoyed the second story more than the first.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews