Wayne of Gotham by Tracy HickmanMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
I've always been a fan of Tracy Hickman, and I've always been a fan of Batman, so this felt like it would be a match made in heaven. Sadly, if this book came from anywhere, it was hell. Don't get me wrong; Hickman crafts a good story but it isn't a Batman story. In fact, it shows little to know knowledge or respect for the character or the seventy-three-year-old mythos that surrounds him. Hickman's writing shows no understanding of the characters' voices or how they view and interact with each other, giving us an Alfred and Bruce Wayne who are barely civil to each other and a Commissioner Gordon who claims to have always hated Batman and been waiting for the day he could take him in. Likewise, Hickman ruins Batman's sainted parents by first presenting a Thomas Wayne who was fine with freakish human experiments and then giving us a Martha Wayne who has no romantic interest in Thomas until she sees him beat someone up... but, what a twist, that isn't him doing the beating, it's someone dressed up as him. Then there's a part where he hear a recording of Thomas Wayne saying, "he wanted his sons to know the truth." Except Bruce Wayne is an only child, right? So you expect this to be a plot point. It isn't. Batman doesn't even react to what's said and it's never mentioned again. As if that wasn't enough, Hickman seems determined to give us a Batman we can't even enjoy, as his Batman is over-the-hill and over-reliant on an amped-up Batsuit that he can barely carry on his own. This entire book was just awful. And this might be petty, but I hated this book so much I'm going for it: the spelling of a character's name changes from Lew to Lou and back again multiple times with no explanation. Crappy writing or crappy editing? You be the judge. Hickman fans who have no interest in Batman might enjoy it, but for Bat-fans, it's trash.
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