DETECTIVE COMICS #763

It's Girls' Night Out as Sasha and the Huntress pick up after the Joker!

By Tony Whitt     October 30, 2001

The JOKER: LAST LAUGH crossover was bound to be dire, but it's good to see that some titles can retain their quality and still fit into the overall...whatever it is. In this issue, Batman leaves Sasha on her own while he deals with the Joker's last (idiotic) gambit, but against his orders, she goes out to try to lend a hand. Enter the Huntress, who sees some of herself in Sashaand whom she insists on calling "Bittybat." Not the most auspicious way to start a partnership, true, but the girls have to set aside their differences to track down a knife-wielding escaped prisoner. Of course, said prisoner is not all that she appears, either.

Greg Rucka does his usual fantastic job of balancing the interplay between the Huntress and Sasha with the one Joker-related plot point of the mysterious escaped prisoner. Of course, when that prisoner's secret is finally revealed, it's never what you'd expect, and it's just the sort of thing that tears your heart apart. "La Cucilla" may be one of the few truly decent stories to come out of this clownish mess.

Judd Winick's backup feature, "Josie Mac," centering around a detective who can sense the location of missing objects, is something else entirely. I love Winick's work to pieces, and there are identifiable Winick touches all over this script, but the jury's out until the second installment. Part of it may be the main character, who simply isn't a patch on Ed Brubaker's Slam Bradley. Part of it may be the narrative style Winick employs here: it's all setup and exposition, told via narration and without dialogue until nearly the last page. As such, it becomes more the sort of text story with pictures that DETECTIVE used to run way back in the '30s and '40s. Still, I'd rather read Winick's prose than just about any other comic writer's, and even his mediocre work is better than some people's best efforts. Cliff Chiang's artwork doesn't quite measure up to Winick's script, howeverit's a bit too bland, and I fear it might not be enough to carry this feature if Winick decides to take it in his usual bold new directions.

Shawn Martinbrough and Jesse Delperdang's artwork on the main feature, on the other hand, is every bit as wonderful as you'd expect. Many readers fault the art for its non-realistic style and its minimalist color scheme, but you simply won't find artwork nowadays that complements a script nearly as well as theirs complements Rucka's.

If you've decided to go into hiding until the Joker is locked up and sense returns to the DC line again, don't give up hope. There are a few gems twinkling in all the green, white, and red rubbish, and this is one of them.

DETECTIVE COMICS

Grade: B+

Issue: No. 763

Author(s): Greg Rucka, Shawn Martinbrough, Jesse Delperdang, Judd Winick, Cliff Chiang

Publisher: DC Comics

Price: $2.50