It's a tradition for new books in the DC Universe... the Batman guest appearance. It's also traditional for books that are suffering from low sales, which unfortunately is a category that The Monolith fits into as well. Palmiotti and Gray have been telling a very New York-centric story of a new superhero in the pages of The Monolith, and they continue to emphasize the city and tell intriguing, gritty street-level superhero tales while bringing in Batman in a way that I really liked, which will hopefully get the book a little more attention from comics fandom at large. Regular artist Phil Winslade is off for this arc, but Tomm Coker brings a different but equally impressive approach to the urban backdrop of the book and the realistic, very human cast members, and his shadowy, dark artwork is perfect for a tale guest starring the Dark Knight detective.
Given that one of the things I really enjoyed early on in The Monolith were the tales that took place during the Great Depression era, I thought that having that aspect of the stories pretty much wrapped up might sap my interest in the book a bit. As it turns out, however, Gray and Palmiotti have just as interesting a take on modern-day New York as they did on a period version of the city, and I love that they've wrapped their new character in a low income social strata that generally doesn't get explored in superhero comics. Even better, they've got their streetwise heroine thinking about her role as superhero enabler for this group, comparing and contrasting what she does with what most heroes like the Justice League are all about, and it makes The Monolith seem like it's filling an unfilled niche, not just in terms of fictional crimefighting but in terms of real-world comics publishing.
To tell the truth, I've been in something of an old school superhero mode for a while now, and the market isn't serving me well in that respect. Deconstructionist and realist superhero tales are the order of the day. The Monolith fits into this category, but it's an example of how that kind of thing can work. Palmiotti and Gray spend as much time, if not more, on Alice and Tilt and their day-to-day lives as they do on the Monolith's night-time escapades, and I'm loving learning more about these characters. The childlike role that Monolith has taken on with this unusual couple of friends makes for an interesting dynamic, and I also really like seeing how Alice has grown since the first couple issues of this book, as if the introduction of a superpowered figure into her life has awakened her inner altruist in other aspects of life as well.
One of the big selling points of The Monolith at the beginning was the gorgeous, amazingly detailed work of Phil Winslade. It seemed impossible that he could keep that up on a regular monthly basis, and in fact it wasn't possible, so Tomm Coker has come on to do this arc (and possibly more, to be honest I'm not sure.) Coker is someone whose work I've seen over the years, but who really blew me away with Blood and Water from Vertigo, and his work on The Monolith is equally stunning. He brings New York to life with the same photo-realistic touches used by Winslade in this book or Michael Lark in the pages of Gotham Central, and it is this realistic backdrop that really helps make The Monolith such a gripping read. Coker also brings something of a gothic quality to the work as well, however, making him the perfect choice to introduce Batman into the story, and giving the Monolith even more of a spooky, borderline monstrous quality than Winslade did.
The introduction of Batman could be a worrying sign, as it is sometimes the sign of flagging sales and oftentimes he seems sort of forced into a book for sales instead of story reasons. However, Gray and Palmiotti sold me on Batman's appearance because of his role in the story as Bruce Wayne. Not only does having him contribute to the housing project that Alice works for make absolute sense in terms of Wayne's character, it leads to a very funny scene between Alice and Tilt showing how Wayne appears to those who don't know his secret.
