What 'Batman' Should Be (Mostly)
The Good: Tony Daniel's artwork is superb as usual. Also I noticed he went back to Sandu Florea for inks, and in all honesty I think he's better off for it. His inks were fine, but upon comparison I think Florea's inks are a bit better.
For some reason, I'm really loving Tony Daniel's Riddler. He's a weird kind of fun that feels like he's an older version of THe Riddler I loved from B:TAS. And his new costume is kind of strange but I think it;s pretty neat for some reason.
I absolutely loved the dialogue between Batman and Robin. It was so much fun.
The secret behind the map was pretty clever.
I'm really glad that Tony Daniel's using Reaper as a recurring character. He's a very weird kind of crazy that just gets me excited every time he shows up.
In addition, Tony Daniel makes really good use of Catgirl this issue. I know a lot of people hate her, but I think she's a really interesting and fairly unique character.
The setup for the next issue is pretty awesome.
The Bad: The cover is not all that great. It's really generic and bland.
There's a whole issue here about whether or not Lucius Fox is part of the whole secret society guarding The Beholder. And evidence seems to both support and deny this. It's contradictory and confusing.
Why were The Riddler and Enigma there in the first place? It doesn't seem like they're in league with Sensei, so why were they at Lucius Fox's apartment?
Building on that, they don't seem to serve much purpose to the story other than spotlighting Enigma's existence to tease for a future story. This wouldn't be so bad if it were weaved into the story better, but it's just too obvious.
In Conclusion: 3.5/5
I'm a big fan of Tony Daniel, in both art and writing. His art is magnificent, his writing is sometimes great, but a little rough around the edges. For some reason I really felt some kind of 'zen' that this just felt 'right' as the 'Batman' title. Not the 'main' one since Batman Incorporated is clearly that, but something just feels 'right' about this. Maybe because it'd be easily accessible to a wide range of readers. People well versed in the mythos like myself can read it obviously, but I feel like this would also be a good comic to give to a casual reader, or someone trying to get into comics, and in a sense, I think that's what the 'core' 'Batman' comic should be. Something grounded in the heart of the character to draw people in. A casual reader is much more likely to read 'Batman' if they were shown all the Batman-centric comics because it feels like it would be more accessible. And Tony Daniel's doing a damn fine job of it. This one just had some odd plot holes that pulled the score down.
