Batman: Shadows of the Bat - House of Gotham

Detective Comics (2016)

by Matthew Rosenberg, Fernando Blanco (Artist), Jordie Bellaire (Colorist)

For a long time two houses have overlooked Gotham City, beckoning its broken: Wayne Manor and Arkham Asylum.

Explore the impact that Batman and Arkham Asylum have had on the city…through the eyes of a boy whose life was changed forever by The Joker one dreadful night early in the Dark Knight’s career!
 
A boy’s parents were killed by The Joker, and he fell through the cracks of the system. Instead of being sent to a facility that could care for him and his trauma, he was sent to Arkham Asylum! It's a cycle of violence the Dark Knight has no answer for as Gotham's most vulnerable struggle to keep their heads above water! Collects the complete Batman: Shadows of the Bat: House of Gotham story from Detective Comics Detective Comics #1047-1058.

Genres: Batman, Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Comic Book, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics

144 pages, Hardcover

First published December 20, 2022

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

"I haven’t always been a writer. My parents are writers and my brother is a writer, and I resisted that as long as I could. When I was 17, I hopped in a band’s van and I went on tour for a summer, and that was it, that was what I wanted to do. I ran a record label for 10 years, a small indie punk label. I did everything in music that you can do that doesn’t involve having musical ability. Eventually the music business, probably in a similar way to comics, will just start to break your heart, and I realized one day that I kind of hated music. I was resigned to thinking, if I’m going to be involved in music forever, I’m going to hate it for the rest of my life. I just stopped. I stopped having any sort of business with music, any involvement.

I read comics my whole life, so I just naturally fell back into another medium that is marginalized and hard to make a living in."

Source: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles...

Writer of comics WE CAN NEVER GO HOME, SECRET WARS JOURNAL, OUR WORK FILLS THE PEWS, 12 REASONS TO DIE, & MENU.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this one. An unusual Batman tale in that it focuses on a child whose parents were killed by the Joker when Bats arrived too late to save them. It follows this kid’s life as he grows up and becomes entangled in several DC ‘events’. The artwork was really nice too, for the most part.

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Batman: Shadows of the Bat: House of Gotham collects the backup story featured in DC Comic’s Detective Comics issues 1047-1058 written by Matthew Rosenberg with art by Fernando Blanco.

A young child survives an attack by The Joker that leaves his parents dead. Batman arrives on the scene shortly after the parents’ murders and the boy associates the two in their death. Bruce Wayne attempts to help the boy but he continues to slip through Gotham’s cracks and leads a troubled life jumping between stays in Arkham Asylum, orphanages, and foster parents who lead nefarious lives.

Told over the course of nearly a decade, the book weaves between many of Batman’s major events including Knightfall and No Man’s Land. It paints a picture of a child who Batman was supposed to protect, but got lost in the shuffle and was forgotten. The boy learns from everything thrown at him which leads to an interesting confrontation between himself, The Joker, and Batman in the climax. I thought the art really captured the tone of the story as well. I hadn’t heard anything about this book so this was a pleasant surprise.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

House of Gotham is a gloomy look at what happens to Gotham's residents who fall through the cracks. A young boy witnesses his parents murdered by the Joker. When Batman arrives on the scene, the boy blames Batman too. Though Bruce Wayne attempts to help the boy throughout his life, the boy just keeps falling through those cracks.

House of Gotham isn't entirely a depressing read, fortunately. The criminal elements of Gotham all take in the boy, raising him in a way that Batman/Bruce could not. Ultimately, the boy (well, man now) tackles the No Man's Land crisis by creating an underground society of the forgotten. The inevitable confrontation with Batman is, uh, inevitable - and the ending is extremely bleak. Not your typical Batman read, but I enjoyed it. Feels very far away from the other Shadows of the Bat book.

[Lashaan Balasingam · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can find my review on my blog by clicking here.

Collecting the side story featured in Detective Comics #1047-1058, alongside writer Mariko Tamaki’s twelve-issue Gotham City event Batman: Detective Comics: The Tower, this stand-alone volume presents a story of trauma, perpetual misery, and homelessness as a young boy grows through the cycle of violence infesting the city that took everything away from him as a myriad of supervillains teach him valuable lessons to survive the cruel world of the rich and powerful despite the unjustifiable means to an end embraced by Batman’s rogues’ gallery.

