This issue is just dumb. Nothing happens. Bao, I mean Clownhunter tries to kill Harley but can't because of the power of love. Harley says sure I killed a lot of people and destroyed your life, but oppsie and I absolutely deserve to walk free because I'm a victim, and you're a victim and those dozens of people you brutally killed using psychotic methods totally had it coming.

Shadowkiller or Ghostslaughter or whatever, maintains caring about people will get Bruce killed. He says it hasn't so far. But caring about people Bruce's way sure has gotten a lot of other people killed. I am talking about thousands. Thanks to DC's love of body counts, letting the Joker live means thousands of innoncent people die every year because of Batman. I don't think that's the message DC wants to give, but that's what they're doing.

The action is stupid. I mean just stupid. Clownkiller, who hasn't hestitated to kill nameless victims, has a sword over Harley's neck. He just holds it there giving Bruce time to literally break his bonds, grab a batarang from his belt that Ghoststabber left on his body while tying him up. Bruce is able to throw the batarang to Harley, she catches it and then gets into a defensive position and talks about the healing power of forgiveness. Clownpiethrower breaks down and everybody hugs and it's cake for everyone.

All this action has to take time, yet Clownboy just holds the the sword over Harley's neck.

Even Ghost boy says he did everything he did to prove a point to Bruce. Which is what the Joker did in The Dark Knight. Bruce says I need help, I am getting older and don't have billions and Alfred is gone and Catwoman left me and my pickup truck has a flat and my dog died. So I could use help just don't kill anyone. Apparently, torture and planting evidence and crippling people is OK, just don't kill.

This issue is bad for so many reasons. Pacing is SOOO SSLLOOWW. Characters act out of character. A kid who has KILLED dozens brutally just changes. That's not the way things work. Harley is not nuts. She just shrugs off stuff and is sane. That's not Harley. Ghostkisser really just wants something and agrees to work with Bruce. Bruce really lets mass murderers off the hook with a hug. He says he needs help despite the fact that he's got more allies than ever. What with Spoiler and Cass as Batgirls (an ideal I really like - see I can be positive and enthusiastic), a couple of Robins, Nightwing, Huntress, Oracle and maybe Catwoman and her crew.

Why does Bruce need one more ally. He talks about reduced resources, but I don't see it. He says he doesn't have allies in government, but the Commish is still his fried.

This issue is saying things that aren't true and I really dislike all these mass murderers getting left off the hook. I am for rehabilitation, but murder is something else. Prison is also for punishment and these killers have been left off the hook.

The art was nice, but the action was nothing.

Or I could be wrong. more

Well, this issue seemed like it suffered from all the problems a bi-weekly schedule can bring to a comic. First, hardly anything happens. We get more context as to who Ghost-Maker is, but it's nothing that really changes anything we don't already know about the character. It feels like pointless additions. Second, the art is just all over the place. There are four artists on this one issue, and none of them are particularly good. It's just so clear that Tynion had to stretch this arc out and I have no idea why that's even the case. This story is just that barebones. This is mediocrity in spades. more

Boring and trite story. The art though is the worst part of the issue. I don't get this whole idea about having multiple artist on one issue. If it was a special issue okay fine but this is just a regular issue so why????? And more importantly why such diverse artists? If you are going to have different artist work on a issue together why not get ones that work complements each others work rather then be so different from each other that it just leaves the book looking like a hot mess? This book was a mess. The art was terrible. The only thing I can honestly say about the issue that I liked was how Ghost Maker and Bruce's relationship played out. I have to say from the looks of it GM is the far better Batman. He gets things done. I think he would make for a great stand alone comic series. I would buy it. As for Clownhunter, he started out as a possibly interesting character but is quickly becoming annoying and too one sided of a character. He needs to either grow some depth as a character or just go period. more

This issue is the very definition of story-telling that treads water. All we learn is what we know - Ghostmaker is a former "schoolmate" of Batman and they had a deal that Ghostmaker is now breaking. The deal? They keep out of each other's way. Oh, and Bruce apparently misses his old friend. Well, politics will do that.

