I think that this issue is trying to do too much, especially considering that it's a mini. I was really along for the ride when it was just a story about Alan coming to terms with his sexuality and the doomed love story, and I thought that Vlad's character was and continues to be fantastic. But in this issue, I found the lore hard to follow/understand (maybe it's just because I don't know Green Lantern things), and the cavalry showing up underwhelming because we've never seen these characters in this book before. It seems hard to imagine how this will all wrap-up in one more issue. I really like the intense disconnect which continues between Vlad and Alan, with the latter imploring the former, who most likely is a firm atheist, to care about his immortal soul. It is weird to me that the Soviet's superhero would be called the Countess, and I think that overall, what happens in the end doesn't make sense - or maybe I just didn't understand it. Also I don't think that they used the right word for die in russian. Also why would they not translate that one when they did the standard translated text thing right before? I think that this would have been better had it just stuck to character dynamics and relationships, without the lore and without the cavalry / bad guys showing up.

This just makes me so so sad. From a Doylist position, this GW event is still stupid and makes no sense and feels like the authors just spent too much time reading Twitter hashtags, with the added combo of reading all the love Wayne Family Adventures webtoon received and saying "what if we did the opposite of that"? From a Watsonian perspective, poor poor Bruce. It sucks to read about how this character, who dedicated his life to helping others, ended up in this situation where his fiancee and all but one of his children have turned against him, won't help him when he is really struggling, and in general decided to renege on the whole "we're against crime" thing. Setting aside the fact that his villains are after him still. The art is better than the previous Gotham War installment, but it doesn't cover up the fact that this is a pretty stupid and sad read. I have very little hope that Zdansky can turn this ship around and make something redeeming out of it given the villanization and flandarization most of the characters in this story received.

I really liked this issue. I think that cool stuff is happening with two different themes - what it means to be a crime-fighter, with the Zur/Failsafe vs. Bruce conflict, and the order vs. chaos, the Batman v. Joker conflict. For the first one, I adore how Zur is pretending to be human to convert Bruce's family, and how human Bruce is drawn. For the second one, I loved Joker's speech about how he seems like a childish idea, but really is the complex one.

I actually enjoyed the continuity built that happened in this issue! I think it's inventive and creative how Zdarsky is trying to tie it all together across the different eras. I'm really interesting where this is going next.

oh my gosh I looooved this! So many good things - the flashbacks to Happy Harbor, the old and new conversations with Tim, Bruce coming to his senses. Huge shout-out who Jimenez who killed it once this issue. I particularly like the panels with Tim's flashbacks and how it could be any of the Robins, or even Bruce and his dad in the beginning. I'm also really excited to see what's going to happen next with Capio and Riddler, and all the robots. Great issue!

Wonderful finale! Magical to see the wedding come to pass.

This is terrible. Selina's characterization in this is awful, but other characters come off poorly too. It's really painful to read this and see how much all the things which made Catwoman likeable get destroyed. She comes off as a stupid, abusive, cruel villain in this. I cannot fathom how someone can take this character - Tom King's "love means caring for someone, that's all that love is" will play in my head forever - and turn her into this asshole who screams at her ex-fiancee and gloats that his parents' murder was justified because they were wealthy and their killer wanted money. Her denigration of Bruce's mission in order to promote stupid Twitter hashtags of "eat the rich" speak to her stupidity and ineptitude. His charitable works have done a lot more for Gotham than her campaign to teach Joker goons to be better criminals. It kind of feels like Howard looked at all the critique in media of how certain female characters are received - like Skyler in Breaking Bad - and said "let me create a truly evil woman" in response. It's really disappointing that Chris is participating in this or that DC allowed this to be published. Other than Valmont, the other Howard low point, I can't think of any place else where Selina was portrayed this poorly. Even when she was a villain, at least she was an honest villain, instead of emotionally abusive and dumb. I don't see how they can bring this character back from this hell.

This is such an interesting and exciting new take! Really enjoyed reading this. I love this version of Alfred, Gordon, and Bullock! Especially the latter - wow I did NOT expect that. It's fun to see this world and I look forward to the rest of the series.

