This story has potential, but right now it's just too frustrating to read with this never-ending influx of new characters, and the fact that the current Batfamily is basically just Harley and Ghost-maker.


The art is still absolutely stunning and is one of the redeeming qualities of the book.

Remember if you have a diferent opinion you are racist, homophobe, pedo..whatever.If something is pure garbage, it is pure garbage, that´s it. I dont care if it´s for kids, for women or dogs all I care it is the quality of the work.

Like Mike Tyson said: Social media made you all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it

Justice Leaguers... damn, that's sounds so bad that it hurts man. I can't wait to buy JLD's TPB to not read things like that.

Finally, after a couple of issues of Catwoman without Catwoman, we get to see her again.

And I hope after Fear State is over we get to see the new team of Clayface, croc, Cheshire, knockout, firefly team lead by Catwoman.

Also, I feel like art, where Selia and Valley fought, was drawn in a hurry.

Let's see, who did Tynion rip-off this issue? Well his new armored vigilante is John Walker replacing Captain America all over again, and that plot was done more than 30 years ago. The armor is a nice touch, but it is also just Azrael again.

The story starts in media res (that's fancy talk for in the middle of the story). Bats is trying to fight off Scarecrow fear toxin. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Batman have an antidote to that? Why not use it? Also, how about showing us how things happen instead of telling us. That's story telling 101.

Bats gets chased all over Gotham by Armored Vigilante and Bruce activates a bomb that gives off a morse code signal that Ghost Eater understands. Now the problems with that bit of plotting are many. First I don't think explosions go off in dots and dashes. Two, bombs, by their very nature, are fairly unpredictable in the damage they cause because unless Bruce had a very thorough building inspection done, he doesn't know just how sturdy the building he blew up is. How does he know that no one is in the building, that no on walking outside the building won't get hit by debris. No matter how controlled the explosions, debris will fall off the building and fly off in all kinds of directions at high speeds. Sounds dangerous to anyone near the building..

Also Vigilante Armor Boy calls the Unsanity group hippies. Except for Eric Cartman, no on uses the term hippy anymore. A more up-to-date phrase might be "woke terrorists" or Millenial losers. Something like that. Hippy just shows how out of touch Tynion is.

Also, this whole fight between Bats and the Armored Hot Dog shows how poorly Tynion writes a fight. Bruce keeps hitting him. He's armored dude. Use your brain for one second and develop a strategy that takes down armor with electronic components. Do something like create an electrical magnetic pulse. Put the guy in water, where armor will cause him to sink and the water will short out the electronics. These are two things I thought of while typing this. Give me five minutes of alone time and I could probably come up with even more ways to beat the Armored Cliche.

We see the Mayor going crazy and Commmisioner Montoya pointing out that he's nuts. I guess state officials, federal officials, the state national guard, these aren't things that exist in Gotham. Mayors have dictatorial powers and no one can do anything. Tynion had the last mayor take bribes from the Joker to let the Joker's men run amuck. So at least Tynion's consistent.

Apparently, Batman also has no allies. We see Nightwing talk, but not actually do anything. Oracle does a lot here's some info, but doesn't actually use her hacking skills to interfere with an organization that is technological in nature. No Robins, Batgirls, Red Hoods Night Walkers etc. Help Bruce, so he just keeps getting his ass kicked.

Oh, Harley Quinn points out that the guy in the armor was a sadistic guard at Arkham. Again, pure John Walker. Apparently when Simon Saint says do something, people do it. They blow up buildings in a false flap operation to force the mayor to go crazy. Walker, I mean, Armored Guard, blew up a building on Saint's orders.

We actually see the Unsane talk but do nothing. Then Armored Boy shows up and says they're resisting, he wants to use lethal force. He gets permission. Wait until next issue to see what happens. The problem with that plot point is that we don't actually care about the Unsane and if they got wiped out, would that be a bad thing?

Also, Tynion does a whole of tell not show. He uses tv reporters to explain what's going on. I think Tynion believes he's being cool like Frank Miller in The Dark Knight Returns. But what Tynion forgets is that the media guys in Miller's story were commenting on the action. Giving us a window in what people thought. Tynion is just using them to tell us what happened instead of showing us.

Tynion has had Batman lose his fortune. See his city get destroyed by the Joker and by Simon Says Boom. He is getting kicked around by the villains and generally just being ineffective. All of Batman's efforts have been for nought. We know he's going to win in the end, his name is on the title. But to quote T'Chaka in Captain America Civil War, a victory at the expense of the innocent is no victory. Having tv commentator spell out that Gotham keeps getting destroyed by villains trying to outdo each other is too on the nose.

It's not the villains who are doing this, it's the writers. How about trying a different approach. This problem goes back to the 1990s. First Bane breaks Bat's back. Then there is a plague, then the whole city is destroyed by Lex Luthor, who uses the event to propel himself to the presidency. Tynion is guilty of the same thing, but instead of Luthor, we get Simple Simon, who uses events he creates to take over Gotham his way.

In short, Tynion is writing Batman as a total loser who can't stop the terrible things that have and are happening from happening. It's like he's writing a deconstruction of Batman that shows how lame and unneeded Batman is. Call me crazy, but that strikes me as a very bad way to tell Batman stories.

The art was fine. Still don't like the color scheme.

Or I could be wrong. more

even though it takes a pause from the main story, I want to see the progress of the story but it was good, and the main story will continue from the next issue.

It was a character-driven story where Catwoman's Past was explained characters like Shoe,maggie.
Catwoman did not appear in this issue though. but does not mean it was bad.

I loved it. It's a great character-focused Issue that walks the reader down memory lane. It offers a look into what of Selina's long history Ram V is going to include. After all the care Selina has shown toward the people of Gotham, it's chilling to see a colder side of her, that she might need to survive Father Valley and Fear State.

The art worked well, had an almost dream-like quality to it that vibed well with the characters' retellings.

The only thing I missed was Ivy.

While I am not looking forward to an event interrupting the storylines Ram V has been threading together for the last months, I am almost certain he will handle it well. Maybe he'll even make me like BatCat again after King's run completely burned me out on their relationship. more