Clownkiller still wants to kill Harley, and We now know that Oracle is called Batgirl Prime and Steph and Cassie are "The Batgirls."

We do see that Ghostmaker is scaring the crooks into giving themselves up and returned Mr. Pyg to Arkham. He was free for eight months. That really does make him better than Bruce at fighting crime. Pyg is a dangerous mass murderer (and frankly, a boring "gimmick" villain who shocks only because of his body count. I maintain that's not a good character.) Will Bruce say he knew where Pyg was, but needed him free to stop someone from stealing the election or selling nukes to some hostile power? Because letting a monster like that roam is just a bridge too far. If he didn't know where Pyg was, then Ghostie is better.

The whole issue ends with Clownkiller about to kill a tied up Harley. We get the sense that she helped kill people he cared about, and that's the problem with Harley. Her body count is problematic when trying to make her a hero for the kids.

We are pretty much right where we were last issue, but $4 poorer. That's not good story telling. Not a fan of this issue.

Or I could be wrong. more

Because DC is making so many failed copies of Red Hood, first Damian, then Clownhunter and now this Ghost-Maker in those ridiculous pants that is going to fly off when he kicks it first.

Maybe later I will have enough willingness and energy in me to write a detailed and polished review. For now, let me just say this:

I'm SO sick of Harley Quinn in Batman run.

I do like the art. I like the costume Ghost-Maker has.

But I really do dislike him as a character. Nothing about him works. He is just average copycat of Red Hood, Nobody, etc. All who have been done better.

The idea of Clownhunter really doesn't work for me either. Just eh...

So the two antagonists we have here are either bad or meh. And since this issue mostly focuses on them, it really is as good as they are. more

We learn that everyone in Gotham thinks "Ghost-Maker" is a stupid name. They're not wrong, I'll say that. There is a lot of talk-fighting. That's when people have intricate conversations that require one's full concentration while fighting. A paragraph of dialog can take place in time it takes to throw one punch.

Ghost-Maker calls out Batman for sucking at his job. He says that he's, in 12 hours, brought down corrupt judges, arms dealers etc. We also learn that Bats and Ghostie knew each other back in their training days.

Meanwhile Clownkiller attacks Harley and she brushes him off easily, saying she looks toward the future, not the past where she has a body count that must be in the hundreds.

Ghost-Maker also calls out Bruce for letting a 17-year-old who has killed dozens walk around free. Bruce says he can't send the kid to Blackgate, the guards would help him. I assume that means help him kill criminals. I guess Bruce has never heard of protective custody and maximum security.

Here's the thing. Ghost-Maker is right. Bruce let the kid go after giving him a stern warning and the first thing he did was go after Harley. The fact that she will live is based more on the fact that she's agile. If she wasn't, that's another body on Bruce's fail pile.

Bats crashes through Harley's window and then says he knows about the corrupt judges, he was giving them line to real in their boss. Now that's not possible. He also says he knows about the arms deal, he sabotaged the weapons so they wouldn't work and he was waiting to see who they were going to be sold to. He mentions he had Cassandra Caine keeping an eye on some crooks. We see her in her Batgirl outfit, so cool.

Barb is tracking the fight and Bruce tells her to stay out of Ghostie's network, because it would crush her network. So that's clue.

In all shots, past and present, Ghostie's eyes are covered, so if he's blind, you read it here first folks.

The art is nice, but the main problem is that Tynion stretches out all the exposition and action at the same time. Instead of having a page of dialog explaining positions, and then the fight. It's all one thing and both detract from each other. Also, has two swords in him by the end of the fight. You know Tynion, Batman wore body armor back in Batman #1 in 1940. So I find the idea of him just wearing tights and not body armor to be weak sauce, especially since the Batman movie came out in 1989 -31 years ago - so armor has two historical precedents. Shrugging off killing or maiming wounds through "I am Batman" will power is just a bridge too far for me.