This is such a lovely, interesting, fun story! I wish that GWW would write more Catwoman - I want to see where she would go with this character. She has cool ideas and knows how to write them well. And the art is really beautiful!

The art was beautiful, and the story was cool on paper. It didn't really resonate with me on execution - I think that if the writer had more pages to establish the characters, it would have worked better. I really like the concept of One Bad Day stories, but this is an example of why they're hard to execute well in a way that immediately creates the world and tells a story.

I really liked this story for Bane! It was nice to see him doing something new and different. I thought that the span of the story was too big for this one shot, but it was still pretty interesting.

After Ram V's EXCELLENT run, this issue is kind of like going to a Michelin star restaurant, and then on your way out, someone throws dog shit in your face. Selina - a famously independent, competent, and smart character - has lines like "the right kind of gift - the one any woman really wants - should be a sacrifice" and is motivated by "big girl shopping" . When someone offers that she prostitute herself, she wisely deduces that it's an insult. The writing overall is really flat and gross - its not that I have a problem with the villains being misogynists, it's that they're portrayed as the default of this world, making it unpleasant and uninteresting. Selina immediately get embroiled in dumb romantic sub plots, which she introduces by saying that they "look expensive." A character says "I have hardened myself into a diamond for these men to take me seriously," a line which almost made me throw up in terms of how stupid it is. This has a lot of words and they're all pretty much this stupid. Reading this is painful and I don't recommend it. The art is good though! The artist made eating a burger look sexy! So I guess there is that.

Who are these randos wearing the Batfamily costumes? They sure don't feel like them! And all the scenes with Valmont are nauseating, especially once you know where this is going. Selina's character continues to be off, and the 101 "girl-boss strawman feminism" lacks any depth, subtlety, or interest.

This is just flat-out gross. I can't believe that they let Howard blasphemize Batman and Selina's history the way its done in this issue. I can't believe that it's controversial to say that crime is bad. Stealing from Mr. Freeze is bad not because of "SHAME" (and Bruce would never, ever say that), but because Mr. Freeze is going to break out of Arkham and freeze those poor East End kids to death. And is it similarly controversial to say that a writer saying that a character is a girl boss, but showing her (a) being incessantly and irrationally emotional (really Selina? you're going to cry because your plan worked?), (b) needing to get rescued by a dorky French gigalo all the time; (3) baby-ing another grown-ass man; (4) needing constant vacations due to (a) through (c) results in the author portraying not a girl-boss, but rather a delusional loser?

This is bad. Bad bad bad. Why is Selina just so dumb and incompetent in this run? She literally cannot do a single thing on her own. I can't believe she bangs this stalker killer dude on a beach right after he murdered someone in cold blood (by not giving then the parachute). The dialogue is shallow mock pretentious purple prose.

"The sharp pleasure of waiting until I see you again is enough." I'm struggling to think of a character as horribly disgusting as Valmont - he kind of reminds me of the Edward Cullen, but French and a murdered. Also, WTF is wrong with Batman here? Batman does not talk like that. Why is he bending over backwards to accomodate Selina? "You've shown yourself to be a leader." No she hasn't! She's shown herself to be a gullible incompetent love-sick drama queen whose only accomplishment has been fucking Valmont on a beach and then on a roof!

What a gross and horrible issue, another turd in this run. Batman is OOC, Selina continues to be dumb, incompetent, and clingy, Valmont continues to be vomit inducing. The plan makes no sense, Punchline continues to be annoying. I really hate how this run is slowly but surely driving the Catwoman character six feet under - after Howard's done, not only will Catwoman be untenable as a love interest to Batman (or anyone who has a brain) but her stupidity and incompetence will make her, at best, a D-rate villain. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends with Selina becoming some Punchline flunky or something equally terrible.

Poor writing and bad characterization - a Howard default - continues full force in this feature. It hurts to have Selina's character destroyed in this way in this event. Faced with issues like this, I understand why people stop reading comic books.