On one faithful night, an unnamed child witnesses the murder of his parents by the Joker as Batman arrives too late to prevent the tragedy. Blaming him for the Joker’s actions, the child resents Batman for the rest of his life. Now orphaned by the hands of evil born from the darkness of Gotham City, the child is sent to Wayne Manor, one of the only two places—the other being Arkham Asylum—where the broken is sent for a roof over their heads instead of a facility where they can receive the care they need following traumatic events. Unfortunately, the life before him only spirals further into the abysmal recesses of Gotham City’s alleys and sewers as he meets Batman’s rogues’ gallery against all odds and learns along the way how many of these villains perceive the city’s pitfalls and compensate through their respective endeavours within criminal parameters.

Let it be known that this story has nothing to do with comic book writer Mariko Tamaki’s Detective Comics run. It was simply grafted onto her The Tower story arc and served as a neat little distraction from the murder mystery occurring there. The upside here is that it reads as a stand-alone story and doesn’t require readers to get through any previous volumes. However, throughout the course of the story, this little kid with no name grows through—thanks to time jumps—several iconic Batman events, from Knightfall to No Man’s Land, and serves as a nice Easter egg for anyone knowledgeable about Batman’s canonical stories. However, that’s just fan service, not the sexual kind though. The story itself is a vehicle to a larger more conceptual idea where this protagonist allows us to understand how Gotham treats the broken, the innocent, and the forgotten. Writer Matthew Rosenberg thus uses his protagonist to show his own growth, his own resilience, and his own transformation in this unforgiving world. Unfortunately, the execution fails to embrace a more sophisticated approach to this idea, forcing readers to show suspension of disbelief as this kid ends up attracting and encountering multiple supervillains who all find some kind of interest in this kid and share valuable lessons about the world in which he lives, what he’s up against, and what he should be doing to seek happiness or success within it. Yes, they all show signs of excellent mentorship that everyone should strive for. Along the way, this kid also often finds himself running to a friend he’s made along the way who also tries to navigate as best as he can through this universe but has a much more decisive approach about what he’s going to do to survive and it’s definitely not about doing good and being kind to those around him.

Towards the final moments of this story, when the kid is no more a mere child trying to fit in, readers are presented with the ultimate confrontation that inevitably becomes a crucial turning point for the protagonist but the mediocre or simple story-telling style makes it difficult to fully appreciate the impact of the ending. The poor characterization and the unlikeable nature of the kid also prevent this story from being emotionally charged, from delving deeper into the environmental effects of Gotham City on a child with no one to love and who’s at the mercy of the city’s deficiencies. While the story itself is not bad per se, Fernando Blanco’s artwork and Jordie Bellaire’s colours do brilliantly capture the gloomy and depressive Gotham City and offer us some memorable character designs. Unfortunately, the linear story-telling and unconvincing encounters and interactions will likely be a hit-or-miss with readers as we follow this kid maneuvering through a sad, sad world.

Batman: Shadows of the Bat: House of Gotham is an intriguing yet undistinguished stand-alone tale about the forgotten amidst the terror of Batman’s villains in Gotham City.

[Khurram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my kind of story. Good artwork and a different kind of story. Batman can't save everyone, but here is a story of someone who has been failed by Gotham at every turn.

A family is murdered one boy lives. You would think his life would get better from here right? Wrong!!! Through the year and different crises in Gotham, he has survived but not always for the better.

A sad tale of life in Gotham through the years. The boom was not for me. 12 short chapters of doom and gloom.

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main and backup stories were good, but both endings were underwhelming.

[Frédéric · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Spoilers*

3.5*

The life of a child broken by the Joker—and indirectly, Batman—over several years.

It's a sad and cruel tale, very Dickensian in nature, with a slow build-up and subtle use of certain major events in Gotham as temporal markers—which require a minimum of knowledge of the continuity.
The so-called villains are very well used by Rosenberg, on a more human level instead of the usual cackling psychos, and they accompany the protagonist- not necessarily with bad intention- in his descent into hell in front of a Batman powerless to change destiny.

Good graphic atmosphere by Blanco and Bellaire.

[Jiro Dreams of Suchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The city fails a little boy after his parents are killed by the joker - kind of does a Forrest Gump type thing where this little boy grows up and bumps into every criminal, hits all the big Gotham events and then sadly dies in a gutter. A true Gothamite.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW! This side story details the life of a nameless boy and his adventures through Gotham. Beginning with the murder of his parents by Joker, during which Batman shows up, leading to his hatred of both costumed agents of change. To help with the trauma, the boy gets sent to live in Arkham, which starts him down a wrong path. He works for criminals, and eventually like a kind of Robin Hood for the poor forgotten people of Gotham.
I really liked seeing how he was a part of huge Batman events over the years (Knightfall, No Man Land, interacting with several different Robins, etc) and that horrible tragic end, never really knowing what his name was.
This was intense, and well worth the read.
Strong recommend. You don't even need much Batman knowledge to enjoy it.