All in all, I just found the plot and the stolen elements from early stories to be uninteresting and wish they would move on. Bruce being "poor" actually doesn't affect this issue at all. So why take away his fortune if the stories aren't going to reflect his diminshed means?

Not a great issue. But I could be wrong. more

Tynion is doing exactly the same thing as Lobdell, great elements but he doesn't do anything with them and unlike Lobdel he's only compiling other writers.

Not interest in Nobody 3.0

It is not terrible. It is okay. But my biggest problem is with Ghost-Maker. This idea doesn't sound anything new to me. A part Arkham Knight, a part Nobody, you get the idea. He is currently just a rehash of old and done-to-death ideas and not done very well.

Who did Tynion rip off this time? First there is animated Batman with a fellow student of a mentor. There is himself, with more victims becoming villains themselves.

Unfortunately his ne2 villain makes compelling points. Bruce is letting a mass murderer loose. Gotham is incapable of locking up its criminals. Yet another villain who knows who Batman is.

Bruce yet again saying stay out of my city. When has that ever worked? I am not impressed. The art was nice.

Or I could be wrong. more

Once again we see nothing happen. We are told that Catwoman has to deal with her enemies, that Lucius has Bruce's money and Bruce will have it back if he wants, but eyes will be on him so he can't spend it.

Bruce never asks for the money back and says he'll move into a brownstone in the city that he didn't even know he owned. We're told that the city changed and all the Joker goons just took off their masks so no one knows who they are but apparently Clownkiller is tracking them down.

Again, that's not how money works. If Joker paid the goons, then there is a money trail. The Board pays off Bruce, but he owns the stock. Stock deals can be nullified when fraud is proven. Lucius says he has tens of billions of dollars in cash, but Bruce didn't have a Scrooge McDuck money bin. His assets were stock, real estate, etc. These aren't liquid assets. Converting them to cash would be impossible even if a whiff of fraud were suspected.

So what assets does Bruce have? We don't know. We are told that he can't spend what money he has without receiving attention, so if he breaks the batmobile, he'll have to fix it without using Wayne Enterprises resources. I don't think he ever did that because employees would have had to do the work and why would they keep their mouths shut?

Bruce living in the city. Already been done. This whole slimmed down Batman goes back to the VIP concept launched when Robin went to college. There is nothing new under the sun with Tynion. Keeping Catwoman and Batman apart is just annoying. We still really haven't dealt with Alfred's death.

All this is a rehash of stuff that's been done before and the fear of actually going forward with the character development that people actually like - Bat/Cat - built on a foundation of unbelievable financial structure. What will happen to all the charities Bruce supports? We don't know. He used his fortune to help a lot of people, is that money gone. The way foundations work doesn't even seem to have a play in this world.

I am not impressed, but I could be wrong. more

Is it just me? I see the "professional" reviews and for the most part, they loved the Joker War.

But all I saw was a bunch of nothing. It's another all-out Gotham war. But Tynion's plot makes no sense. He restores the status quo (we don't know how much money Bruce has, but we all know in the end, he'll be or become a billionaire again. We know Alfred is returning).

Punchline knows who Batman is. Instead of getting the last word and telling the world that, she plays "victim" to the Joker. Harley ties Joker up with a bomb and Bats walks away, but we're told the Joker escaped, not shown how he did it.

The Joker sits around a diner with his hoodie up and no notices him? He jokerizes a sap and tells him that his body will be found and taken as the Joker. Like anyone would buy that. We have fingerprints and DNA and dental x-rays and the ability to search for scars. Tynion, stop moving your plots forward by making everyone so dumb.

What we don't see is how the Bat family rallies around Bruce, how they love and respect him and each other, how they support him and his goals and how he has influenced them to make sacrifices with their lives. We haven't seen anyone mourn Alfred, not really. Instead we get another empty spectacle where no one acts human and the logical consequences of the plot are not played out or explored. Just more blather about how Gotham is different and Bats is a Joke from the Joker and "no, I'm not" from Bruce.

