Batman: The Imposter

Anyone looking for a more grounded take on the Dark Knight could do worse than to check out this Black Label miniseries from writer Mattson Tomlin and artist Andrea Sorrentino.  It imagines a Batman a little over a year into his war on crime and facing his biggest challenge yet.  This would be the title character, another vigilante who has appropriated the Batman’s look to start killing criminals.  Bruce Wayne knows that something needs to be done about it, but he also has to deal with the well-meaning efforts of psychiatrist Leslie Tompkins who wants to help him after he staggered bleeding into her office one night.  Then there’s the investigative efforts of GCPD detective Blair Wong who’s slowly zeroing in on the Batman, and the feelings of the city’s elite who believe the character is simply bad for business.

If you’re under the impression that “The Imposter” doesn’t think Batman would work in a real-life setting, then you’d be right.  Tomlin’s take has the character doing some good, while also running afoul of the system in ways that feel believable.  Particularly in what we learn about his short-lived partnership with Jim Gordon.  That someone would try to impersonate Batman for his own ends feels like a logical compilation that would develop from this approach, and it’s still entertaining to see Bruce track him down even if you have the suspicion that this is all going to end badly for everyone involved.

Tomlin also has a good handle on the cast overall and while some of his takes may be surprising, such as his decidedly unsympathetic take on Alfred, they still feel in sync with the story’s overall tone.  Which  is appropriately grim and gritty courtesy of Andrea Sorrentino who delivers captivating, if occasionally hard-to-follow work throughout.  The creators work well together and I wouldn’t mind seeing more from them, if only because this story’s biggest failing is that it doesn’t feel like it goes far enough into its take on Batman.  “The Imposter” comes off like the middle part of a trilogy where you’re left wondering more about what happened before and what’s going to happen next.  That drags “The Imposter” down, regardless of how entertaining its ambitions wind up being here.