Mother Panic Gotham A.D. #5
DC Comics
Writer: Jody Houser
Art: Ibrahim Moustafa
Colors: Jordan Boyd
Mother Panic brings adult and grimy themes to Gotham. Keeping up with the fallout of the Milk Wars, Violet is still trying to see how she can get out of the different Gotham she is in and destroy the collective.
We see Mother Panic team up with Gotham Sirens to take on The Collective and the Last of the Robins. This war for Gotham is the main story in this issue as we see the urgency for Violet to finally step up to the calling that she has been avoiding since Mother Panic began. It’s a good direction to the next issue that concludes the Gotham A.D. storyline.
Jody and Ibrahim have been able to maintain the dirty and violent nature of Gotham going from the first issue till now. It’s still surprising to read curse words and how it is used in the themes of the characters, and how there’s a meaning behind it, not just to raise a reaction from the audience. Jody is able to blend words with action very fluently with the way Ibrahim sets up the art.
Ibrahim’s art can sometimes feel redundant and I have seen this before. It’s not copying per se, but the movement of the characters sometimes come off as stale or static. In panels with a lot of characters, they can lose their identity and become difficult to tell apart if they share similar traits. This is most evident with the lack of expression shown by Harley at the sight of a dead Joker.
Overall the issue is decent for a setup to the climax of issue 6. The conclusion was predictable with how everything in the story moved. The art and story were mostly filler to get everything set up for the next issue.