Batman's trailing of a grisly serial killer takes him to a strange castle in the mountains of China.
The Good
Unlike a lot of people, I thoroughly enjoyed Identity Crisis and I'm intrigued by how this comic's revisiting Batman's infamous "mindwipe" scene from his personal POV. They hint a little that this storyline might be exploring the long-term damage that erasure has had on Bats' memory and general psyche and I'm really hoping that all this round-around in China will be dredging that up. Also, I really enjoyed the back-and-forth device Bingham employed by coloring certain panels.
The Bad
The inclusion of the Silver Age homage is a bit puzzling. I'm not sure why they'd have a Justice League story where Bats isn't even in the line-up featured in a Batman title, for one. Also, I think it ran a little long for what was supposed to be a fun, tongue-in-cheek add-on. Maybe the Vampire from Outer Space is going to factor in to the later story, but I'm not seeing how as of yet.
The Verdict - 3/5
This whole thing jumped around a little too much for my tastes - - both in the main feature and in the back-up's inclusion - - but I'm curious enough about the potential Identity Crisis hold-outs to come back next month. And, since I haven't encountered Bingham's art before, I'll add this is work here's definitely eye-catching. A bit of Neal Adams, a bit of Klaus Janson... and a whole lot of painterly panache.
@batman_is_god: There's no specific things you need to read to get Identity Crisis, it stands alone very well (just a lot of later stories reference it) but I found I enjoyed it a lot better once I was more knowledgable about the general DCU the second time I read it. Basically, don't do what I did and make it one of the first comics you read. Since you're here on this site I doubt that's the case so no, you should be able to pick up Identity Crisis no problem.
Well the tease at the end implies that the space vampire is going to be a major part of the story so I can see why they added it. It said "And to learn more of what happened after "the case of the vampire from outer space" be sure to keep reading "super powers" in upcoming issues of Batman Confidential!" at the end of the issue. I'm guessing this space vampire is going to be the main villain.
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