Normally Tynion manages to write some decent issues, but this was horrendous, particularly coming off of #51. As soon as I saw 52 being shoehorned into the story and Bruce holding that goddamn book while diving out of a plane, I wanted to burn this issue. Awful, awful addendum to the run. I thought Tynion was better than this (and judging from the earlier back-ups in this series and the Detective Comics reviews, he is). more

I grant that this is a difficult spot to put Tynion in: the Snyder/Capullo run just wrapped, which are some bog shoes to fill, this needs to be a one-shot and readers expect closure and some fuzzy emotional feels to close out on. That being said, doesn't it bother anyone else that Bruce Wayne is lugging around this stupid giant text-book-sized notebook throughout his worldly training? The first time I saw he had brought a book bag to his ninja training in Japan, I literally laughed out loud... Then it kept showing up again... He dives out of a freakin' plane with no parachute, holding the book in his hand. I mean, come on! I know this shouldn't bother me this much, but I can't help it, it's so ridiculous. The art is okay, there are a couple panels where Batman is wide-eyes for no reason, the worst panel has his eyes wide open and his jaws gaping as if he's going to eat the world's most amazing sandwich, seems like an odd expression to deliver the line, "This is personal." That was another lol moment. So, the story concept sounds good, but it wasn't executed well. If you've been reading Batman since the New 52 relaunch, you might as well complete the set, otherwise don't worry about picking this one up. more