All the stories about the Joker leads to one place and one place alone: disaster.

The reason of the success of the character, is his ability to be whatever you [the writer] want or, whatever you [the reader] wish to be... yes, hidden in the mind of all of us there is a desire to be free and lift your voice, but we don't do it because we are afraid of the people, of the "what will they say about me". We are afraid to confront our own fears and we try to escape from them. That, for the Joker, it's not an obstacle. He speaks and does whatever he pleases. Like when he posissons the city with green and purple balloons.
But there are times when we are strong, strong enough to confront our monsters and try to rise with all the glory and honor; that's what Dr. Ben Arnell believes it's happening.

But the pride and the overconfidence are not always the best weapons for attacking the monsters that kept us from our glory. Dr. Arnell thinks he is The Man, the knight in the shiny armor that can bring down the "draconic" mind of the Joker. Jeff Lamire throw at us some easter egg (in my perspective) of the Rorschach case in Watchmen, when the psychiatrist there can't put a barrier between his personal life and the professional bringin all the problems of his patient to house. With the overconfidence of the good doctor, the Joker infects the mind of Dr. Arnell, he plays with him. Mr. Smiles does what he knows best: to give a very bad day.

Because a bad day it's enough to drive a man crazy, like hearing noises on the night or see delusions of people murdered, to "pick" a night time story so bizarre that causes nightmares instead of sweet dreams. Without knowing it, Dr. Arnell is falling into madness one step at a time and (of course) we all know how this ends; but the writing of Lemire and the discretion of Sorrentino's art will make the difference so we can get one true black label story that DC Comics has to offer us. more

I have a controversy here. The idea, since the beginning, attracted me for all the possible outcomes when the first recon team crossed the doors after 30 years.

¿What happens when a country isolates from the world? I don't know if I answered that question in my mind a long time ago but when I started reading the comic I found out that my idea was miles away. I suspected: fog, darkness, a chill environment... loneliness. A team moving forward through ghost cities.

Instead my expectations were shut down with a Mad Max/Mortal Engines remix, with color, with a very unstable ground. The comic have to much dialogue and not very well distributed, there are a strange mix up between politics and fantasy. Not saying here that the issue is bad, it is very acceptable but not the "live-on-the-edge" issue that I expected.

Undiscovered country walks in a very dangerous ground, the balance can move in any direction. I hope it moves for the safe ground more

Well, the most pathetic ending for a very weak story.

After the previous 4 issues I didn't expect something better for this one. The story moves in a very fast pace and doesn’t get us to involved in it. What I understand from the explanation of why the fungus attack it’s “because is his nature”, helped with magic the fungus makes horrible things but ok!

Very weak story and disappointing
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There is no salvation for this event.

Bendis again shows his lack of knowledge of the characters, int he way they talk and interact with each others. Just the Lois scene when she gets out of the Wayne mannor and also Superman... I mean, surely the assassin and her team are not that stupid.

Not a very good start for this first of twelve issues from the writer Warren Ellis.

Yes, we all know that Alfred deep down knows that Bruce, eventually, will die before him. So Ellis in the first pages trys to conect us with that feeling. Ok! fair enough! but the next sequence?
What's the point of showing a couple walking through an alley and getting robbed by some random burglars and Batman interfiring to save the moment? Just bringing more background that it's not really neccesary. The tempo of the story it's fine I guess, it takes us to the crime scene for a very quiclky interrogation and it show us the inside of the victim's appartment (this with the purpose of showing this "cool" gadget that can reconstruct a room and the user can interact virtually with it).
Then we have this weird scene of Alfred and Bruce talking and in a flash we are back in the appartment again (thanks to the mentioneted gadget). This leads us to Batman returning to the phisical place and finding someone under the floorboards.
And that's just a quick preview of the issue.

My problem is, How mighty is this artifact? Batman just scan the place and suddenly he can open doors and see through the furniture, read books that were in the place with out been previeosly opened and above all we have this weird transicion between the "narrator" and "the speaking voice". When Bruce is thinking and searching for clues in the virtual embiroment he talks to himself (this happends like an accompaniment to the action of seeing a book that is on the table). Suddenly the voice we are reading, apparently, it's not Bruce's voice, it's the victim voice but the globe of dialogue still appers in the persona of Bruce. Then the voice it's pass on to the dead guy who is rising of the bed. ¿? What?? At the end, why he discovers the man under the floorboards remains a mistery to me. I have no logical explanation.
The narrative it's very poor from my point of view and the art... meh! just regular. This first issue doesn't have a very intriguing plot and I hope the next issue rise the quality.

Sincerly, it did not catch my attention and it's to soon but I don't want to start bealiving that I had made a mistake subscribing to this twelve issue series.

BONUS: Why did Alfred suggest that killing is a very good option for Batman? He was drunk!? Boy, I hope so!! more