"He sees you when your sleeping"
The final book to the Zeiss story is not bad at all, a bit of Bruce's history is explored in more depth and Santa Klaus just makes this read a nice way to celebrate the holiday season. The only thing missing is the covers from the issues.
Out Of Past
Ed Brubaker does a great job tying in classic Batman history to his run on Batman. The famous Zorro connection to Bruce's upbringing is fleshed out a lot in this issue. We see a bit of why Thomas Wayne had to help a criminal and why he is a hero for it. This issue also is a nice tribute to the reason why Bruce Wayne does not like guns and why he doesn't want his bodyguard to carry one. Scott McDaniel layouts are wonderful, unfortunately I think the inking job Aaron Sowd was not as good as Karl Story's ink job in the issue before. This is a nice stand alone issue for the fact it tells a lot about Bruce's upbringing, it also flows fluidly with what Brubaker is doing with Batman.City On Fire
I don't mind tie-ins when they work and I think this is one of the times when a tie in didn't hurt Ed Brubaker's run too much. I enjoyed the Santa Klaus character and it was nice that he worked in Ed Brubakers run. The premise with Santa Klaus is that Joker broke a whole bunch of people out of prison and infected them with a new Joker Toxin that makes them crazy like him. So think of a German Santa Claus mixed with Joker, that has to equal fun and that is what this issues was, fun.Crooked Miles
The build up from Batman #582 finally comes to a boiling over point. Waiting for this point must of been killer with all the cross-overs in the middle, some good like the last issue that ties in Joker's Last Laugh and some that were okay, but really take away from the run like the Sanctuary arc that ties into Our Worlds at War. When read collected this story runs a lot smoother with the corresponding issues a lot closer together.This issue is the climax of the Philo Zeiss character's interaction in this run on Batman. Not a fight to the death but a fight of honor. Zeiss felt Batman caused him to dishonor his name and he wants to take out Batman. With all the gadgets Zeiss has, Batman is always one step a head and it is a cleaver way who Batman wins this fight, but still looses a battle with crime at the end of the book.
Santa Klaus is Coming to Town
Santa Klaus is a take another take on a criminal Santa. This one is interesting because the Joker Toxin is no longer in him and it seems instead of a naught and nice list he can read your mind to see if you have been bad or good. If you are bad there is changes he'll give you an exploding present or cut you with a knife. The downfall to a premise like this is that surely he can read Batman (Bruce)'s mind and if so that just gets messy, so is that why it is avoided by Brubaker, or does Brubaker not factor that?Overall this was a standard holiday Batman: Criminal is doing something, Batman stops it, it some how relates to a Christ staple. This is a self contained issue and overall still a solid read, nothing mind blowing, but solid.
Verdict:
It is nice that this era of Ed Brubaker on Batman finally got collected. I makes sense after all these years that the rumors he left DC was because crossovers were effecting his stories and over these three collections toy can see that from "Officer Down", Jokers Last Laugh, Out World's at War, and so on really did effect the story in its original publication. Collected the Zeiss story is cleaner and properly collected, he is an interesting character and now newer readers have easier access to where he came from. This set of three issues needs to be collected together or don't bother since they really need each other. This set of three is not a must, but its a solid read and it is a good Holiday read to boot.Happy Holidays, Cheers!
- Silkcuts