[Sarospice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living! I love a Gotham story that shows what an ass Batman / Bruce Wayne actually is. This shows how the average person has to put up with costumed lunacy, for a lifetime! And such a fun blend of the rogue's gallery also proclaiming "It's a living" when you've got the truly self involved caped crusader hanging over your head.... Kill the Joker already, ya knob!

[Eli Seibert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love seeing the collateral damage Batman inadvertently causes in his endless war on crime. Batman is my favorite super hero but he still makes mistakes and lets people fall through the cracks. This is a pretty tragic story about a nameless victim who was in the background of batmans history (knightfall, no man’s land, etc), and I am completely here for it.

[Keegan Schueler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Different type of Batman story over a long period of time and many Batman events that is just an interesting read.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm starting to associate Rosenberg with stories that highlight the worst of humanity and have depressing endings. It's bleak, but he does do it well...

In Batman: Shadows of the Bat - House of Gotham we follow an (unnamed) boy after the brutal murder of his parents by the Joker. The book covers the events of the boy’s life over a few decades (all three Robins, Knightfall, and No Man’s Land), and at every bad turn, Batman/Bruce tries to help this boy but only succeeds in making his life worse. And worse. And worse. Until the end.

Summary:
After the boy's parents are murdered and he reports that Batman did it (in cahoots with the Joker, because he saw them both at the scene...) the boy gets shunted off to Arkham Asylum (for lack of an available foster home placement?!).
Bruce Wayne comes to take him out (and save him) by placing him at the Martha Wayne Orphanage, where he gets picked on and beaten up ceaselessly by the other children & has a bad run-in with Dr. Crane/Scarecrow.
Back to Arkham he goes (after being an accessory to Scarecrow's crime & being poisoned by his fear gas)... where he then gets adopted by The Penguin to work in the Iceberg Lounge. Batman goes to check in on him after hearing an alarming report by Jason of Penguin's kids killing people... and the boy ends up arrested and straight back into Arkham.
After the boy miraculously escapes Arkham in Bane's Knightfall destruction of the Asylum, Bruce asks Robin (Tim) to go find him and help him...which accidentally leads Azriel (Batman) to him, and as Azriel is hunting down Arkham escapees...it's more of the (bad) same.

The ending sees the boy, Batman, and the Joker back together in a well-written scene (Rosenberg writes the Joker really well).
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Batman convinces the boy not to kill the Joker, and as the boy walks off to join his people, he is shot by the Penguin in the Gotham reservoir, left alone in the sewer tunnels to bleed out. It is incredibly depressing, and I can't help but look back at the cover of this volume, of Batman cradling a sweet red-headed little boy, and understanding so fully how Batman and Gotham failed him this "boy" so horribly.

Ok, ok, I know he's a fictional character, but damn this was sad!

The very last page has dialogue from the Penguin: "You are just a minor character in other people's stories, boy." And while this story was "about" him, the boy never gets a name.
Which is to say, this story was never really about him, but about Gotham and Batman, and all the people, like him, failed by one man in a bat costume and a whole city filled with evil.


At first, I thought the number of villains in this story overwhelmed the plot (Joker, Dr. Quinzel, Clayface, Scarecrow, Penguin, Bane, and Killer Croc), but by the end, I understood what Rosenberg was trying to do here and ran with it. We have a full painting of Gotham and it's cast of characters and one little boy.

Art by Fernando Blanco is a 5/5 stars.

[Norman Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects the back-up stories from the weekly publication of Detective Comics #1047-1058. It should be Volume 5 (or perhaps 4B), but in DC's inconsistent numbering system it has no volume number. It is the companion to Batman: Shadows of the Bat - The Tower by Mariko Tamaki. I found this story to be much better than Tamaki's convoluted tale. Rosenberg keeps the story focused on one individual, a young boy whose parents are brutally murdered by The Joker in front of his eyes. Batman, early in his career, arrives moments too late, so the boy develops a hatred for both Joker and Batman. Rosenberg then takes us through the years, as the orphaned boy is bounced from one institution to another while Batman is seen traveling on his own journey, spanning major events such as Knightfall and No Man's Land and a steady stream of Robins. By the end of the story, some fifteen to twenty years later, the now grown man and Batman have a final confrontation, in the process debating whether Batman's so-called army of boys (Robins) is any different than the army the boy has amassed from the homeless and orphaned cast-offs of Gotham's underclass. There's also a discussion of why Batman keeps letting Joker go free. Good questions, not terribly good answers, probably because if we readers think too hard about them the whole superhero premise starts to fall apart. The story ends on a dark note; was anything the characters did mean anything?
Fernando Blanco's art is excellent throughout (another reason this is better than Tamaki's is that there is a single artist giving us a unified vision).

