Another great issue. Strongly disagree with the bad ratings.

I don’t understand the critic ratings. I thought it was another great issue.

People are still review bombing this book but its actualy probably the best batman book they have on the shelves lol.

It feels far more fresh than anything Bruce is doing write now. I like the supporting cast and the main, and the story is interesting to unfold at all points.

Hopefully the other bat series pick up the slack

Batman faces a trial he isn't ready for as the enemy makes his next move. Jace is forced to confront his true motives for taking up the suit and what his endgame is, but hes already folded.

The arts not as good as the last few issues but it gets the job done. The various players are still fun to read and follow; between Jace, his crew and the NYPD im interested to see where this leads.

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When Tynion prepared to take over the main Batman title, he promised to make Scarecrow into a major villain. I'm only a fair to middling fan of his writing but giving Scarecrow his due? I was thrilled. Fear and dream villains like Scarecrow or Dr. Destiny give us insight into our heroes' unconscious minds, which is where the action is at with all fictional characters and all human beings as well. So those characters aren't used enough. They can't be used enough. And Scarecrow has been the most overlooked and underused villain in all of Batman's gigantic rouges gallery.

So great, I thought! Finally, I thought! A run that focuses most of all on Scarecrow? I wanted to buy every issue twice. Jimenez is my favorite DC artist in a long, long time and that made me doubly excited. But however many issues in now (it feels like 50), the character has yet to be used in really any way at all. He's been made a bit player in a Magistrate story that doesn't know how to end, hardly knew how to begin, and has been running in place ever since Future State.

But not only has he been window dressing in a Magistrate story, he's also taken a backseat to somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 new characters. (Way to go after that sweet IP money, JT. Throw as many new characters as you can at the wall and maybe one of them will stick.) Meanwhile his eyes glower yellow in a pretty terrific new look from Jimenez and he does absolutely nothing.

It is just so damn disappointing. With The Scarecrow, that potential that has lain dormant for somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 years now remains untapped. Nifty new look, truly. But that's about the size of it. He's an empty suit.

Overall Tynion's run hasn't been especially bad, it's just been blah. I'd rather a story swing for the fences and be bad for missing. But no story at all is better than a boring one.

In this issue the disappointment wasn't even fully leavened by Jimenez's gorgeous art because he only drew a few pages.

This issue and this run gets a (very generous) 3 from me and not less for three reasons:

1) Jimenez (even if he only gets a few pages in this issue)
2) Miracle Molly, along with her Unsane Collective, is probably the only interesting new character from this run and she gets focus here
3) It's not TV's Titans, which I won't even get into here. The bastardization of The Scarecrow in that series has been laughable but that series is at least dependable in its awfulness.

In the comics and on TV we were promised great things from The Scarecrow. That his treatment was so bad on TV was unsurprising. I expected more from Tynion.

After a year like this, it seems Scarecrow fans will probably have to wait another 60 years before he finally gets his due if he ever does. I never really thought I'd look forward to a Williamson run on Batman, but here we are.

What a drag. more