The Best Ever Batman Comic Is One You've Never Heard Of
3. A Hero On The Edge
Adopting a BTAS-style aesthetic, which lends Ego an imperceptible kind of timelessness to it, Cooke brings the reader to a Batman at the pinnacle of his career. He's weary, but determined, and has just experienced yet another chastening encounter with the Joker. Having used an informant to find his way to the Clown Prince, the Dark Knight rushes to apprehend him before he skips town, perching atop Gotham's main bridge in an effort to do so.
Unfortunately for Bats, he fails to account for his own actions. The thug in question has actually gone to the bridge to kill himself, petrified at the inevitable prospect of the Joker breaking out of Arkham and murdering him and his family for turning him over to Batman. In his attempts to save him, Bruce also discovers that the man has killed his wife and children, so potent is the Joker's reputation for extreme violence, before he commits suicide with a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head.
In the proceeding panels, Cooke illustrates that the Dark Knight is about to experience the night of his life. This was a death that laid bare the impact Batman, and the villains his presence undoubtedly invites, has on Gotham's citizens. Racing to the Batcave in an earlier Batmobile, Bruce is taunted by the ghosts of his past, with Hugo Strange foreshadowing the themes of the story with a passing comment on Wayne's ostensible "split personality". There's a real sense of speed - and urgency - in the sequence, with Cooke also taking the opportunity to illustrate how close to the edge the character is, by having the Batmobile stop just short of plummeting into the depths beneath Wayne Manor.
The book's prologue is powerful for a whole host of reasons, but one thing that definitely stands out is Cooke's eye for Gotham as a character in and of itself. Taking inspiration from Fleischer Studio's Superman shorts and, by extension, Batman: The Animated Series as well, Cooke's Gotham is a veritable metropolis, one that oozes atmosphere right off the page. It plays directly into his classic aesthetic, and for fans of New Frontier in particular, it's a delight to see him working in that period yet again.