Hopefully, Fifth-gen or whatever DC has coming next will smooth the edges. Tynion has also introduced the next "Bats is an incompetent vigilante, I'll take over and show him how it's done" guy. Like we haven't seen that before with the Reaper, with Az-Bats. Just more retreads of old plots.

The art was nice.

Just echh. Or I could be wrong. more

From the start of this run I’ve been waiting for a Wow moment to happen. still waiting. This whole arc for me has been a mix of existing stories done worse(city of bane, endgame, a little batman R.I.P with
hallucinations)and attempts to make Wow moments but not delivering

Why does joker suddenly care so much about Gotham? Why is their rivalry based on who owns the city? That’s not what comic Joker is about, that’s Heath. You can’t change a character to fit your story without saying why they’re different and showing how they changed. The prelude before this run didn’t say why either

This arc has been a let down, funny moments didn’t land, Harley foreshadowing Joker’s death wasn’t deep. Joker wearing the batsuit was enough to stop me buying this after #100 which we all know will have some fight that’s supposed to make this run good. more

This entire arc up until now could've been done in 2 issues.
What's even more disappointing is the fact that the previous arc also led up to this.
Will be dropping this book after #100

Another issue where nothing happens. Batman gathers the Bat Family together and says I will take down the Joker. Harley says she'll kill him and chaos still reigns. We see the Joker take a ride in his Joker limo and go to Ace chemicals and kill all his henchmen.

What little happens is of the tell, not show variety. That's bad writing. We see the villains go to the hq of the Planner or the Designer or whatever his name is. There's no clever plan, no strategy.

So let me get this straight? Catwoman's plan steals all of Bruce's money despite the fact that there are a thousand laws and regulations in place to stop that kind of thing. That money is used to buy an army of goons despite the fact that there would be a paper trail a mile wide that would give authorities leverage to stop said transfers. Joker is killing goons and they keep on being loyal? All law enforcement authorities just stand by? Money doesn't work that way.

Joker is collecting bodies to reanimate and when Bruce gets to Ace Chemicals one of the bodies is Alfred. Bruce just clobbers the body and says this isn't real. It's real all right, but Alfred is just a reanimate corpse. I really am hating this part of the story.

To quote Tony Stark. Not a good plan. Even the Clownkiller is just seen and not actually does nothing this issue.

Batman once again says yeah, I should have brought you guys in sooner. So his family just stood on the sidelines waiting for the coach to get them off the bench? They have aboslutely no free will? They are essentially bat robots? No not buying it.

This whole story arc is just a lot of waiting around until Batman 100, when once again it will end with Batman punching out the Joker and giving a declaration of principles that ends with "I'm Batman."

Harley actually makes a very compelling argument that the Joker should die. I like Batman's no kill rule, but authors keep wanting to have the definitive Joker story, so they keep upping the body count, so four or five times a year, the Joker kills dozens and dozens of people. That makes the stories boring and repetitive with no sense of style or wit. And it makes Batman and the authorities look SO LAME. Put the Joker on the shelf and keep him there until someone actually does come up with a definitive Joker story (and it's not the Three Jokers).

This is not good story telling folk. Stop deconstructing Batman to the point where he is shown to be counter productive and in the wrong all the time.

Or I could be wrong.
more

I am devastated of Batman lying and being humiliated by Harley and punchline for 3 issues. Hopefully he finally gets up, but it is too late. Batman can be beaten by no name new lady who hasn’t even trained as the league of assassins. That’s awful. And art is so bad sometimes. I can’t read and get cringed anymore. Somebody stop this madness.

I bought this as well as the previous issue after a small discussion with Tynion. The art is really beautiful and so are the colors. But good art is not enough to make a comic good. The plot here is nonexistent. The plot in the whole arc is nonexistent. There is no risk, no sense of danger, of urgency. The Alfred dialogue was unnecessary and it lacked emotional depth. But the worst part of it. Oh my god. It's the Harley vs Punchline scenes. There's not a single woman in the planet who talks like this. It feels more like a teen drama parody. Perhaps it is intentional. But I doubt it. Perhaps this was rushed after the plans for 5G changed. Still with the lockdown there was plenty of time to change things, to edit the dialogue.
Tynion's run suffers from the same problems of King's run. Good, excellent art trying to hype weak plot and weak dialogue. Tynion can do better. His non superhero work is proof of that.

