anuragsahay's review
4.0
Gotham by Gaslight is fundamentally a mixture of two things which are cool in genre fiction - Batman and Victorian England. The first part of this graphic novel (the original "Gotham by Gaslight" deals with a Batman of the late 1800s dealing with Jack the Ripper) while the second part deals with Batman taking his rightful place as the defender of Gotham in the brave new century after his conflict with Jack.
Honestly... I was a little underwhelmed. I think that I might have enjoyed the book a lot more if the "high" concept and the expectation of some sort of Steampunk or Gaslamp Fantasy blend were not there - while there is Gaslight, and while there are elements of Steampunk in the second half of the novel, by and large these elements are kept at a minimum. Other than Jack the Ripper himself, the only thing that really sets this story in Victorian England is the aesthetics - fashion, art, landscapes and so on.
The plot in the first half was fairly predictable, and very low-stakes given that it was a conflict between Batman and Jack the Ripper. My expectation was of a much more psychological thriller - the inclusion of Sigmund Freud is emblematic in that sense; the psychological aspects of this comic are as underdeveloped as compared to moder noir, gaslamp fantasy, steampunk and comparable genres as Freud's own theories are to modern psychology.
Having said all that, I feel like I am judging the book harshly because of what TV Tropes calls an "Unbuilt Trope" - the modern concept of Steampunk only originated in the last 1980s, and this graphic novel was first published in 1989. It stands to reason that it probably held out much better as a concept in that time, than it does now, just like LotR would now be considered a bunch of overused tripe.
In short, unless you're a big fan of Batman or stories set in the Victorian era, I'd give this a pass. If you're a big fan of either, you ought to read this due to its historical importance in the context.
Honestly... I was a little underwhelmed. I think that I might have enjoyed the book a lot more if the "high" concept and the expectation of some sort of Steampunk or Gaslamp Fantasy blend were not there - while there is Gaslight, and while there are elements of Steampunk in the second half of the novel, by and large these elements are kept at a minimum. Other than Jack the Ripper himself, the only thing that really sets this story in Victorian England is the aesthetics - fashion, art, landscapes and so on.
The plot in the first half was fairly predictable, and very low-stakes given that it was a conflict between Batman and Jack the Ripper. My expectation was of a much more psychological thriller - the inclusion of Sigmund Freud is emblematic in that sense; the psychological aspects of this comic are as underdeveloped as compared to moder noir, gaslamp fantasy, steampunk and comparable genres as Freud's own theories are to modern psychology.
Having said all that, I feel like I am judging the book harshly because of what TV Tropes calls an "Unbuilt Trope" - the modern concept of Steampunk only originated in the last 1980s, and this graphic novel was first published in 1989. It stands to reason that it probably held out much better as a concept in that time, than it does now, just like LotR would now be considered a bunch of overused tripe.
In short, unless you're a big fan of Batman or stories set in the Victorian era, I'd give this a pass. If you're a big fan of either, you ought to read this due to its historical importance in the context.
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