Greg Rucka reunites with artist Steve Lieber, his collaborator on Whiteout, the comics project that established him as a creative force in the industry. In this standalone issue, Rucka advances none of the ongoing subplots. None of the regular cast members gets the spotlight to him or herself. The special role the Batman plays in the law-enforcement regime in Gotham really isn't explored. Nevertheless, this is another amazing issue in the series. The writer explores a different side of the Gotham City Police Department. He turns our attention to the uniformed cops walking a beat, to the kind of cop that has earned the fictional police force a reputation for corruption. It's a compelling story full of tension and drama, but one devoid of heroes.
Munroe and DeCarlo are rotten cops, men who abuse their position and power to line their own pockets and make them feel like more than they are. They shake down drug dealers for a cut of their take. They force prostitutes to service them and take their money as well. And now, they've been caught in the act by a homeless girl who ends up dead. The dirty cops seek out other like-minded Gotham officers to help them cover their backs while at the same time, they seek to ingratitate themselves to the city's new crimelord, Black Mask.
Lieber's efforts here are much more smooth than I expected. Usually, a rough, gritty quality tends to define his style, but that tendency isn't as prominent here. His work still boasts the same realistic, grounded approach that's made his previous projects such critical successes, though. Loughridge's colors envelop the characters in an appropriately dark mood, and in the final scene, they shift slightly to convey a creepy, supernatural tone that's very much in keeping with the ending.
There's no protagonist to cheer for in this story, no underdog to get behind. The main characters are the villains of the plot, Munroe and DeCarlo, and they're not really in conflict with anyone. They manipulate the system to ensure they won't be caught, and they do it well. But there's still plenty of dramatic tension, because the reader is eager to see them pay. Their arrogance eclipses even their callousness, and it seems impossible in the reader's mind they will go unpunished. But they're not caught by the detectives they despise so much, nor are they betrayed by the other dirty cops with whom they conspire. The reader is left wondering for a brief time if there will be any repurcussions at all.
Rucka pulls off a nice bit of misdirection in the opening scene, leading the reader to believe the narrator is the homeless girl rummaging through a dumpster. We quickly discover it's one of the dirty cops telling his own story, and the girl is quickly forgotten. That's another nice piece of misdirection on the writer's part. The reader keeps what for what the cops did to come back and bite them in the ass, but it's who they did it to that really ends up costing them. 10/10
