Detective Comics #817

"Face the Face" part 1 of 8
Story by James Robinson, art by Leonard Kirk and Andy Clarke

This is what they call decompression: Commissioner Gordon gets a call saying Poison Ivy is doing something nasty and floral to a big meeting of CEOs; he goes upstairs and turns on the Bat-Signal; Batman and Robin show up, get briefed, and set out to stop Ivy from pursuing her deranged ecoterrorism. And that's the comic, basically. Gordon walking up to the roof gets a full page.

OK, there's a little more: the undignified death of a stupid villain from the 1980s, a lot of hints about what's happened over the past year, and a good moment when Batman disses a presumptuous rookie cop. (There's something cool about Batman being straight-up rude.) And a striking effect from colorist John Kalisz: Batman crouches on top of the Bat-Signal, and his costume turns black and white in the glare. Solid professional superhero comics in the modern style.