[Billy Jepma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite what the cover art may imply, Batman isn't the main character in this story. Instead, the story follows a young boy who, like Bruce Wayne, is orphaned at a young age in Gotham and grows up to be shaped by his hatred and fear. And also, like Bruce, he directs those feelings toward what he believes to be the cause of his family's death. The catch is that he blames Batman, and Rosenberg's story follows the boy from one tragic, fucked up situation to the next, framing him as a distorted reflection of Batman and Gotham that wants to represent the failures of both.

And it works! The story is appropriately dark and ends on a genuinely dour note that I was not expecting. There's not a lot of optimism here, which I like, but I needed a little more characterization for the protagonist. I like the themes at play and really like how Rosenberg uses Gotham's rogue's gallery in the story. Without a stronger investment in the character, though, my interest was chiefly intellectual. The art is nice enough, but also like the story, was slacking some of the edges it needed to stand out.

This worked well as the backup story to The Tower storyline in Detective Comics, as the tone of the two narratives paired well. It's less successful standing alone, especially with that misleading cover art, but not without merit. Rosenberg is a great writer, so even a less memorable project from him has high points.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story starts early in Batman's career. The Joker kills a couple while their young son watches from a cupboard. When the boy comes out, Batman arrives, leading him to believe both Batman and Joker are responsible for his parents' deaths. Though Bruce Wayne attempts to help the boy, he finds himself housed at Arkham Asylum, where he encounters some of their inmates, and an orphanage, where Dr. Crane is manipulating the children into being an sort of army for the Scarecrow. As the years pass, the boy is (sort of ) befriended by a number of Gotham villains including Penguin, Bane, Clayface and Killer Croc. During those years he and Gotham are impacted by Knightfall (when Bane broke Bruce Wayne's back and Jean-Paul Valley filled in, the changing of Robin over the years and No Man's Land, when the poor and downtrodden are especially forgotten during Gotham's near total disaster. All the while Batman only wants to right the wrongs that happened to the boy, yet only exacerbates the hatred and distrust the boy has for his as well as the villains, like Joker, who work against him. Overall, this was one of the best story arcs in superhero comics in a long time. The art was pretty spot on, and except for a somewhat rushed resolution, it remained a captivating story reminiscent of the better comics of the past.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the BatFamily deal with Arkham Tower in the lead stories, the House Of Gotham unfolds in the back-ups, as we follow the life of a poor boy in Gotham City as he attempts to navigate life in a town full of supervillains and criminals.

House Of Gotham's probably going to be divisive. It builds and builds very nicely, with the shadow of the Bat (literally and figuratively) falling over the story more and more as it goes on. I did enjoy how Rosenberg folded all of the different villains into the story without feeling like they were being forced in for the sake of it.

The ending however is where people might get divided. I personally thought it was very clever, but I can see it feeling unsatisfying for some people after all the build-up.

On art is Fernando Blanco, one of DC's unsung heroes (despite how much I sing his praises). His mastery of shadows and light enhance some of the scenes to truly beautiful levels, and he continues to do a lot with a little.

House Of Gotham isn't essential reading, it's not related to The Tower at all, but I'd still recommend checking it out regardless.

[Joseph Morin · Rating 5 out of 5]

House of Gotham is an excellent story of institutional failures, accentuated by a wonderfully stripped-back art-style.

This book's sliding timescale is a nonsensical (but fun) plot device, through which the protagonist ages from childhood to adulthood while Batman's dense history unravels in the background-- gaining an entire Bat-family and stopping years' worth of city-threatening disasters. It works to pique nostalgia, and demonstrates Gotham's dangers to normal people.

I loved the protagonist's relationships to Batman's rogues gallery, earned through a tragic series of misunderstandings and desperate decisions. This journey highlights how the crumbling institutions of Gotham combine to turn an good kid into a wanted criminal.

Simple art lets the great story come to the fore. It feels classic-- especially in its use of character designs and costumes. And I admire how demonic Batman and Robin look in fights.

Batman: Shadows of the Bat: House of Gotham is a Must Read!

[Chris Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

House of Gotham is a love letter to Batman’s history and continuity from Matthew Rosenberg that follows the life of a young boy who’s parents are murdered by The Joker.

It shows Gotham from a different angle to what we’re used to and our protagonist’s story is enjoyably unpredictable.

The characterisation of Gotham’s most infamous residents is fascinating here and Rosenberg’s writing shines with each of them from The Joker to Killer Croc. Even Bane proved perfectly characterised. The main highlights for me though were Scarecrow and Penguin.