Punchline is literally pushed so hard (which is understandable, she's a new character and the team wants her to stick for various reasons) but I already hate and have become bored of the character and believe she needs a break for a couple of months.

Same with Joker. There's too much Joker in everything. In conclusion, the art is 6.5/10 beautiful but Jimenez has a tendency to focus on 90's "exxxxtreme boobs duuude"
Plot is 0. Therefore 3. more

Maybe it's me and my expectations coming into it, but this run so far isn't anything I thought it would be.

The story feels like an airplane in a holding pattern waiting to land. Waiting for the Air Traffic Controller to give the OK to get to the final issue.

I do like Punchline, although I wish her background and reason to 'exist' was different.

Art is fantastic.

Wish this run felt more like a War. more

I feel like most of this issue is just a repackaging of what came before. We haven't had a face to face talk between Bruce and Dream Alfred, but almost everything he says is something that's already been explored in this run. And then with Punchline... She's just the worst. Her reason for being trash is not a good reason. She's just an insufferable twenty-something brat who buys into the Joker's bullshit. And while I'm sure there's a huge swath of edgelords who are just like that (and I would not be surprised at all if this was somehow a reaction to the Joker film), I don't empathize with that at all. At least Harley's reason for becoming the Joker's "main squeeze" is not trying to be based in some sort of logic. I really hope things happen in the next issue and it's not just *another* issue of Batman being broken. And no this isn't a "Batman can't be sad" argument. He can be sad all he wants, it's just that this arc is over halfway done and he's done almost nothing but react to whatever the Joker has planned and, when he's not doing that, he's having sad drug hallucinations. more

Didn't we just see this arc less than a year ago. A villain takes control of Gotham. Bruce is beaten down and has hallucinations. He realizes he's stronger with allies than alone.

He yells "I'm Batman" and takes down people. The Alfred dreams are something new, but he'll be back. The funny thing is that the Justice League issue that also came out today also had a Batman is tied up and dreaming, this time due to Black Mercy. It tells pretty much the same story.

We get it. Seriously, how many times in the past few years has this same plot gone on. Batman talks about the vow he made to stop crime and prevent what happened to his parents not happen to anyone else? I will give Tynion points when Bruce says he's a failure. Given the Joker's body count alone, he's failed big time, but he keeps getting back up to fail again. DC has to reconfigure Bats' motivation because this one has been worked to death.

Also, Harley and Punchline fight. Harley tells Punchy that Joker cares only for Batman, and that Punchline doesn't matter. Punchy takes that badly. I guess denial is more than a river in Egypt.

Catwoman wants to leave Penguin's hidden lair and promises to make Pengy a billionaire if she can leave. I guess this is where Tynion's promise that Bruce will no longer be super, super, super rich in the future comes into play. Catwoman gives his bucks away to villains. The problem with that is that lately Bats' villains have all been crazy. They don't care about money, they just want to indulge in their neuroses and kinks. So money is not the motivator.

All my past complaints still hold. Nothing really happens. The plot is a rehash of something that just happened. The fact that people just stand by and let Gotham burn because of "reasons" is a bridge too far when it comes to willing suspension of disbelief. The plot to steal Bruce's money is a rehash of several comics plots and "The Dark Knight Rises" and money doesn't work that way.

I can't wait for all of this to be retconned away. (Bruce will definately get his money back. It was like when Denny O'Neil took half of Superman's power away in the early 1970s. His power creeped back up because Superman being super powerful and Batman being super rich are foundational aspects of that characters. Just learn to deal with it, writers).

Or I could be wrong. At least the art was nice. more

A comic that is 2006 in all the worst ways. No imagination or resonance on display here, just the fan-baiting mystery box crap. Great art, though!

