Warning! Contains a preview for Batman #122
One of Batman’s more impressive gadgets from the Arkham games has finally made its way to the comics in a new preview. While Batman has typically had an arsenal of gadgets and high-tech devices at his disposal, the events of Joker War forced him to tone things down after he lost his billions. However, it seems as though the Dark Knight still has one of his more improbable devices: his evidence scanner and its ability to create virtual crime scenes.
In the Arkham games, Batman frequently uses his detective mode and evidence scanner integrated into his cowl to search for clues the GCPD might have missed. Finding the patterns and identifying clues, the evidence scanner can compile the data and recreate a virtual reconstruction of the crime scene, allowing Batman to view the incident in question as if he was standing there in real-time. However, the idea of a perfect holographic replication using only a few data points of evidence always seemed a little too farfetched without some educated guesses and assumptions needing to be made (even with the power of the Batcomputer).
Now, the new preview for Batman #122 from Joshua Williamson, Trevor Hairsine, and Howard Porter sees Batman creating a virtual crime scene while investigating Deathstroke’s murder of Ra’s al Ghul, tying into the current Shadow War event. While the virtual reconstruction resembles the same tech Batman uses in the Arkham games, Batman does reveal a better explanation beyond simply finding clues to create the scene. Here are the preview pages and synopsis for the issue:
BATMAN #122, SHADOW WAR, PART 2 — Ra’s al Ghul is dead, and Talia is out for revenge! Batman is on the case to find Deathstroke before Talia’s elite killers do! But Batman starts to piece together that not everything is what it seems in Ra’s’s death…and knows whom he must interrogate to get answers…Talia herself! Can the two former lovers ever work together again? Plus, a backup tale showing the secret first fight between Batman and Deathstroke!
As Batman explains to Director Chase in this new preview, he had satellites and “eyes in the sky” monitoring Ra’s al Ghul’s public press conference to the world, anticipating the trouble that did indeed come from the assassin dressed as Deathstroke. Seeing as how the mercenary drilled all the way from the outskirts of Gotham, it makes sense why Dark Knight was unable to identify and run interference before the Demon’s Head was killed. Now, Batman will have to go to Ra’s’s daughter Talia for answers, his former love and the mother of his son Damian.
Not only is Batman’s virtual crime scene tech given a dynamic debut in the comics while investigating this major murder, it also gets a much stronger explanation for how it works. The use of satellites in tandem with any evidence the Dark Knight might find helps ground the believability of the holographic device from the Arkham games. The full Batman #122 is out now.
