3.5 stars

This volume is honestly a pretty mixed bag. It’s got two strong stories in Soft Targets and Unresolved and an incredibly weak story in between.

Soft Targets by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka



This was one of the most interesting stories I’ve seen yet in Gotham Central, primarily because it puts the police square in the middle of the war between Batman and Gotham’s costumed “freaks.” It starts with a sniper taking out a number of Gotham’s high-ranking public officials and quickly turns into a cat-and-mouse game between Batman and one of Gotham’s biggest "freaks." I know Goodreads and Amazon both spoil who this is but I’m gonna be stubborn and not name them because it would be so much better if you didn’t know ahead of time. Brubaker and Rucka handle this really well because the police are stuck between the mayor (who just assumes Batman’s gonna jump in and save the day) and the panicking Gothamites who are terrified of who the sniper will take out next. Add into this the fact that it’s happening the week before Christmas and Gotham couldn’t be in more of an uproar. As a huge Batman fan, it’s fun to see how the police view him, even if it isn’t all that complimentary. And honestly, by the end of the story I really can’t blame them. Things don’t exactly turn out for the best and since Batman doesn’t ever bother to explain himself, there’s understandably not a whole lot of trust between him and the GCPD. Which really just makes things more interesting.


Life is Full of Disappointments by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka



I’m not sure I’ve ever been so bored reading a Batman story in my life. I generally like police procedurals but this is just too low-key for me. It focuses on a number of the less known police officers and some of their personal and professional problems. In the first part (written by Brubaker), one of the veterans gets snubbed on a promotion because of politics within the mayor’s office and begins work on a case involving a young woman who’s been murdered. He’s helped out by another set of detectives, and another set of personal problems appears. Part Two (written by Rucka) follows with a THIRD set of detectives who take on the case when another body that appears to be connected shows up and this time there’s some mob connections that are completely UNRELATED to the case and I have literally no idea why we’re supposed to care. And then the case is solved and no one gives a shit.

Unresolved by Ed Brubaker



And then, thank God, Brubaker takes over again with a dark, twisted crime story involving an old cold case. Detectives Marcus Driver and Josie MacDonald end up getting involved with a hostage situation when it turns out that Driver knows said hostage taker and is the only person he’ll speak to. Things don’t go as planned and the two detectives end up having to re-open a case last looked at by the disgraced Harvey Bullock. It was really interesting to see how losing his job as a cop had affected Harvey and how his old style of policework meshed with the newer styles of Driver and MacDonald. This felt much more in Brubaker’s usual gritty style and brought Gotham Central back to more solid ground after the incredibly boring Life is Full of Disappointments crap.

The artwork is the same unimpressive work that we’ve seen in the previous book but the (mostly) strong storytelling again makes it not super noticeable.

Overall, Book Three is worth a read if you liked the first book but I would definitely advocate for skipping the middle story unless you really, really enjoy personal stories about GCPD officers you barely remember.