Let's see. Batman escapes Theater and Harely Quinn detoxes him with Poison Ivy stuff.

Joker appreciates Clown Killer throwing out rules and give OK for Punchline to Kill Harley.

Detox stuff causes Bats to hallucinate Alfred.

That's it. Is it just me? Because I don't actually see anything happening here. Back in the day when the kids would stay off my lawn, each comic issue of a multi-issue story would be filled with action and dialog and inner monologues. There would be battles and explanations on why this battle was tough for the hero.

My point is that there would be a lot to read even if the plot advanced only a little.

Stan Lee was a genius in making the story breathless and making you want to "tune in" the next issue. You wanted to see where the thing was going. Here, I can guess where it's going because it's just another rehash of a story that's been done a lot since Bane Breaks the Bat, which was almost 30 years ago.

The art was nice, but today's artists really need to learn how to actually draw action.

Also, why do the clowns follow Joker? That's a question worth answering.

This "big" story just isn't going anywhere.

Or I could be wrong. more

Wow, again nothing happens. Batman wakes up after being drugged last issue. Harley was taking care of him, I guess, by watching Batman sleep, and he goes to Monarch Theater where Joker has dug up allt he corpses of the people he has killed. Guess people don't get cremated in Gotham.

And there's a guy with a batarang in a baseball bat who is killing clowns. At least someone is doing something. Tynion says lawyers have prevented cops from stopping Joker thugs. Huh? That's not how the law works.

Basically, this is one giant issue of treading water. Oh, Harley isn't dead. She stitched up her throat cut. What do you want to bet that after this run is done, no one will mention the cut again and we will never see the scar?

Imagine if this was taking place monthly instead of bi-weekly? A lot of issues where nothing happens.

Just get on with it? The art isn't bad.

Or I could be wrong. more

The plot is basically the same as The Dark Knight Rises movie. Enemy claims all of Bruce/Batman's resources and captures Batman. He must now fight back without resources.

The Worf effect (TV Tropes) is in full effect. Punchline is so badass, she takes down Batman.

We see the Joker buy the theater that the Waynes left to be killed. It's also filled with bodies or corpses or people trapped via joker gas. Don't know, don't care.

I truly feel that the Joker is played out. He's used so often that no one's done anything new with him for a long time. Keep him on the shelf until someone comes up with a plot like the Laughing Fish (which only lasted two issues and we're still talking about it more than 40 years later).

This whole run is just a rehash of previous stories - The Dark Knight Rises, City of Bane. It seems like writers want to outdo each other in terms of damage to Batman/Bruce and body counts. The net effect is a bland sameness to the stories. No clever plots that keep us guessing, no fun or surprises. Frankly, at this point I am of the opinion that Gotham should just be left to die. I hated the whole Gotham is cut off from the world plot, but it makes sense. Just evacuate the city and call it a day.

I read an interview with Tynion on CBR and he said he's writing a story about Bruce and wealth and his contribution to violence and stuff. He said Bruce was always rich, but not SUPER RICH (Not true) and that he is playing with ideas of what happens when this wealth is used for evil instead of good. Yawn. Like I said, this has all been done before in The Dark Knight Rises.

I am bored and unimpressed.

Or I could be wrong. more

The purpose of this issue is to set up what's to come, and that's the very axis of the plot. There's not much of substance happening here, just loose ends getting resolved, characters put where they need to be when The Joker War starts, and the message of dark designs nicely making a full circle to close this arc and its themes. It's a competent transition, similar in a way to Scott Snyder's Batman #7, simulataneously closing The Court of Owls and starting The City of Owls. And because of that structure and purpose, I guess it eventually will grow on people once the trade paperback edition hits the store shelves, and we can read the entire arc start to finish without having to wait two weeks for the next chapter. For now, though, I can fully understand why people have relatively mixed feelings about the comic.
One thing we all can agree on, I think, is Joker's takeover of Gotham is way more engaging than Bane's last year, which truly was a storytelling trainwreck. more

Let's sum up the action - nothing happens. Selina was taken to a hospital and survived her gunshot wound and was later kidnapped by the Penguin, who has created a hide-out with all the free Gotham villains.

