K-23's Profile

Nice cool down issue with the family getting a chance to bond that also introduced a few new interesting threats for upcoming stories. My only gripe was how jarring Shin's excuse to go back to the afterlife was and would have made so much more sense and natural for her to say she has to go back to maintain the balance or tend to her responsibilities.

Tons of fun and great to see Jarro plus fantastic art.

The scene with Mary and Lana was hilarious and the issue was fun but the whole backstory pages weren't needed and art was jarring and certainly not up to quality for one of the main books.

Solid message but the issue just failed in the execution.

Fraction obviously didn’t read any of Damian character development in the pat 3+ years

There were things I liked. Steph learning Tim was going on a date with Bernard. She reacted normally for once. Basically she had to tell herself it was cool. Now that’s real. You’re a girl and your boyfriend leaves you for a guy. You’re not allowed to pout because that’s homophobic, but it really hurts and is humiliating.

But, again, this run jumps all over the place. The plot takes a p age from Daredevil Born Again. The mayor has armed cop stormtrooper going after the vigilantes. They are going to raid all the bat bunkers, something no villain has ever been able to do because no one figured out where they are. Bruce gets lectured by non corporeal Alfred.

This shows the futility of killing the character. DC never figured out how to fill the Alfred shaped hole in the bat books, and ended up having to create Alfred light. But this Alfred actually gives better advice than the real Alfred.

Fraction actually shows Bruce, for once, worrying about parenting Damian, so points for that. To save all the bat kids from the task force, Babs gives herself up. And Bruce blows up Wayne Manor, I guess to hide Batcave Prime.

Something like that should hurt. This is the house of Bruce’s sainted father and mother, yet no reaction to losing portraits of the folks, family heirlooms, etc. Bruce knows they know his identity yet this doesn’t make the news. The public knowing Bats’ identity is the ultimate checkmate, but that card isn’t played? A lot of subplots from previous issues were not addressed. This works for the trades but really hurts a monthly book’s pace.

My ultimate complaint is that Fraction’s bat story really shows Bruce as incompetent. Things happen and Bruce does nothing to stop them. Poison Ivy is mayor!??! Savage goes full Nazi!? Bat bunkers are found and destroyed and Bruce does nothing?

This is the old things go bad and Bruce, from a place of no way up, somehow rallies the troops and wins. A couple of problems first that has been done to death. Plague, earthquake, Gotham cut off, Bane takes over city, the Joker War, you get my point. These stories laid a lot of blood on Bats’ hands. They happened in response to Batman, and he couldn’t stop them. It’s been done to death.

Second, we all know Wayne Manor won’t be gone forever. We know Real Alfred will come back somehow. These are foundational aspects of Batman. They aren’t going away. So why do stories that have no effect. They just become pawns in a plot point with no character.

And this story is just part of a mega event, which means designed by committee and that usually means lack of focus and watered down stories.

Not a good thing. Or I could be wrong.more

The art and plotting really nailed the sense of tension and urgency of the story yet the same issues I've had with Fraction's run would still take me out of the story.

The whole regression of Damian throughout this run wasn't needed for Fraction to have a moment of Bruce realizing he needs to work on his parenting wasn't needed and could've been handled better. The bollards joke and Ba rbara's send of were so cheesy they really took me out of the issue. I appreciate a big swing for a story so Barbara getting arrested is a very compelling story but having GCPD locate all of the remote Batcaves was way too much almost to the point of being offensively blasphemous.more

I went in knowing this was intended to be funny but this was just as bad as Green Lantern Corps has gotten.

Uneven art and storytelling but still a decent read with some fun moments. I'm a big fan of Loeb's previous Batman work so this isn't up to his usual quality but it's way better than the unreadable H2SH.