I feel really unkind consistently giving Howard's run poor rating, so I really tried to approach the beginning of this new arc with fresh eyes. And I still couldn't!!! This sucks. I get that Howard has ideas, but they just totally DON'T fit with what is currently happening, to the point where the inconsistencies result in a very incompetent, hypocritical, and cruel character. Here are some specific examples: Selina literally says "now that I've taught the people of Gotham everything I know about survival" when literally she was just a stump who brainlessly fell into Savage's plan and recreated the League of Shadows in Gotham and caused at least Bash and Roland to be killed and then peaced out? WTF! "To be given a gift and be expected to use it for good." Step 1: let's get killed twice trying to return a cat. (To be a bit more charitable, I guess the point here wasn't to return a cat, but stop a crazy serial killer, but the mechanics of how Selina accomplished that weren't clear, nor did her motivation about it really shine, since it was mired in the monologues about Valmont). "Now that I've smoothed things over with the Bat, said I love in your own, silent ways" - that's another big WTF line for me. Who does this? If they are meant to be a couple, why can't they say goodbyes using words, like normal people? Why would she trust Eiko more than Bruce? Also, the flashback scene here doesn't match the flashback scene in #139. It seems like Catwoman is written out of Batman's run, which, following the Gotham War fiasco and Howard's never-ending hold on this character, is probably for the best. The art is bogged down in this plot. Like, I think that the ideas about death and rebirth and what's worth dying for are interesting. But this just fails to tell a consistent story, either internally or in view of the entire run.

I do feel rather mean-spirited leaving consistently bad reviews for this series, but I cannot get over how much of a poor writer Tini Howard is. Catwoman is my favorite character - it was really a revelation to read her Volume III run where she was complicated, competent and creative, and it was so much fun to read her Volume II run where she was FUN and smart and independent, to say nothing of her portrayal in adaptation. It hurts A LOT to consistently have to endure Howard's current take on this character, who Howard thinks is a dumb, shallow, STUPID, romantically obsessed immature dumb-dumb cat chick, who talks in banal purple prose. Also, why is Selina killing people in this? The recent announcement that Howard will get to drag this character down further into the mud with her upcoming Gotham City Sirens book is incredibly discouraging.

Ugh. Seeing Eiko and Daario again was a downer, hearing "mama cat" and all the other cheesy lines again was a downer, the surprise guest appearance at the end was a downer.

Sigh, sigh. From a writing perspective, it's interesting how this run is doing more damage to Selina's character than her other infamous runs - at least prior writers were trying to tell a story about a character. This feels like just random ideas happening, but it really erodes who Selina is as a person in process. Why does she need money? Didn't she just teach a bunch of people to rob half of Gotham? It just makes no sense and really portrays Selina as a shallow, impulsive, dumb, and near-sighted character. My only hope is that eventually, as with all things, this Howard reign of terror will end.

Sigh. Why is any of this happening? On the good stuff - I like that there was at least some explanation for the 1st half of the heist, and how Selina was able to pull it off. And the colors in space are pretty. But on the bad stuff - there is both too much and too little at the same time. I still don't understand why any of these heists are happening, there isn't any real character work being done, and it just seems like things are happening or Selina knows stuff at random. I also don't appreciate how, on top of the indignity of dying every issue in this arc, she had to be rescued by others yet again here. Howard seems to like to TELL us about Selina's competence but SHOW us her failing, so one ends up ringing more true than the other. I also don't really appreciate the Morrison riffing. These villains haven't had the room or the build-up to be anything scary nor care about Selina that much. It's a start contrast to how Jones had Selina copy Bruce's epic Year One moment during her run - there was a lot of build-up prior to it, and it also made sense why Selina was there copying him.

Ram V is killing it. I LOVE this Selina, Talia, Two-Face, Gordon, Montoya. It's like he turns to gold everything that he touches. And the words he uses! And I absolutely loved the teaser at the end. This arc is so intricate, it definitely deserves a re-read. I love how the back-up stories inform and built-out the main story and how all the pieces come together.