We flasback to when Bruce met the original detective who swore to teach Bruce how to lose.

We find out that Bruce is broke and wanted for embezzlement and is all alone - again.

This plot device is overused. It was the plot of the Dark Knight Rises, Batman Eternity and a story going back to the 1980s. King used a variation of it for City of Bane, which was just a repeat of Knightfall.

Yes, we get it. Break the Bat, the Bat comes back. The story ends with Batman jumping out of the window of the now-empty Catwoman hospital room being shot at by Joker goons. A whole issue that moved the plot ahead by about three inches.

The art was inconsistent and Selina's face was odd. And we also see her dressed only in a bra and panties for the entire issue. Lacks class and suggests catering to the lowest common demoninator of male gaze. Not a fan.

This whole Joker War is just a riff on City of Bane. One would think the Gotham PD and FBI and National Guard would actually do something and that many Joker goons would get killed in the arc, but I predict that they will do nothing.

Tynion has boasted about this run, but it's more of the same. Yawn.

Or I could be wrong. more

After King's disastrous Batman arc, leaving more loose ties and unresolved plot points I can possibly name, DC decided to play safe for once and give fans a more... conventional story, one that wouldn't try to reinvent and deconstruct avery aspect of what it means to be Batman, one that wouldn't feature more filler than actual plot, and one that certainly would not smell its own farts pretending to be deeper and more intelligent than it really is. You know, exactly like a certain controversial game everyone hates and mocks, released few days ago.

Tynion crafted a big mystery that instantly captured our imaginations. It was big, it was convoluted, and and it was made with a plan in mind. It wasn't yet another War of Jokes and Riddles, promising a huge event and then turning out to be a shallow, pointless shell. No, the stakes were seemingly real and you never knew where the plot leads really. It lead here.

Depending on whether or not you've been a fan of Tynion's arc so far, this issue will either satisfy you with several important revelations and answers to questions you may have had, or it's going to convince you it was all just a marketing apéritif leading to the main event, Joker War. That I'll leave to your personal interpretation. To me the comic was definitely good, finally providing a ton of long awaited explanations and also setting up few new twists to be explored in the foreseeable future. Was it outstanding, though? Nah, I wouldn't say so. Not when it comes to uneven art drawn by several artists, not when it comes to storytelling. It's an example of a good, solid book, but as the grand finale, conclusion of an arc, especially in Batman series, I guess I expected a bit more. more

I really don't get this issue. It's supposed to show Bats is smart, but the plot can only happen if Batman is stupid.

The Planner or whatever his name is actually an animated corpse that can actually fence with Batman? The Joker has really seen an upgrade in his skill set. Yes, the Planner or the Archvillain or wahtever his name is was actually killed by the Joker and his corpse is being controlled by the Crown Prince of Crime.

Batman figures that out but actually just doesn't destroy the corpse while fighting it. Moron.

Oh, Catwoman puts her plan to steal Bruce Wayne's fortune into place to prevent the Archvillain from doing that, but guess what - the Joker is one step ahead and actually needs Catwoman's bank account info to steal Bruce's fortune. Oppsie.

So Catwoman trying to save Bruce's fortune causes it to be lost. That's actually the definition of irony.

All this happens because people acted dumb. Instead of securing Bruce's bucks, Catwoman steals it? Instead of just destroying a corpse, Batman engages in a fencing match and hero/villain monologue?

Also, the villain costumers are ugly. I just don't get this. Also, after King spent years building up Bat and Cat, Tynion has taken a few months to destroy the relationship. I like Bat/Cat and I hate it when new writers destroy all the work of previous writers. It destroys the sense of a story progressing and it makes stories just the playground of one writer and not the work of many over years.

Don't like this arc. Can't wait for it all to be undone in the upcoming event when Alfred returns.

Or I could be wrong. more