The boy’s understanding of each hero and villain he encounters is a great lens for the story and little touches like getting to see him interact with three different Robins and see the differences between them really make this story.

A great quick read. Definitely recommended.

[Slov · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's average as a comic book. The beginning had a lot of momentum and potential, then does big time skips twice near the end.
As all others have posted, it's a bit underwhelming as you go on. There should have been more impact with how the little boy developed and who he became. Jamming this in between events like Knightfall and No Man's Land did not help, it felt like a puzzle piece that doesn't fit being forced to fit.
This could have been it's own standalone story, but you sort of have to know the events it takes place between to know what is going on.
The man who the red-headed child became should have been a saint to the people of Gotham, and his story should have been bigger than Batman, but it wasn't. Oh what could have been...
I don't recommend this to anyone, not to Batman fans or comic fans (since nothing visually interesting is going on either).

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collects the back up stories from Detective's 12 part weekly run and frankly should have been the main story because it is much better written. It's the story of a boy who witnesses the Joker murder his parents. Batman shows up immediately after and the kid associates the two of them together. Throughout a decade or so, Jason Todd's turn as Robin, Knightfall, No Man's Land and onward, this kid continues to fall through the cracks and it's the villains that keep him from falling too far. It is a bleak story but I liked how different it is. I do think it's something more for those familiar with Batman's long history to make it easier to pick up on the queues of the timeline each issue takes place in. Fernando Blanco is one of DC's unsung artists too. His art is great.

[Alek Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story that was told through the back issues of the "Shadow of the Bat: Arkham Tower" story. This was a far more entertaining and cohesive story than the Arkham Tower plot.

Following the tragic life of a boy in Gotham we see the history of Batman's impact on the forgotten citizens of the city. From Jokers and then Scarecrows first appearances, to the first Boy Wonder, and then Babe breaking the Bat. We see the tragedies of Knight Fall and then No Mans Land. Leading all the way back to the present Bat Family status quo.

It has a depressing ending that feels like such a poignant fit to the tale Rosenberg told

[Michael Torres · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting volume and concept. We follow a boy who’s family was killed infront of him by The Joker. It takes us through his childhood, through the events of Knightfall and No Mans Land, all the way to the present.

It shows how the boy/man perceived these world events and navigated Gotham. Seeing how an average persons life would be in a world were super villains and heroes are fighting over your city was an interesting take. The ending was also very well done.

[Arianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this volume was a lot better initially, when it depicted a child who is just looking for peace and a home, even if it's among the worst people in Gotham. Even if the ending is ultimately tragic, there's a good chunk of the book devoted to a dumb revenge fantasy that feels like it came out of nowhere and is completely incoherent with the way Rosenberg characterized his OC. I can't give it 5 stars, but it's still very good.

[Ramon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matt Rosenberg's calling card for writing the main Batman book, a tragic tale of a lost soul that escaped Batman's protection, raised instead from the villains of Gotham, we see the kid growing up all through the most important stories of the canon.
Rosenberg has something special, a species of dark humor but without the laughs, a true "tragic comedy" that nobody else currently writing could imitate, he's a master of his craft.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Batman story, where Batman isn’t really the main character, and instead we see various different glimpses of Batman’s stories, through a resident of Gotham.

I really enjoyed the twist this story put on the traditional Batman tale, perhaps at times didn’t fully understand the concept of the story, but I now think it’s one that I’d happily re-read.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, this was fun, a quick story told in the backups of an unrelated summer event, a young boy in Gotham loses everything to a Batman-Joker fight and then grows up in the margins of most of the major Batman stories, offering the mythology from the perspective of the cycles of crime, poverty, mental illness, and other social failures of Gotham city. Clever, funny, and powerful.

[Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really dig everyday Gotham stories — one of my absolute favourites is GCPD — and this is a pretty solid one. I wish there was more room for it to play out; the ending felt rushed. And the themes could've used a little more sharpening...

The issue covers are confusing AF because for some reason, the boy's hair on it is blue/black while in the actual story it's red.

[zackxdig · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a terrible place to be a no name character in Gotham. It’s a clever idea to follow a character whose fallout from joker/batman and what they end up becoming and the hate that comes out of it for Batman. But in the end they’re just a nobody in this story and they don’t matter. Cruel ending thanks to the penguin but clever.

[Néstor Vargas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, this one was a very intriguing story. Following an unnamed protagonist through different Batman eras was brilliant. Some people may find the ending a bit anticlimactic, but I personally loved it. It perfectly communicated the whole purpose of the story.