Ram V is killing it. I LOVE this Selina, Talia, Two-Face, Gordon, Montoya. It's like he turns to gold everything that he touches. And the words he uses! And I absolutely loved the teaser at the end. This arc is so intricate, it definitely deserves a re-read. I love how the back-up stories inform and built-out the main story and how all the pieces come together.

Oh my gosh I love this! I really loved the monologue about not winning, but trying, and the Superman comparison. The story in Gotham is kicking-ass, and I'm happy to see Gordon again. That ending was a wham shot. The back-up continues to be horrifying in all the right ways, and the art continues to be breathtaking. I am going to re-read it several times because the writing is just really beautiful and quotable: "the greatest weapon they wielded was to tell a lie everyone wanted to believe."

This was a ROLLER-COASTER. I screamed in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end. And then again in the back-up! Great job everyone all around, and I'm literally on edge for the next issue. I can't emphasize enough how much the writing rocked. Every quote was like dialed to 11, and I LOVED the call-back to TDKR. Fingers crossed Ram lands this run (and Selina...) on their feet, inspired by the ending of Nolan's trilogy.

I am not a big Harley Quinn fan so it took me a while to pick this book up AND BOY I AM SO GLAD I DI! This is so so good. The writing is good, the story is good. It reels you in - I literally read the entire series in one go. It's such a mature (not as in NSFW, but as in, it makes you think and see things in a different light) take on Harley. I absolutely love it.

Holy shit, this is fantastic. This is one of the best comic books I've ever read. I love how it's such a thoughtful, nuanced portrayal of their relationship, and I love what they're doing with Harvey. And the art! The art is just fantastic.

WOW. THIS BOOK IS AMAZING. The last page left me heartbroken. I can't believe how good it is. DC, why don't you do more books like this? It is so good. I love how it all came together and all the story threads connected. LOVE the HArley and HArvey connection - it's so clever. Her heartbreak over the guard, all the little turning point moments, IVY"S AMAZING CAMEO - I just want more and more of this. There are days when I feel really silly for reading comic books as a grown-ass woman, but then I read something like this, and feel like my world became bigger and richer for it.

"Harleys All The Way Down" - great story from Redondo! Very tongue-in-cheek, and I appreciate all the meta call-outs. I think that it's a good story for this anthology type book. "Sirens Rising" - OMG THIS IS HORRIBLE. I had really low expectations for it, but it's worse than I imagined. Literally everyone and everything in this story sucks. I can't believe that Howard gets to continue it. "Dr. Quinzel's Couples Counseling" - Pretty terrifying as a concept, but pretty fun to read.

Awesome origin story start! I really love how nuanced the writing is, particularly given the difficult themes with which this story is grappling, and how beautiful the art is.

Holy crap, I love this!!! I was pretty caught off guard by the reveal here, and I almost now want to go back to Fear State to see how this jives with Pam and Bella's relationship there. I really liked how the artist did a great job of making Woodrue look totally coked out, and I adore Pam's characterization. She's so messy and interesting and sympathetic. This book rocks, and I'm super happy to read it.

The art continues to be beautiful, but this is the first time in the run when this story gave me pause. I understand that this is Ivy's narration of her story, but man, does she white wash her past crimes and paint Batman as paranoid and delusional, which I really didn't love.

I had no idea who this team is prior to this comic, but whoever they are, I love this interpretation of them! Each character is really unique and interesting, I like the different recruiting approaches for each, and the writing continues to be on point. Really excited about this book!

Great issue! King does a superb job of introducing a new complicated and flawed character with a fascinating backstory and compelling motivation. I really like the use of the dramatic ironies and the contrast between the internal narration and the action in the panel. The art is beautiful, as always.

This was a lovely and fun read! I really liked: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references, Earth Bucks puns, dad jokes, BatCat, and a really true rendition of mall experiences. I also appreciate how well crafted this short story is, with a lot of different call-backs, connections, and multi-layer themes. And I think that King did a great job of letting each character here shine on their own! I always liked March, and he did a great job here, as usual.